STUPID AMERICAN TOURISTS AND FILTHY PASDARS

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
~ Albert Einstein.

One of the crazy Americans who went hiking without a guide last July in South Kurdistan has been released by the Teheran regime:

A jubilant American Sarah Shourd reunited with her mother in Muscat, Oman, on Tuesday after Iranian authorities released her from a Tehran prison where she had been held for 14 months.

[ . . . ]

Shourd thanked Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, Iran's supreme leader, and "everyone who has been a part of making this moment happen for me and for my family."

Shourd, 32, left behind fellow Americans Shane Bauer, 28, who is her fiance, and their friend, Josh Fattal, 28.

The three Americans were detained after they allegedly strayed across an unmarked border into Iran while hiking in Iraq's Kurdistan region. Iran accused the three of spying, a charge the United States and the hikers have denied.

Apparently, the three--who were supposedly journalists--were seized by pasdars as they were hiking in the Khormal region of South Kurdistan near the village of Zalem, according to an article in The Nation dated July of this year.

Aside from the fact that the filthy pasdars, like the filthy TSK, do not respect borders, why were these three hiking around without a guide of some sort? Their behavior was incredibly stupid. Filthy pasdars aside, the region is peppered with numerous land mines. See a map, here.

Really, incredibly stupid.

But we haven't heard too much complaining about how filthy pasdars routinely cross the border to commit all kinds of crimes (see The Nation article), have we? That's fine with me. Since I don't hear anyone bitch when filthy pasdars cross the border to murder, rape, kidnap and bomb Kurds, then I don't want to hear bitching about them kidnapping three Americans.

SEEKING KURDISH ENMITY

"Israel, on the other hand, is supplying technical and tactical support in order help Turkey kill more Kurds. Israel sent technical staff even to Batman and is supporting Turkey technically and tactically. This is Kurdish enmity."
~ KCK Statement, February 2008.

Exactly one year ago some news came out about the creation of the America-Kurdistan Friendship League and I mentioned something about some of the fruitcake neocons involved with it. Now I noticed that, a few days ago, one of those involved with the AKFL conducted an interview on the notoriously right-wing fascist website, FrontPageMag, and it was carried on Kurdish Aspect. I have a few bones to pick.

First bone:

Israel has a longstanding relationship with the Kurdish people.

Not quite. Israel has a longstanding relationship with Iraqi Kurds, not with the Kurdish people.

Second bone:

[David Ben Gurion] reasoned that Arab hostility encircling Israel necessitated alliances with the leadership and people of non-Arab states like Iran, Turkey and the Kurds (understanding that the Kurdish connection needed to be somewhat secretive, as it continues to be today for fear of upsetting the Turks.)

Again, the connection here, secretive or not, is not with the Kurds; it's with Iraqi Kurds. Compared to Turkish Kurds, Iraqi Kurds are a minority among the Kurdish people as a whole. Therefore, to state that there is a historical relationship between the state of Israel and "the Kurds" is wrong.

On the other hand, the majority of the world's Kurds are Turkish Kurds. Israel has never had, nor has now, any relationship with them . .. unless one counts the fact that such a relationship is by proxy, with the proxy being the TSK (third bone):

Israel’s military and diplomatic establishment is heavily invested in Turkey and trade relations are of growing significance.

Israel's heavy investment in Turkey is exactly why Israel has no just relationship with the Kurds. That heavy investment is heavily military and we all know what relationship the TSK has with the Kurds.

If there were a historical relationship between Israel and the Kurds and Israel were truly concerned with creating an honest alliance with the Kurds, then why were Israeli's operating UAV's for TSK against the Kurdish freedom movement? Why did PKK have to issue a warning to Israel, referring to Israeli behavior in the matter of the UAV's as "Kurdish enmity" on Israel's behalf?

Fourth bone:

Turkey represents, as far as Israel and the U.S. are concerned, a model for a “secular” Islamic democracy.

Again, not true. Turkey is not a democracy, although it is a model--a model fascist regime. Naturally the US considers Turkey a Model of Democracy for the Middle East, as well as an Islamic democracy. The CIA has poured a lot of money into it for that purpose, just as it did with both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Bush Administration appointed Erdoğan as prime minister for that purpose. If Israel is supportive of those kinds of actions, it proves once again that Israel is no ally of the Kurds.

