ALI HASAN AL-MAJID FINALLY PAYS FOR THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE

"I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! The international community and those who listen to them."
~ Ali Hasan Al-Majid.

Well, well, well . . . they finally executed that son-of-a-bitch Ali Hasan Al-Majid. I would have preferred that Chemical Ali had been handed over to the women survivors of the Anfal so that they could cut him to pieces rather than allow him the comfort of a hangman's noose but, unfortunately, proper Kurdish justice was once again thwarted.

Here's a little something on the dead bastard:

Chemical Ali is responsible for a lot more suffering than what happened in 1988. Here are some videos about Helebce which show some of the long-term effects of chemical weapons on the civilian population. I believe these videos are from 1998 because they feature Dr. Christine Gosden of the UK, who went to Helebce in 1998 to evaluate the long-term effects of weapons of mass destruction:

Remember that it wasn't only in Helebce that chemical weapons were used. It was the policy of the Saddam regime to use these kinds of weapons against the Kurdish people.

For more on Dr. Gosden's evaluations, see this article of hers from the Washington Post. Check also her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Technology, Terrorism and Government and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

I have posted the following videos before but, now that Al-Majid is dead, it's time to revisit them so that we should never forget. Besides, these videos were a documentary that was never aired in the US. I wonder why?

Now it's time to deliver those non-Iraqis who are responsible for the Anfal to the Kurdish women survivors . . . and let them all be cut to pieces.

TWENTY YEARS

"I will kill them all with chemical weapons. Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them!"
~ Ali Hassan al-Majid.

A memory, from Kendal Nezan:

The town of Halabja, with 60,000 inhabitants, lies on the southern fringe of Iraqi Kurdistan, a few miles from the border with Iran. On 15 March 1988 it fell to the Peshmerga resistance fighters of Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, supported by Iranian revolutionary guards.

The next morning Iraqi bombers appeared out of a clear blue sky. The people of Halabja were used to the successive attacks and counter-attacks of the Iraq-Iran war that had ravaged the region since September 1980. They thought they were in for the usual reprisal raid. Those who had time huddled in makeshift shelters. The rest were taken by surprise. Wave after wave of Iraqi Migs and Mirages dropped chemical bombs on the unsuspecting inhabitants. The town was engulfed in a sickly stench like rotten apples. The bombing stopped at nightfall and it began to rain hard. Iraqi troops had already destroyed the local power station, so the survivors began to search the mud with torches for the dead bodies of their loved ones.

The scene that greeted them in the morning defied description. The streets were strewn with corpses. People had been killed instantaneously by chemicals in the midst of the ordinary acts of everyday life. Babies still sucked their mothers’ breasts. Children held their parents’ hands, frozen to the spot like a still from a motion picture. In the space of a few hours 5,000 people had died. The 3,200 who no longer had families were buried in a mass grave.

[ . . . ]

In point of fact, Iraq had already used chemical weapons against the Kurds on 15 April 1987. It happened two weeks after Hassan Ali Al Majid, a cousin of Saddam Hussein, was appointed head of the Northern Bureau set up to deal with Kurdistan. On 29 March of that year the Revolutionary Command Council had issued Decree No. 160, granting him full powers to proceed with the final solution of the Kurdish problem. A problem which the Iraqi regime had failed to solve despite intensive Arabisation, transfers of population, the execution of “ringleaders”, and a war waged on and off since 1961.

[ . . . ]

Despite the enormous public outrage at the gas attack on Halabja, France, which is a depositary of the Geneva Convention of 1925, confined itself to an enigmatic communiqué condemning the use of chemical weapons anywhere in the world. The UN dispatched Colonel Dominguez, a Spanish military expert, to the scene. In a report published on 26 April 1988, he confined himself to recording that chemical weapons had been used once again both in Iran and in Iraq and that the number of civilian victims was increasing. On the same day the UN Secretary-General stated that, with respect to both the weapons themselves and those who were using them, it was difficult to determine the nationalities involved.

Clearly, Iraq’s powerful allies did not want Baghdad condemned. In August 1988 the United Nations Sub-Committee on Human Rights voted by 11 votes to 8 not to condemn Iraq for human rights violations. Only the Scandinavian countries, Australia and Canada, together with bodies like the European Parliament and the Socialist International, saved their honour by clearly condemning Iraq.

