TREACHERY

“Cunning and treachery are the offspring of incapacity.”
~ François de la Rochefoucauld.

The new American-Shi'a alliance has bribed the corrupt Başûrî non-leadership into sending pêşmerge to die for the Arab nation, as I feared a week ago. Here's the story from Reuters:

Three Iraqi army brigades from the Kurdish north and the Shi'ite south will be brought in for a security crackdown in Baghdad seen as central to hopes of averting civil war, a senior Iraqi official said on Sunday.

Sami al-Askari, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said the extra troops were part of the plan which foresees Iraqi forces taking responsibility for inner Baghdad while U.S.-led multinational forces will be in charge of the surrounding areas.

[ . . . ]

Askari said two from the north, mainly Kurdish soldiers, and one from the Shi'ite south would come to Baghdad to take part in the operation which aims to clear areas that are "bases for terrorist groups" and to station troops there permanently to hold them in the long term.

[ . . . ]

Askari said he was confident the additional three brigades would be in place soon, and said the government was also determined to crack down on infiltration by militias in the armed forces.

"There's a plan alongside this security plan to try to clear the ministry of interior and defense ministry of these elements," he said. "It takes time because it's not an easy task.... (but) without it the people will not trust the security forces."

Bullshit. Askari claims it will take time to clear out the whorehouses euphemistically named "Interior Ministry" and "Defense Ministry" because the Shi'a have absolutely no intention of clearing them out, just as they have no intention of making "limited" strikes against the Mehdi Army. Moqtada al-Sadr, whom the Americans have enabled since 2003, is in charge of Baghdad and there will be no strikes against his militia. Al-Maliki, for whom al-Askari works, is al-Sadr's politician. It was these two, and their American allies, who collaborated in rushing the execution of Saddam in order to bury the Anfal trial and their complicity. Yet there is no rush to execute Saddam's co-defendants. In fact, no date has even been set for their executions.

Add to this the fact that the wildly incompetent US military is putting Petraeus in command of the whole enchilada and you will have the recipe for a complete Kurdish disaster because Baghdad is no Fallujah. How many times have I said it before that it is long past time to stop all cooperation with these enemies of Kurdistan?

What will happen to Kurdistan, then, if Turkey invades in the spring, something which is a distinct possibility?

Maşallah for every single PKK gerîla who ever drew breath or ever will draw breath! They are the ones who are left in the North to protect Kurdistan from the animals out to destroy her. For the people of Başûr, it is time for serhildan. It is time to call the corrupt leadership to accountability. The PUK has reached critical mass and has imploded due to nepotism and corruption, charges which can also be applied to the KDP and its control over the KRG. If anyone still has any doubts, compare today's situation with history. Or reminisce with this editorial from KurdistanObserver, February, 2003. In all this time, nothing has changed.

Let the PUK reformers take over and let us see if they have the will to work only for Kurdistan. Let them begin talking immediately with all other Kurdish political organizations, intellectuals, and politicians, including those in Diaspora, with emphasis on one, united Kurdish voice. It is also time to give the US notice that all of their business contracts in South Kurdistan will be immediately cancelled if the US insists that Kurdish pêşmerge deploy to Baghdad. All the people of Kurdistan should show their support for these efforts by a general strike in the South as well as in all parts of occupied Kurdistan.

While the US prepares for its change of strategy in Iraq, now is the golden opportunity to bring Kurds in all parts of Kurdistan together to stand up against a common enemy.

Berxwedan jîyan e û jîyan berxwedan e!


In relation to something I posted about The Oil Pashas back in December, check Britain's Independent for more:

The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

Oil industry executives and analysts say the law, which would permit Western companies to pocket up to three-quarters of profits in the early years, is the only way to get Iraq's oil industry back on its feet after years of sanctions, war and loss of expertise. But it will operate through "production-sharing agreements" (or PSAs) which are highly unusual in the Middle East, where the oil industry in Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world's two largest producers, is state controlled.

What a shock. If the oil pashas are pocketing up to "three-quarters of profits," how is that supposed to help anyone . . . except the oil pashas?

Greg Muttitt, a researcher for Platform, a human rights and environmental group which monitors the oil industry, said Iraq was being asked to pay an enormous price over the next 30 years for its present instability. "They would lose out massively," he said, "because they don't have the capacity at the moment to strike a good deal."

