RALSTON, IRAN, PJAK

"The PJAK has proved to the people that it can successfully organize itself and fight for its rights based on its own strength."
~ Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi, President of PJAK.

First of all, I want to point out an excellent new article on the Ralston-Lockheed Martin conflict of interest vis-a-vis the PKK. First carried at Voices of Tomorrow, I noticed that the hevals at KurdishInfo have also picked it up. After noting Turkey's atrocious human rights record against the population of its internal Kurdish colony, and mentioning the assistance (military and otherwise) that the Southern Kurds have given the US in Iraq, Heval Goran comes to the point:

Despite these facts, the U.S. Administration remains curiously quiet in regards to their Turkish NATO ally and is only further arming an ever-growing conflict. The threats coming from Turkey have become a major cause of concern for Iraqi Kurds who have more to lose when considering their political achievements in Iraq.

With the PKK ceasefire, a chance for a political settlement between Turkey and the Kurds has never been so close. The U.S. could play a pivotal role in finding a peaceful solution. However, with current U.S. foreign policy, Iraqi Kurds may soon be forced to abandon the significant help they are providing the U.S. and the Iraqi army to engage in a long conflict of their own.

Very well done, so I urge a careful perusal of the entire article.

Britain's Independent had an article this morning citing the US raid on Hewlêr as the reason for Iran's seizing of some British sailors. Later in the day, the NYTimes reports that one of the Iranians, that "persons unknown" had seized, has suddenly been freed. Will the Americans now have to cough up the Iranians they took in Hewlêr, after totally disregarding their Kurdish "allies" and trespassing in Kurdish territory?

The NYTimes explains that the American activity in Iraq with regard to Iranian officials, who are in the country with the knowledge and permission of either the Kurds or the Baghdad government, has made life even more difficult for Baghdad in its dealings with the neighbors. The US is purposely making the situation worse for the Iraqis.

About those "persons unknown," the NYTimes reports that those involved with the investigation believe the "persons unknown" to be affiliated with the CIA:

The Iraqi police stopped a car with four passengers that was following the car in which the kidnappers had placed Mr. Sharafi. The four men were taken to the police station. They said they worked for an Iraqi security service, but when pressed, the security services denied that the men worked for them in any official capacity, Mr. Zebari said.

“We went to our security services and said, ‘Do they work for you, do you have him?’ They denied it,” Mr. Zebari said. “We went to the American military, the intelligence services — they all denied they had him. But my advice to my government was to keep the four in detention, until the diplomat was released,” Mr. Zebari said.

The four men remain detained in a Ministry of Interior facility, Mr. Zebari said. Although Mr. Zebari was uncertain who kidnapped the man, others familiar with the case said they believe those responsible work for the Iraqi Intelligence Service, which is affiliated with the Central Intelligence Agency.

IraqSlogger reports that Kurdish pêşmerge have clashed with the Mahdi Army in Baghdad:

On Saturday, Kurdish forces clashed with member of the Mahdi Army, in the al-Amin area of Baghdad, Slogger sources report. The clashes reportedly resulted in a number of civilian deaths.

Kurdish forces, known as the Pesh Merga, operating under the aegis of the security plan, captured captured a hig-ranking Sadrist, and three of his assistants in the area near Baghdad al-Jadida, eyewitnesses say. In response, Mahdi Army forces attacked the Pesh Merga, sources relate, and the Pesh Merga responded harshly.

Eyewitnesses report that the Pesh Merga are also reported to be deploying in the Western areas of Baghdad (Karkh) within Sunni areas like Ghazaliya and Saidiya.

The Pesh Merga are operating under orders to act only on two conditions: if they are ordered to raid certain houses, or if they were attacked. Eyewitnesses report that when Iraqis approach them with a tip about militant activity, the Kurdish forces decline to act, saying that they do not have any orders to do so.

With little experience in the kind of warfare practiced under the security plan, and orders not to act unless attacked, another source reports that the Pesh Merga are the brunt of many jokes in the capital, and that some residents taunt them directly. A month ago, Slogger sources reported that residents of the Karrada district pelted Kurdish forces with rocks.