Halabja: The politics of memory:

Iraqi propaganda, backed by its ally the United States, either denied what happened, played down the significance of these events, or distorted them beyond recognition.

Within a week of the attack, the United States department of state, basing itself on information provided by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), claimed that Iran had also used poison gas in Halabja. This information created enough confusion that the United Nations Security Council delayed a resolution for two months and then condemned both sides for using chemical weapons. The DIA's account was augmented two years later by a former CIA analyst, Stephen Pelletiere, who suggested, using the same DIA data, that the majority of Halabja casualties had been victims of Iran's use of gas. Pelletiere has repeated his claim on numerous occasions, but has never presented any evidence in addition to the vague speculations made by the DIA at the time

All of this made Colin Powell's 2003 visit to Helebce an exceptional act of hypocrisy.

JUSTICE OR COVER-UP?

"Less vocal – or heard -- were those critics who said Saddam was executed before he could stand trial for his worst atrocities. A just trial, these critics say, would have also charged or subpoenaed many of the world leaders, arms merchants and oil companies that supported him."
~ Amy Goodman, Democracy Now.

They're at it again. The fascists. You know, the people at Little Green Footballs, Captain's Quarters, Gateway Pundit, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Jawa Report, among others. They're crowing over the fact that Ali Hassan al-Majid, et. al., are going to be hanged for Anfal.

The irony here is that this same herd of fascists regularly call for the death of Muslims, yet they appear satisfied that Saddam's minions have received death sentences for murdering Muslims. I mean, Kurds are a majority Muslim people, right? And Kurds in and around Helebçe tend to be more religious than others. Now, Saddam and his cousin, Chemical Ali, managed to rid the world of some 5,000 of these Muslim Kurds in about an hour--without mentioning all those severely and chronically wounded by chemical weapons--a fact that the fascists should be applauding if they are consistent in their across-the-board hatred of Muslims.

Maybe someone can resolve this inconsistency for me.

In the meantime, Barry Lando has written his opinion of the outcome of the Anfal trial. He's the one whose series of videos, Web of Deceit, were posted here yesterday. Perhaps Lando's obsession explains why the fascists rejoice:

All the key players in the media were there to capture the dramatic courtroom scene. What none of the reporters mentioned however was that when Saddam and Chemical Ali and the rest of Saddam killers were doing their worst, the U.S. governments of Ronald Reagan and later George Bush Senior were their de facto allies, providing them with vital satellite intelligence, weapons and financing, while shielding them from U.N. investigations or efforts by the U.S. Congress to impose trade sanctions for their depredations.

I admit to being somewhat obsessed by the subject, but perhaps someone can explain how it is that none of the accounts of Sunday’s session that I’ve read mention in any fashion how close were the ties of the U.S. and Saddam—and how carefully the U.S. and its Iraqi allies have manipulated the Tribunal from the beginning so that the complicity of the U.S. and other Western countries with Saddam and his crimes are never discussed.?

You can watch or listen to an interview with Lando on Western complicity in Iraq at Democracy Now, and there's another article by Lando on how Bush père helped Saddam crush the 1991 uprising.

In coming months, the last bits of dirt will be swept under the rug and fascists the world over will be able to sleep a little easier by thinking that the truth about Anfal lies moldering in the grave. That will be the case unless all the documentary evidence from the trial is translated and published, barring, of course, the documents falling victim to some "state secrets privilege" or the physical and convenient "loss" of the documents. Meanwhile, those who aided the murder of almost 200,000 Kurds in the late 1980s walk freely, many in the halls of power in Washington and other foreign capitals, and they do so without the aid of crutches, wheelchairs, or respirators.

Has justice been done for the Kurdish people? Not on your life.

WEB OF DECEIT

"I will kill them [Kurds] all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! The international community and those who listen to them."
~ Ali Hassan al-Majid.

I came across this series of Youtube videos through an article by Barry Lando at Truthdig.

