Comments on: Iraqi Kurdistan

By: » Pitch a Show: May 4, 2007

» Pitch a Show: May 4, 2007 — Wed, 09 May 2007 19:07:16 +0000

[...] h Arendt and the Banality of Evil Potter pitched Immigration’s Katrina brent pitched Iraqi Kurdistan hurley and valkyrie607 pitched Women in War Charlotte Fleetwood pitched Le Jazz H [...]

By: Blogger News Network » “The Other Iraq”

Blogger News Network » “The Other Iraq” — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 18:02:04 +0000

[...] alls it, “the other Iraq”. You can listen to the show and read the show notes here on Radio Open Source. He interviewed Qubad Talabani, Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) Repr [...]

By: Considerettes - Conservative commentary served up in bite-sized bits » “The Other Iraq”

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:59:33 +0000

[...] alls it, “the other Iraq”. You can listen to the show and read the show notes here on Radio Open Source. He interviewed Qubad Talabani, Kurdish Regional Gover [...]

By: enhabit

enhabit — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:52:40 +0000

exactly Greta & schwartz…but take it a step further..the president of iraq is ethnically part of a group that is clearly splitting off..and his son was on the show and admitted as much!!! there is just no way that iraq is going to stay together and here is proof! that’s a major scoop even if anybody with some common sense could see it coming anyway. where is the heat everybody? ROS scored a scoop here! the iraqi-shia are going to their corner soon and the sunnis are going to wonder what’s next. look at the BAGHDAD map i posted…ALL OF THE FORMERLY MIXED NEIGHBORHOODS ARE SEGREGATING AND THE STRICTLY SUNNI ONES TO THE WEST HAVE MUCH FEWER BOMBINGS. sooner or later the shia are going to want to leave.

By: Greta

Greta — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:39:08 +0000

We got an email from Dick Schwartz the other day about this show. Dick asked me to post this as a comment for him:

I was quite surprised that you failed to raise a significant issue

regarding the differing experiences of the Iraqi Kurds and the Iraqi

Shiites and Sunnis on your recent program about the Kurds. In

simplified terms the Kurds have chosen to accept the role, as have

many other small nations, of being American/Western toadies in

exchange for protection and economic support. Your guests openly

acknowledged that the Kurds will be happy to have a long term presence

of American military forces and bases in their territory. On the

other hand the Iraqis have emphasized that their long term goal is to

have the foreign troops off of their soil. I feel you should have

raised the question of what it really means to be a soveriegn nation.

It seems clear that the Kurds won’t have much sovereignty under the

arrangement described. They will be expected to jump every time the

U.S. tells them to jump. It would have added considerable substance

to the program content to have raised this issue and asked for their

response.

By: enhabit

enhabit — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:10:31 +0000

even more? a long-term US/Israeli position encouraging kurdish independence..one that goes back, at least, to the NIXON/FORD administration? Where were Cheney, Rumsfeld and papa Bush back then?

By: enhabit

enhabit — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:06:39 +0000

do you need more? kurdistan envisioned as a no longer isolated and now productive LONG-TERM US military base of operations in the region?

By: enhabit

enhabit — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:02:47 +0000

where’s the heat on this one from the ROS crew? there’s quite a story lurking in here! for one thing..modeling ourselves (kurds) after dubai? you have no comments? another one..turkish investment (a story in itself) PRECEEDED the invasion? after all that bluster about no coalition troops on turkish soil?!!! are there that many ROS basketball fans?

By: Tom B

Tom B — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 21:25:33 +0000

Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman made a statement during the show that hit home… to the effect she doesn’t think of her aunts and uncles and other family members as Iraqis, as Syrians, as Iranians, or as Turks — but as Kurds. Closer to home it made me think of Irish Americans and of Jews. I grew up hearing about ‘we’ not meaning New Yorkers or Louisianans, or New Jerseyites — but ‘the Irish’. And among Jews, I notice that when they speak of ‘us’ they likewise are not referring to themselves as Englishmen, or Chileans, or New Yorkers, or Texans — but ‘Jews’. The 19th century was one of awakening nationalism in Europe (e.g. within the Austro-Hungarian Empire), culminating in the stew of national entities, ranging from The Czech Republic to Slovakia, from Poland to Greater Serbia, and so on… The 20th century saw a continuation of this process, but now expanding to new geographies. (Within Spain, which I know a bit about, the federalization of that nation is an ongoing project, with the Basques and the Catalans only the most prominent ‘national minorities’.) —– It will be interesting to see if the Kurds are able to establish their own version of Israel, or Ireland, or The Czech Republic in the shadow of larger neighbors. For every Ireland (unthreatened), there’s an Israel (always on the brink), or a 1939 Czechoslovakia (swallowed up).

By: peoplestank

peoplestank — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 02:52:49 +0000

Hmmm, those Kurdistan commercials (“The Other Iraq”) are ripe for parody

That having been said, it seem that the people of Iraqi Kurdistan have done pretty well for themselves, given everything that has happened to them and to Iraq over the past few decades. Congratulations and good wishes.

I’m also thinking of the comparisons between the stateless Kurds and stateless Palistinians – it’s sad that the Palistinians couldn’t get their act together when they had the chance at an autonomous-region-leading-to-a-state in the 1990s…