A New Power Rises in Iraq
Michael Totten;
Fourteen months ago I flew to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, from Beirut, Lebanon, on the dubiously named Flying Carpet Airlines. Flying Carpet’s entire fleet is one small noisy plane with propellers, cramped seats, and thin cabin pressure. Only nineteen passengers joined me on that once-a-week flight. Everyone but me was a Lebanese businessman. They were paranoid of me and of each other. What kind of crazy person books a flight to Iraq, even if it is to the safe and relatively prosperous Kurdistan region? I felt completely bereft of sense going to Iraq without a gun and without any bodyguards, and it took a week for my on-again off-again twitchiness to subside.
Last week I flew to Erbil from Vienna on Austrian Airlines to work for a few weeks as a private sector consultant with my colleague Patrick Lasswell. This time I didn’t feel anything like a fool. Almost half the passengers were women. Children played on their seats and in the aisle with toys handed out by the crew. We watched an in-flight movie and ate the usual airline lunch fare served by an attractive long legged stewardess. The cabin erupted with applause when the wheels touched down on the runway. The pilot announced the weather (sunny and 60) in three languages and cheerfully told us all to have a great day. Have a great day may seem an odd thing to say to people who just arrived in Iraq, but this is Kurdistan. I did, indeed, have a great day.
As usual, lots of photos.
New mall construction – lots of photos of construction, actually.
Kurdistan’s rise flips Iraq on its head. The Kurds are ahead, but they started from nothing. Under Saddam’s regime they had the worst of everything – the worst poverty, the worst underdevelopment, and worst of all they bore the brunt of the worst violence from Baghdad. 200,000 people were killed (out of less than four million) and 95 percent of the villages were completely destroyed.
The Kurds seem happy and well-adjusted. Scratch the surface, though, and any one of them can tell you tales that make you tremble and shudder. Everyone here was touched by the Baath and by the genocide. If living well is the best revenge, the Kurds got theirs.
There’s much, much more there, so take the time to read it all. And pass along the link to your friends. There is more to Iraq than Baghdad and people deserve to know it.
This is what you do in a secure environment…..think south of Kurdistand and afghanistan for what happens when you dont have security…..
Security first….
If the Kurds considered themselves part of Iraq, you’d be right.
Many thanks, Kate. This shows what freedom can lead to. In Baghdad, Iran is busy trying to prevent the Sunnis and Shiites from living and working in freedom by fomenting one against the other. The Iraqi people have to, themselves, refuse to play that vicious game.
They were “part of Iraq” under Saddam Hussein. I believe that counts as liberated.
Come on Kate. You KNOW the world doesn’t exist where the CNN cameras aren’t pointing. Iraq stops right outside Baghdad and you fall off the edge.
And don’t confuse the issue with facts. The poor Lefties won’t know what to do with themselves if they don’t have Chimpy Bushitler to hate.
Really, this post is quite unkind. ~:D
I’m sorry but stories like this give me acid reflux. I get so agrivated trying to explain to the doom and gloom crowd that Iraq is not a total canine fornication. Kind of the same as trying to explain that weather changes with or without man’s help and has done so since before the time of premordial ooze.
If nothing else there is a national soccer team that doesn’t have to worry about having the soles of their feet burnt off.
I don’t know why anyone is surprised. The media more or less ignored the plight of the Kurds under Saddam, and they are now ingnoring their success under US occupation. Therefore, they are consistent. Consistently biased anyway.
Interesting guy. As he says, the media are erasing the good side of the Iraq invasion by keeping the cameras chained to Baghdad.
At Tech Central Station, he also notes why the whole region is cooperating to sabotage the U.S. in Iraq – a little bit of democracy can spoil a whole barrel of rotten apples. And there a lot of rotten regimes in the region who don’t want democracy to get established. Something our own media manage to avoid mentioning.
the link for this is at:
tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=031407C
ahhh, the turks must be gittin realy pissed at this
What is even more incredible is that the Kurds are sending troops to assist the coalition forces in Baghdad.
Nice post. Its about time the Kurds got their due. These people want to be successful. I guess its why a lot of groups dislike them.
An industrious people. My best wishes for them.
The Kurds are doing well, yes. All the more reason to divide Iraq up into three separate federations. Why force these people to get along? Separate the Sunnis and Shia and give them their own country.
Watch this great 60 Minutes video about Kurdistan:
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2491526n
I had a friend who travelled thru Southeastern Turkey last year in the Kurdish areas and one of the villager (a strong Kurdistan nationalist) told him wistfully: “If America wants a free Kurdistan, it will happen…”
Is a free Kurdistan worth the war in Iraq? YES. If Kuwait’s independence was good enough in Desert Storm, a free Kurdistan is more than worth the candle.
Is a free Kurdistan worth the war in Iraq? YES. If Kuwait’s independence was good enough in Desert Storm, a free Kurdistan is more than worth the candle.
How many dead Iraqi “candles” would you say are worth the freedom of each Kurd? In round numbers.
Actually Justzumgai, no less than General Lewis MacKenzie has noted that the insurgency has claimed perhaps 60K lives in 5 years while a similar tenure under Saddam equalled around 300K dead Iraqis.
That’s at least 240K living in America’s favor.
60k? what r Lew smokin’?
The Kurds have been independent from Saddam for a good while now. The Americans gave them independence from Saddam and then left them to it.
It’s worth noting that the Kurds are just as divided in terms of religion as the rest of the country (most are Sunnis but there are Shia and a good half dozen other religions in the mix). Their identity politics are different than the Arabs but they’re a good indication of what people can do if they’re given free reign to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
How many dead Iraqi “candles” would you say are worth the freedom of each Kurd?
More than the number of Kurds slaughtered at the expense of Saddam’s tyranny.
If North Korea starves under it’s tyranny, how many lives are worth the freedom of those dying??? Millions.
Time to find another leftist talking point genius…