In light of the fact that the US and Shi'a bumbled a rushed execution of Saddam specifically in order to cover up US invovlement in the Anfal campaign. Of course, the US had to cover up the complicity of NATO-ally Turkey's involvement in the chemical genociding of Kurds. In a piece of news that briefly flashed unnoticed through the media at the end of last year:

And, in a revelation likely to stir anger among Kurdish survivors, the memo orders the Iraqi officers “to cooperate with the Turkish side, according to the cooperation protocol with them to chase all the refugees”. No detail was given of the alleged agreement between Turkey and Iraq. Ankara has long opposed the idea of an independent Kurdish homeland in northern Iraq, but it has never been proved that Turkey cooperated with Saddam’s forces during Anfal, which prosecutors describe as a genocide. While the document touching on Turkish links was read out, sound was cut off to trial reporters and no discussion of the memo could be heard, although the Arabic-language document could still be read on the court screens.

Specifically:

Evidence relating to Saddam Hussein's alleged use of poison gas against Kurdish civilians was given to his genocide trial in secret on Thursday, so as not to embarrass Turkey.

After seeing a string of memos issued by Saddam's chief of staff in 1988 ordering "special ammunition" attacks, the court cut off its microphones while studying documents relating to Iraq's northern neighbour.

"We will now cut the microphones because this concerns Iraqi-Turkish relations," said chief prosecutor Munqith al-Faroon, who then presented various documents while the sound in the reporters' box was cut off.

No details were given of the evidence presented in this part of the trial, nor was it explained how it touched on Turkey.

Turkey has long used chemical weapons against the PKK, and even as late as last year. Turkey has also used Greek Cypriots as guinea pigs to test chemical weapons. Since the information appeared last year in a brief by The Defense and Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, all of this news is well known by the Washington regime, as well as every other government on the planet. Of course, it's not unusual for fascist regimes like Turkey to gas "undesirable" populations. Germany did the same thing during World War 2. Nor is it unusual for the international community to be complicit with the gassing of "undesirables."

For more on Turkish aggression plans, check an article from the American Hellenic Institute, and DozaMe had a post on Turkey's use of chemical weapons against PKK in 2003.

I have one other comment on Barry Lando's article. His Chemical Ali quote is inaccurate. Lando uses the following:

One of the voices was identified by prosecutors as that of Saddam’s cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, who came to be known as Chemical Ali, scornfully dismissing concern that foreign powers might react to Saddam’s using chemical weapons against the Kurds.

“I will strike them [the Kurds] with chemical weapons and kill them all,” he was heard saying. “Who is going to say anything? The international community? A curse on the international community!”

Ali Hassan al-Majid did not say, "A curse on the international community." What he actually said, which was recorded on tape, is the following:

I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! The international community and those who listen to them.

Al-Majid said, "Fuck them!" so why is it that the West consistently misquotes al-Majid? Is it that the West is afraid to use the word "fuck?" Is that because the word is considered "obscene?" This is ironic in the extreme because which is truly obscene, the use of the word "fuck" or the use of chemical weapons?

And let's not forget that the attitude summarized in al-Majid's exclamation of "Fuck them!" is the exact same attitude the international community and the American administration continues to hold against all those who refuse to acquiesce to imperialism.

There is in no way any distinction between Ali Hassan al-Majid, on the one hand, and the American regime, with its toadies in the international community, on the other.

MARCH 16, 1988

CHOMSKY ON KURDS

"Terrorism turns out to be about the same as counter-terrorism. The main difference is who is the agent of the terrorist violence. If it’s someone we don’t like, it is terrorism. If it's someone we do like, including ourselves, it is counter-terrorism."
~ Noam Chomsky, Addressing the Kurds in Amed.

Noam Chomsky's official website is carrying an interview that Kurdistanî Niwê did with him back in December, and I urgently recommend that all Kurds and friends of Kurds read it through in its entirety. In fact, just to read it through is not good enough; it should be thought about long and hard.

The interview begins by questioning the claim that the US invaded Iraq for its oil, since most of the oil consumed by the US comes from other countries. Chomsky correctly notes that it is not the consumption of oil which was the impetus for war, but the control of oil:

Over 60 years ago, the State Department described the oil reserves of the Gulf as "a stupendous source of strategic power" and "one of the greatest material prizes in world history." Iraq is at the heart of the region, and is itself estimated to have the second largest reserves in the world (after Saudi Arabia). Iraqi sources are also very cheap to extract: no deep sea drilling, extraction from tar sands, etc. Establishment of a US client state in Iraq, and a base for long-term military deployment (as is now being implemented), would greatly enhance US dominance over this "stupendous source of strategic power" and ensure that the wealth from this great "material prize" would flow into the preferred hands.

