The US betrays the Kurds for the 7th time since WWI

[We want to share this email we got on Friday --de tod@s para tod@s]

RE: Right-wing lying idiot William Kristol's false love for Kurdish People makes me ill
Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 23:19:14 -0500

Earlier today Turkey, with the knowledge and approval of the United States, sent troops into northern Iraq.

Neo-conservative godfather William Kristol, in his debate with Pentagon Papers author Daniel Ellsberg, was adamant, fist-pounding, God-awful sure in his March, 2003 C-Span appearance that nothing like this would ever happen:

ELLSBERG: The Kurds have every reason to believe they will be betrayed again by the United States, as so often in the past. The spectacle of our inviting Turks into this war... could not have been reassuring to the Kurds...

KRISTOL: I’m against betraying the Kurds. Surely your point isn’t that because we betrayed them in the past we should betray them this time?

ELLSBERG: Not that we should, just that we will.

KRISTOL: We will not. We will not.

Wow, I don't think WK's ever reached such masterly heights of hi-fallutin' cocksuredness, before nor since. You seriously must witness this eve-of Gulf War II performance on his part to catch how freaking wrong a human being can possibly be about geopolitical events. And his rewards for getting ALL of Iraq wrong -- OpEd space on The New York Times! Yo, I myself have a lot to say about the world. I can do a little bit of research and prognostication. Hey maybe I should be wronger about stuff and who knows where I may end up? Along such slimy greats like this buffoon and Thomas Friedman and David Brooks? OK, reality-based and small-time I will remain.

Meanwhile, how exactly did we get from Kristol’s ringing declaration of principle in 2003 to today’s grubby power politics?? The road was paved by articles in magazines; for instance, this March, 2007 piece by Michael Rubin in the Weekly Standard. The editor of The Weekly Standard is William Kristol...

Kurdish television and newspapers are rife with incitements to unrest...

Just as Arafat transformed the Palestinian Authority into a safe haven for terrorists, so too does Barzani. His administration provides safe haven and supplies to Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorists...

Turkish leaders rightly ask why Washington can cross borders to chase terrorists, but they should not...[W]hile Washington would not bless a Turkish operation to attack PKK camps in northern Iraq, it would understand one...

Iraqi Kurdish leaders continue to shelter the PKK. Whether their support is active or passive is irrelevant, for there are no acceptable levels of support for terror. Nor is it responsible to undercut the security of a long-term NATO ally like Turkey.

By my count, this is America’s seventh betrayal of the Kurds since World War I. Lucy is always going to lift the football from Charlie Brown field goal attempts! And all we worry about is deliverance via a ‘viable’ donkey who's just as bound up with "America's national interests" as the neo-cons?? Principles, folks, start with principles. Laboring people need our own political party, built from the ground up, and working towards a system of justice. And that’s just for starters. “Fruitless”? “Doomed to marginalization”? Of course, but like the man said, “whatever you do it will be insignificant, but it is important that you do it.”