Fifth bone:

Israel, mindful of the reactions from the Turks, has refrained from open expressions of support for Kurdish rights.

If Israel is unwilling to do the right thing as regards the rights of others who are brutally oppressed, then the Kurds don't need it as an ally anyway. And don't bitch about The Holocaust because present behavior makes it's obvious that nothing was learned from it anyway.

Sixth bone:

The Kurds are Israel’s natural allies.

Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on what the term "natural allies" means. If it means that Kurds get used for US and Israeli interests in the region, along with Turkey's interests, then maybe any alliance formed would be far more unnatural than natural. This is the kind of alliance in which the Kurdish people serve as pawns for the self-serving, fascist regimes in Ankara, Teheran, Damascus, Baghdad, Israel, and the US.


Seventh bone:

The Kurds geographic location and acculturation makes them a barrier to the spread of radical Islam-whether Shia or Sunni.

Wrong again. The only real Kurdish barrier to the spread of US-financed radical Islam is the KCK and those armed organizations under its umbrella--YJA-STAR, HPG, and HRK. Yet these are the only "barriers" in the region that the US, Israel, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq are actively trying to get rid of.

Eighth bone:

The Kurds also aspire to become a democratic society modeled after Israel.

Let's think about this, shall we? Maybe Denmark, for example, would be a better democratic model than Israel. Denmark is, after all, the world's happiest country. Besides, the Danes have great dairy products, just like Kurdistan, and they've stood up against Turkish and American bullying over Roj TV.

Ninth bone: The angle the AKFL is working here is justification of US and Israeli policies against Iran and Syria. Any use of Kurds in those policies will be detrimental to Kurdish interests--note that the operative word here is "use", as in "I use a tissue and then I throw it away."

Don't let yourself be used as a box of tissues, Kurdistan.

IF IGNORANCE IS BLISS . . .

"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped."
~ Elbert Hubbard.

Been meaning to post this for a while. Abandon hope all ye who enter here because the future is truly bleak:

I teach a seminar called "Secrecy: Forbidden Knowledge." I recently asked my class of 16 freshmen and sophomores, many of whom had graduated in the top 10 percent of their high-school classes and had dazzling SAT scores, how many had heard the word "rendition."

Not one hand went up.

This is after four years of the word appearing on the front pages of the nation's newspapers, on network and cable news, and online. This is after years of highly publicized lawsuits, Congressional inquiries, and international controversy and condemnation. This is after the release of a Hollywood film of that title, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, and Reese Witherspoon.

I was dumbstruck. Finally one hand went up, and the student sheepishly asked if rendition had anything to do with a version of a movie or a play.

I nodded charitably, then attempted to define the word in its more public context. I described specific accounts of U.S. abductions of foreign citizens, of the likely treatment accorded such prisoners when placed in the hands of countries like Syria and Egypt, of the months and years of detention. I spoke of the lack of formal charges, of some prisoners' eventual release and how their subsequent lawsuits against the U.S. government were stymied in the name of national security and secrecy.

The students were visibly disturbed. They expressed astonishment, then revulsion. They asked how such practices could go on.

I told them to look around the room at one another's faces; they were seated next to the answer. I suggested that they were, in part, the reason that rendition, waterboarding, Guantánamo detention, warrantless searches and intercepts, and a host of other such practices have not been more roundly discredited. I admit it was harsh.

That instance was no aberration. In recent years I have administered a dumbed-down quiz on current events and history early in each semester to get a sense of what my students know and don't know. Initially I worried that its simplicity would insult them, but my fears were unfounded. The results have been, well, horrifying.

Nearly half of a recent class could not name a single country that bordered Israel. In an introductory journalism class, 11 of 18 students could not name what country Kabul was in, although we have been at war there for half a decade. Last fall only one in 21 students could name the U.S. secretary of defense. Given a list of four countries — China, Cuba, India, and Japan — not one of those same 21 students could identify India and Japan as democracies. Their grasp of history was little better. The question of when the Civil War was fought invited an array of responses — half a dozen were off by a decade or more. Some students thought that Islam was the principal religion of South America, that Roe v. Wade was about slavery, that 50 justices sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1975. You get the picture, and it isn't pretty.

Read the rest.

Now you know that Miss Teen USA, South Carolina, was no aberration.