"Preferred hands" would be US hands, which is also the path being taken for Central Asian energy resources, in an effort to achieve dominance over those resources against the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The events taking place on the ground in Iraq, and in Kurdistan, right now, have very little if nothing to do with Iraqis or Kurds and everything to do with ensuring the control of energy resources for the future, and in this region, the struggle is against the SCO. What we are witnessing in the region is the beginning of a new Cold War, as one friend of mine recently put it.

Energy resources are going to be used to gain leverage with competing economic blocs, and the US intends to have the upper hand in the game:

Vice-President Dick Cheney, the most influential foreign policy figure in the Bush Administration, observed that control over pipelines can serve as a "tool of intimidation." He was referring of course to control by others, but understands perfectly well that the same is true of US control.

In the same way, Kurdish oil resources can be used by Kurds as a "tool of intimidation" against the US, which has betrayed Kurds consistently at every opportunity. The use of energy resources to intimidate is the idea which causes Condoleeza Rice to state that "Kurds do not have the right over oil in their areas," as recently reported by KurdishMedia. It is also the reason that Turkish politicians vilify Osman Baydemir when he says that local oil and hydroenergy resources should be administered locally. Kurds cannot be permitted to administer or have right of authority over their own resources by the great powers, or even by two-bit powers in the case of Turkey, because authority over these resources is empowerment.

Chomsky warns repeatedly to ignore the US claim of "spreading democracy," because it is mere political rhetoric with no basis in reality, and he refers to governmental use of phrases about "spreading democracy" as "routine and meaningless." Instead of actual concern for the global state of democracy, the democracy rhetoric is used to anaesthetize the victim into accepting US machinations to control resources as "tool[s] of intimidation", just as it's used to anaesthetize the American public into accepting policies that result in the brutalization of indigenous overseas populations (like Kurds) in the name of the American people. An honest discussion of these matters never enters public discourse in the US, or the West in general:

These matters, though obvious, are largely excluded from Western discourse. Doctrinal managers would like us to believe that the US and UK would have "liberated" Iraq even if its major exports were lettuce and pickles and the major energy resources of the world were in the South Pacific. It takes really impressive discipline "not to see" the obvious.

The fact that such "spreading democracy" phrases are "routine and meaningless" should be as clear as crystal to Kurds, because if the US were serious about the state of democracy elsewhere, why hasn't it done anything to encourage democracy in Turkey? Why the liberal use of the phrase (or any of its variations) that reminds us what a "model of democracy" Turkey is for the region?

The truth of the matter is recognized by the most prominent scholar/advocates of "democracy promotion." The most respected of them is Thomas Carothers, head of the Democracy and Law project of the Carnegie Endowment, who describes himself as a neo-Reaganite. He writes in part from an insider's perspective, having served in Reagan's State Department programs of "democracy enhancement." He is an honest scholar, and recognizes that these programs were a failure, in fact, a highly systematic failure. In the regions where US influence was least, there was progress in democracy, despite strenuous efforts of the Reagan administration to prevent it. The worst record was in the regions where the US had the most influence. He also explains the reasons: Washington would permit only "top-down forms" of democracy in which traditional elites, linked to the US, would retain power in deeply undemocratic societies.

[ . . . ]

The record in Iraq follows the pattern very closely. There is a mountain of evidence supporting Carothers's conclusion, in the Middle East and elsewhere. . . . The only evidence supporting the belief in the "messianic mission" is the rhetoric of leaders. It takes real discipline to jump on the bandwagon, as is routinely done in deeply indoctrinated Western societies. These delusions are safe enough for the powerful. For the victims to succumb to them has always led to disaster, as Kurds should not have to be reminded.