[ . . . ]

James Paul, executive director at the Global Policy Forum, the international government watchdog, said: "It is not an exaggeration to say that the overwhelming majority of the population would be opposed to this. To do it anyway, with minimal discussion within the [Iraqi] parliament is really just pouring more oil on the fire."

But all of the politicians who have been hard at work crafting the oil law will certainly benefit personally. That would be politicians like Barham Salih. There's more at another Independent article on the same subject:

Despite US and British denials that oil was a war aim, American troops were detailed to secure oil facilities as they fought their way to Baghdad in 2003. And while former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld shrugged off the orgy of looting after the fall of Saddam's statue in Baghdad, the Oil Ministry - alone of all the seats of power in the Iraqi capital - was under American guard.

Halliburton, the firm that Dick Cheney used to run, was among US-based multinationals that won most of the reconstruction deals - one of its workers is pictured, tackling an oil fire. British firms won some contracts, mainly in security. But constant violence has crippled rebuilding operations. Bechtel, another US giant, has pulled out, saying it could not make a profit on work in Iraq.

All of this, in spite of what they said:

"Oil revenues, which people falsely claim that we want to seize, should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people"

Tony Blair; Moving motion for war with Iraq, 18 March 2003

"Oil belongs to the Iraqi people; the government has... to be good stewards of that valuable asset "

George Bush; Press conference, 14 June 2006

"The oil of the Iraqi people... is their wealth. We did not [invade Iraq] for oil "

Colin Powell; Press briefing, 10 July 2003

"Oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50bn and $100bn in two or three years... [Iraq] can finance its reconstruction"

Paul Wolfowitz; Deputy Defense Secretary, March 2003


"By 2010 we will need [a further] 50 million barrels a day. The Middle East, with two-thirds of the oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize lies"

Dick Cheney; US Vice-President, 1999

WOW! What is that smell? Oh, somebody must have let Baker-Hamilton in.


The mention of Paul Wolfowitz reminds me . . . On another subject, let me direct your attention over to Lukery's place for an excellent read titled, "Sibel Edmonds & the Neocons' Turkish Gravy-Train." The burning question here is why did a recent World Bank report on the Afghani drug industry include only one reference to Turkey? Here's a snip:

Let's have a closer look at the title of the World Bank report: "Afghanistan's Drug Industry: Structure, Functioning, Dynamics, and Implications for Counter-Narcotics Policy"

Note that this isn't a report 'about Afghanistan' - but about the INDUSTRY - and given that Afghanistan supplies 90% of the global heroin market, we might expect to read in the report at least something about the major purchasers of Afghani product.We might even expect to learn something about the major traffickers. We might even expect to learn something about the major trafficking routes. Right?

In fact, the title of the report promises to look at the "Structure, Functioning, Dynamics, and Implications for Counter-Narcotics Policy" - and the report does pretend to cover many of these issues, using fancy terms like 'value chain analysis,' 'vertical price structure' and 'price margins at different stages' and so on - all the things that you'd expect to find in an industry analysis. However, the analysis is conducted primarily (with some notable, and telling, exceptions) on an 'in-country' basis - which is essentially meaningless for analysing a global industry. This World Bank report is akin to an attempt to understand the global soft-drink market by looking really, really closely at the logistics around Atlanta - and as Sibel suggests, the 'frame of reference' of this report is unlikely to be an accident, and is most likely an intentional attempt to whitewash Turkey's role in the heroin industry.

Lukery then cites information from a State Department report which dishes out a lot of dirt on Turkey's involvement in the global and illegal narcotics industry:

That's quite straightforward - Turkey is a key player up and down the value chain - yet the comprehensive 228 page report from Paul Wolfowitz' World Bank essentially ignores Turkey's role using various mechanisms of sophistry and mendacity - just as Sibel predicted.

At least three quarters of all heroin sold in Western Europe comes from Turkey - 4 to 6 tons every month - yet the World Bank report mentions Turkey exactly... once!

[ . . . ]

Why would Wolfowitz want to erase any mention of Turkey from his report?

From there, it gets into Deep State, the Genelkurmay Baskanligi's business interests, the American defense industry and illegal gun-running to places like Pakistan and China . . . and I will leave it at that because I think you should go read it for yourself. Make sure you check out all the links, too. Lot's of good information there.

Bijît, Lukery, for putting the whole thing together for us!