Here's something I've been wanting to get to . . . Last week, Democracy Now interviewed another Seymour Hersh-wannabe about PJAK. Although this wannabe, Reese Erlich, admits that PJAK and PKK are parts of the same organization. Anyone who knows anything about PKK already knows that. In fact HRK, the armed wing of PJAK, is commanded by many Kurds from Turkish-occupied Kurdistan who are long-time veterans of the liberation struggle. However, Erlich is at a loss to explain the US relationship with PJAK. The reason for that would be that there isn't one, much less is there any relationship between PJAK and Israel, as Erlich asserts. Remember what Heval Cuma said late last year:

American authorities want to have contact with PJAK, and as a matter of fact they do have contact with PJAK. But to say that the United States is supporting the PJAK is not right. PJAK is until now continuing their struggle just with the support of the Kurdish people and the PKK. If the US is interested in PJAK, then it has to be interested in the PKK as well. The PKK is the one who formed PJAK, who established PJAK and supports PJAK.

Translation: If the US is interested in supporting PJAK, it must be interested in supporting PKK. If the US is interested in assisting the Kurdish cause under Iranian occupation, it must be interested in assisting the Kurdish cause under Turkish occupation. The fact is, the US does neither.

It's interesting that Erlich notes, after a discussion of PKK/PJAK, that KDP-I and Komala "have Peshmurga guerrilla groups, but they are not engaged in armed activity against the United States." The implication that Mr. Wannabe makes is that PKK/PJAK are engaged in armed activity against the US. I challenge anyone to find an incident in which either PKK or PJAK has ever "engaged in armed activity against the US." There is no such incident, unlike other organizations such as, oh, I don't know. . . . MEK?

Of course, we can never forget who it is that has armed and trained the fascist Turkish regime in its genocide against the Kurdish people, can we?

Erlich tries to gloss over the support for PKK by Kurds under Turkish occupation:

There have been horrendous crimes committed by the Turkish government against the Kurdish population and for some, the P.K.K. is seen as a legitimate resistance organization.

Some? Try "most," pal. Nice try too, with the "cult" accusation plucked straight out of Turkish and American propaganda.

Basically, what Erlich, Hersh, and every other American "progressive" is trying to do is use the Kurdish people and their legitimate political and armed resistance for their own anti-Bush, anti-American agenda. These so-called people care as much for the Kurdish people as the US-backed fascist Turkish regime, the fascist mullah regime, the formerly US-backed Iraqi Ba'athist regime, or the current Syrian Ba'athist regime.

(Speaking of the Syrian Ba'athi, Erlich sounds more like a Ba'athi Syrian apologist on the Paşas' payroll--sort of like Sami Moubayed--than anything else.)

The bottom line is, for those who are too dense to figure it out, that these "progressives" don't give a damn at all about the Kurdish people. The same goes for right-winger propagandist Michael Totten and his ilk, who consistently push the KDC and DC view of South Kurdistan with never a mention of the very serious problems the ordinary people of South Kurdistan face. Serious problems like severely limited basic services, corruption, nepotism, destruction of the agricultural sector, lack of housing, lack of jobs--and all of this in the face of "Dream Cities," malls that no one but the elites can afford to shop in, and predatory foreign "investment" that is more accurately described by the term "exploitation."

Erlich's propaganda totally disregards the statement of PJAK's President, Abdul Rahman Haji Ahmadi, published one week before the Democracy Now interview:

The people of Kurdistan deserve a fair settlement, which allows all of them to live together on a basis of freedom and equality. As it seems now, however, there is a contradiction in the policies of the USA and its allies towards Kurdish movements in the respective parts of Kurdistan; the Kurds in Iraqi Kurdistan are regarded as allies in the war on terror, whereas the political demands of the Kurds in Iranian Kurdistan are being ignored. And there is, furthermore, the attempt to de-legitimize the Kurdish movement in Turkey.

Nowhere in the world is peace more necessary than in our region. In particular, the Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iran want, finally, a basic resolution of the Kurdish conflict. Democratic rights for the Kurds could positively effect the peace process in the Middle East. Military aggression against the Kurds however would intensify the already unstable political and social situation.

There you have it from Heval Abdul Rahman Haji: US policies are opposed to legitimate political demands of the Kurdish people still under occupation. Note that he mentions that not all Kurds "want the intervention of outside powers." This brings us back to Goran Sadjadi's article, the point of which also highlights US opposition to a political solution for the Kurdish people--at least those under Turkish occupation--through the Ralston/Lockheed Martin conflict of interest and the continued rejection of the PKK's democratic solution and its fifth unilateral ceasefire by the US and its regional lapdog, Turkey.

Good try, but not good enough.