Chomsky believes that peace will not be achieved in the region without a solution to the Kurdish situation, a fact which Kurds have known for some time:

My own view has always been that there should be an independent Kurdistan, which would include northern Iraq and large parts of neighboring countries. I have spoken about that in the US, as you mention, but more importantly in Diyarbakir, several times. I do not think it is likely to happen in the foreseeable future. It is conceivable, however, that a form of federalism might develop in the region, which would permit considerable autonomy. I think that is a sensible outcome in most of the world, particularly in the complex West Asian region, but in Europe as well, where there are encouraging moves in that direction. I doubt, frankly, that Iraqi Kurdistan would be viable, surrounded by hostile neighbors, and with limited access even to the Iraqi market and its resources and outlet to the sea -- limited, of course, by the machinations of British imperialism, but still at least something.

The War on Terror is met with skepticism by Chomsky, and the notion of dividing the world into a terrorist camp and a contra-terrorist camp is characterized as propaganda, because jihadi terrorism has been around for several decades and has even proved useful for the US and the West at times. Chomsky gives examples from history, stretching geographically from Central America to Kosovo, and from Kuwait to Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has some ideas on how to fight terrorism, but notes that a serious fight against terrorism is not the priority of the American administration, and I suspect that the reason it isn't a priority is because, in addition to being profitable for the war industry, the maintenance of low-level conflicts in certain regions does much to mask the struggle for control of energy resources.

All in all, it's an excellent read and compresses a lot of Chomsky's thinking into a brief introduction.

Yesterday, KurdishMedia carried an article on MIT activity in Kerkuk. Now, this is something that isn't technically "news" since we all know that MIT has been active there since 2003--remember the bagging incident? However, what is new is that a KDP chief in Kerkuk has criticized Kurdish news media for not bringing to light the fact that the violence in Kerkuk and surrounding area is aimed at Kurds and not Turkmen as the Turkish Propaganda Ministry would have everyone believe.

Hîwa is the one who brought this to my attention and his comments to me make me think that as long as Kurdish news media ignores pointing the finger at MIT, or any other Turkish intelligence organization, this news will remain categorized as "rumor." For example, no matter how many eye-witnesses testify to the events of the Helebçe atrocity, no matter how many documents and audio tapes are available as proofs, no matter that there is an ongoing Anfal trial, there are still those who insist against all the evidence that the Saddam regime did not commit these atrocities. Investigative journalists in South Kurdistan need to start digging the dirt on Turkish involvement in the Kerkuk violence and they need to start publishing the information far and wide.

By the way, mentioning both Hîwa and the Anfal trial reminds me that Hîwa has posted something on the trial the other day, in which he wonders if anyone even knows that a trial is going on. This is exactly what all of us were worried about. While the Americans were crowing over the dubious victory they thought the Saddam execution would give them, and the Shi'a were dancing in the streets in Michigan, we knew that the memory of hundreds of thousands of Kurds were really being hanged.

And now, we are proved correct.

So, there you have it; the Iraqis and Americans have achieved their desires on the subject of Saddam's slaughter of 182,000 Kurds. Let us watch now and see how quickly the neocons start howling the Pelletiere/US Army War College lie that Iran gassed the Başûrî, as they are hot to use Iraq--and Kurdistan--as the launch pad for their next war . . . on Iran.

ANFAL, PÊŞMERGE, AND THE NEOCON PLAN FOR THE NEW IRAQ

"I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! The international community and those who listen to them."
~ Ali Hassan al-Majid.

Mmm, mmm, mmm . . . word is leaking out in the Iraqi media that the Southern leaders have indeed agreed to deploy Kurdish pêşmerge to Baghdad:

Kurdish leaders have decided to deploy their own militias in the current fighting in Baghdad where government troops aided by U.S. forces have launched yet another campaign to secure the restive city.

[ . . . ]

Kurdish militias have not yet arrived in Baghdad but sources said their deployment was expected to coincide with the stationing of at least 20,000 more U.S. troops in the city.

[ . . . ]

Mahmoud Othman, a prominent member of the Iraqi Kurdish Coalition, grouping the region’s two main factions of Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, said he was against sending Kurdish militias to fight against Arabs anywhere in Iraq.

“There are fears that a fight like this pitting Kurds against the Arabs is bound to add an ethnic touch to the conflict,” Othman said.

Othman added,”The deployment of Kurdish forces in Arab areas is wrong and will create sensitivities and accusations that Kurds are killing the Arabs.

“I am against the move … and there are many in the Iraqi parliament who are against it, too.”

But Dr. Othman, we've already had that "ethnic touch" at Saddam's execution. What's a little more gasoline on the fire, eh?

A report in Arab media (though Informed Comment) indicates that Dr. Othman admits that both Southern leaders have approved the plan:

Kurdish politician Mahmud Osman objected to the planned use of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who are in Iraqi army units, saying he worried that it might provoke fighting between Arabs and Kurds. He admitted that the plan had been approved by President Jalal Talabani and the leader of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Masoud Barzani. Three Iraqi army brigades are expected to head down from northern Iraq to the capital, two of them Kurdish. MP al-Faluji also said that the use of the Peshmerga should be presented to parliament for its approval.

This news is consistent with that reported at the end of December on the Kurdish Globe.

Is Mahmud Othman the only politician in South Kurdistan or Iraq with a brain? Not only might a move of pêşmerge to Baghdad "provoke fighting between Arabs and Kurds," it will certainly result in Kurdish deaths for the sake of the Arab nation. Why doesn't the Southern leadership put a premium on the Kurdish nation instead? Let's recall Othman's comments on the infamous meeting in Amman, back in December, when this plan was cooked up by the American-Shi'a alliance:

Dr Mahmud Othman stated in an interview with Kurdistan TV that the absence of the Kurds in these meetings in Amman is a negative phenomenon. He thought that these meetings were not normal and there are solutions being cooked in the political restaurant of the region and a new menu is being prepared. He called upon Kurdish leaders to play their role in this respect.

Obviously, Dr. Othman's calls fall on deaf ears. More, on whose interests are being pushed at whose expense:

It seems that the Americans are not satisfied with the Kurdish role in bringing about political reconciliation in Iraq and they have asked the Kurdish leadership to play a more active role in this respect. [ . . . ] The American interests, in relation to the other constituents of Iraq, are under threat now.

Therefore they view the Kurds from this perspective and not from the perspective of what is happening in Kurdistan.

In other words, the Americans are not satisfied with South Kurdistan's political efforts, but on this matter they are consistent. The Americans have also rejected PKK's political efforts and ignore other political efforts in North Kurdistan. Why? Simply because the Americans prefer to turn a buck over their preference for anything else. Otherwise, why would they have gotten Lockheed Martin involved with "coordinating" the PKK for Turkey? I suspect there is something similar going on in South Kurdistan and Iraq, but instead of the American defense industry turning a buck, it's going to be the American oil pashas turning a buck. See yesterday's post for more on how that dirty business is turning out.

With the Americans, Kurds don't rate at all. See how neocon Reuel Marc Gerecht, of the Bush administration's policy-making American Enterprise Institute, characterizes Iraq:

Post-Saddam Iraq has become for us and the Iraqis an act of tenacity. It is overwhelmingly the story of one community, the Shia, endeavoring to adopt a democratic political arrangement while being bombarded by Sunni Arab insurgents and holy warriors, and dismissed as disloyal Arab Muslims by the Middle East's Sunni Arab intellectual and religious classes. The Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera has its virtues--watching Arab religious fundamentalists and pan-Arab nationalists scream at each other is an unalloyed good in the Middle East--but its coverage and commentary on the Iraqi Shia have been on the whole disgraceful, a nonstop apologia for murderous anti-Shiite bigotry.

Funny, isn't it, how the neocons bend over backwards to defend Shi'a Islam, but have absolutely no regard for secular Kurds or a secular South Kurdistan. By the way, does anyone remember the neocons' love affair with Chalabi? Neocon Michael Ledeen was hot for Chalabi. See how neocon Gerecht proposes the problem of Baghdad be resolved:

Breaking the back of the Sunni insurgency has always meant denying the rejectionist Sunni Arab camp (possibly a pretty large slice of the city's Sunni population) any hope of dominating Baghdad and thus the country. If the Americans undertake this task, the Sunni Arab population, especially those who don't back the insurgents and the holy warriors, will sustain relatively little damage. We know how to clear Sunni neighborhoods in the capital--we've just never had the American manpower to hold what we've cleared. However, if the Shiites end up doing this (and it will be the Shiite militias that do it, not the Iraqi army, which would likely fall apart pretty quickly once U.S. military forces started withdrawing from the capital), the Sunni Arab population of Baghdad is going to get pulverized. The Sunni and Shiite migration we've so far seen from Baghdad is just a trickle compared with the exodus when these two communities battle en masse for the city and the country's new identity.

Did you see the word "Kurd" in there? How about the word "pêşmerge"? No, neither did I. In fact, according to Neocon Gerecht, only the Shi'a militas are going to take care of the problem. Yet we already know that Kurdish pêşmerge will be going to Baghdad to help "break[ ] the back of the Sunni insurgency" but this neocon makes no mention of it. Why is that? Hold on to your seats--it gets even better:

If we leave Iraq any time soon, the battle for Baghdad will probably lead to a conflagration that consumes all of Arab Iraq, and quite possibly Kurdistan, too. Once the Shia become both badly bloodied and victorious, raw nationalist and religious passions will grow. A horrific fight with the Sunni Arabs will inevitably draw in support from the ferociously anti-Shiite Sunni religious establishments in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and on the Shiite side from Iran. It will probably destroy most of central Iraq and whet the appetite of Shiite Arab warlords, who will by then dominate their community, for a conflict with the Kurds. If the Americans stabilize Arab Iraq, which means occupying the Sunni triangle, this won't happen.

Since when have the neocons ever given a damn about Kurds? These are the same people who, through silence and weapons sales, support Turkey and all its atrocities against Kurds. I mean, when have you ever heard of someone like Gerecht or Rubin write a single word about Turkey's genocide of Kurds? These were the same people who remained silent while their government approved of Saddam's use of chemicals against Kurds. Who was it that worked to get justice for Kurds in that situation? It was Peter Galbraith. But these neocons, they can never be trusted. Never. You have been warned.

Let's not forget that the neocons are the same people who are going to lead the cheerleading squad for Turkey when it invades South Kurdistan in the spring . . . while the pêşmerge are in Baghdad defending the neocons' Shi'a government.

In other news, charges have been dropped against Saddam Hussein for his guilt in the Anfal Campaign, thus relieving his memory of the burden of having murdered 182,000 Kurds. This also, conveniently, removes the same burden from all of those "civilized" nations who were involved with the murders, as I said over a week ago, just a few hours before the Sadr government made the bastard from Tikrit swing.

That was just the first order of business as the Anfal trial resumed today, while during the trial, the tapes of chemical weapons use against Kurds was heard. Naturally, Reuters provided a sanitized version of Chemical Ali's words:

Saddam Hussein and his cousin "Chemical Ali" discussed how chemical weapons would exterminate thousands before unleashing them on Kurds in 1988, according to tapes played on Monday in a trial of former Iraqi officials.

"I will strike them with chemical weapons and kill them all and damn anyone who is going to say anything," a voice identified by prosecutors as "Chemical Ali" Hassan al-Majeed is heard saying.

Let's recall what he really said, from Human Rights Watch:

I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! The international community and those who listen to them.

What else did Chemical Ali have to say, in reminiscing about Anfal?

… So we started to show these senior commanders on TV that [the saboteurs] had surrendered. Am I supposed to keep them in good shape? What am I supposed to do with them, these goats? Then a message reaches me from that great man, the father [i.e. Saddam Hussein], saying take good care of the families of the saboteurs and this and that. The general command brings it to me. I put his message to my head. [The sense conveyed in the Arabic phrase is that Saddam Hussein's wish is always al-Majid's command--but not, he goes on to say defensively, in this instance.]

But take good care of them? No, I will bury them with bulldozers. Then they ask me for the names of all the prisoners in order to publish them. I said, "Weren't you satisfied by what you saw on television and read in the newspaper?" Where am I supposed to put all this enormous number of people? I started to distribute them among the governorates. I had to send bulldozers hither and thither… [ The tape is cut off in mid-sentence at this point.]

Where are all those now who were shrieking with glee over a week ago when Saddam was hanged for the murder of of a mere 148 Shi'a?

Imagine, if these Kurds, of whom Chemical Ali speaks, or those suffering Turkish brutality in the North, had been Jews . . .