A new proverb is going around the echelons of power in the grand offices of the Regional “Governments” of Northern Iraq (RGNI) which, sounds oddly like an old one but in reverse. That old proverb I have heard often, whenever the question of Kurdish freedom and independence is discussed and goes like this: They asked a blind man what he wished for most and he replied “Two Healthy Eyes”. In the RGNI offices the proverb has been turned into this: They asked a Kurdish “leader” with two healthy eyes what he wished for most and he replied: “Two Blind Eyes”.  But much more importantly they say the leader goes around the world, appears on world TV stations and speaks to radio and to newspaper reporters declaring to everyone that he really does wish to be blind and that if someone did not take the initiative and blinded him soon he would gouge his own eyes out with his own hands.

The purpose of all this is of course to prove to everyone that he would never aspire to be a normal sighted person like all around him and that he has no ambition to enjoy a dignified and free life. Like a woman desperate to prove that she is faithful to her husband and would never look at another man, and, therefore, is prepared to lose both her eyes to put an end to his unreasonable suspicions.

Of course with blindness comes dependence. Such a woman would really be useless except for giving her husband certain marital services, she would be quite useless. She will become a burden on her husband and everyone else. Coupled with her desire to submit to the will and whim of everyone she would hardly be an active or a prominent member of society. In other words by sacrificing her very precious gift of sight she would be distrusted and used. A husband who will allow her to gouge her own eyes out will ask for an even more solid proof the next time he wants to pressurise her to do anything or give him anything. Thus, two blind eyes would be followed with ears, nose and more.

The Kurdish leaders do not seem to understand human psychology apart at its most basic and primitive and are no more sophisticated than an Agha’s servant resolved to his lowly status, always happy being in the service of his master, sacrificing all to please him. Their ambition is to be trusted vassals of those who are more powerful without any drive to reach the human levels of those who do not want their people to be free. They consider “capitulation” and “subservience” to be the key to their survival and think, in the short term only. Unprepared and refusing to use modern methods, they are suspicious of their people’s own intellectual forces, believing that they may turn their masters against them.

Like the times of the Ottoman Empire, and the early days of the British occupation, they enjoy the life of a Policeman while the rest of the population have to declare allegiance to them and wait for handouts. There was another old saying which used to be used when you people expressed admiration of an affluent household which was: “This house is as lovely as that of a Policeman”.

Seriously though, there are a couple of characters who are doing exactly this sort of thing in the name of the Kurds by swearing blind that they never have, do not and never will ever even contemplate a separate independent Kurdish state. What they want is a state within a state, rather like saying they wish to be blind but be provided with a guide dog to cater for their movements and a standard of living way above the Kurdish population as they have enjoyed for the past 10-12 years.

After all, Germany they say is a Federal State and it is a single nation speaking one language and sharing the same culture. Isn’t that amazing? The logic of this comparison is that if a body can have arms and legs then why can not one have the legs or arms of another body instead of its own? More than that, the implication is that all human-beings should have each other’s arms and legs because some Germans or Indians or Australians actually practice doing so. Let’s go even further and say that we should make sure that everyone will cut off their own legs and stick what remains to someone else’s backside.

This sort of madness is pushed down our throats by our illustrious leaders not as a forced compromise and a bitter pill imposed upon us but as an elixir for the best possible solution and a natural and desirable solution to centuries of oppression, backwardness and Genocidal acts against our people. They suggest this highly suspect and universally unacceptable “solution” in Kurdistan and the region as a whole, without the slightest analysis or justification. It is as if they are suggesting to you that you should buy a particular design of suit which they like the look of. Little wonder then that western and world leaders talk of us as Saddam’s “own people” and our Arab “brothers” throughout the Arab “world” don’t give a damn about what he does to us.

Recently there have been complaints by these “leaders” against Turkish demands from the George Bush administration that, firstly, they should be given financial aid to compensate for any possible losses as a result of a Regime Change in Iraq, and , secondly, no Kurdish State should be created. Kurds everywhere note that the two men speaking in the name of the entire nation have exactly similar demands to the Turkish ones. If anything, their demand is much stronger and uttered far more frequently. In fact on their numerous annual European “outings”, paid for with the blood of the nation, they seem to be well-intent on volunteering this demand. Quite clearly, one would be putting his life in danger if one had the courage of asking, even for a single healthy eye, because the other leader would go berserk and start issuing statement after another, declaring his utter outrage at it and his absolutely commitment to the demise of the Kurdish nation. You might even get banished to the Diaspora and never again dare to return to your homeland (oops I meant the Arab land on which you may find some Kurds living). Why then are the Turks so angry with them? Perhaps it is because the Turks would like to castrate all Kurds as well to make sure they will never have children as well.

Some people have taken the leaders’ utterances as a kind of modern-day diplomatic manoeuvre and, perhaps in isolation, this may be taken as that. But couple this behaviour with their behaviour inside Kurdistan where no one checks their movements, you will find out that they are doing all they can to kill the spirit of the nation from every point of view. One of their number, who, like many of his colleagues, has grown to twice his normal size as a result of his newly acquired wealth and a thousand times richer once told me that they will be buying any Kurdish intellectual they wanted because they had so much money they could do so. Apart from his ilk and those whose voices they can silence with money and privileges they pay no attention to the nation or the country. They are maintaining what they consider a highly precarious socio-political situation, religiously avoiding the provision of a system of government worthy of that name. Such behaviour therefore indicates that they really are against the nation and their aspirations and future prosperity and progress.

Recently one leader issued big threats to the Turks regarding Kirkuk and Mosul which were designed to get Arab sympathy and not to assert Kurdish rights. Another reason for those empty and counterproductive threats could have been the undeclared rumour that the Turks had frozen their party assets and if there is one thing that makes the party and their leaders really angry and “patriotic” it is being financially squeezed. To an honourable patriotic Kurd, howeer, Kirkuk and Mosul should not be fought over only to take them out of the hands of the Turks and handing them back to the Saddam or any other Arab regime. Yet, while the Kurdish leaders are sitting on their laurels doing nothing against the Arabisation and ethnic cleansing of Kurdish outposts, they feel brave enough and indignant enough to issue threats of turning Kurdistan into a graveyard for any invading Turks when the latter holds their fat bank accounts captive. 

If you take their administrative record too, you will see that the most they have done is to get the UN to provide some food aid, expired and obsolete medicines and medical facilities, and build some primary schools, ignoring the terrible conditions in the hospitals and the people. They have buit some sub-standard housing in remote rural areas, a number of primary school buildings a number of second rate roads with the best roads leading to their Sallaheddin and Qallachwalan strongholds where they live in the imperial palaces left behind by the Iraqi “Nabukhadnessar” and his lackeys.

The Universities are no more than an extension of secondary schools giving certificates in mostly useless subjects for dead and buried syllables designed for them by the old regime and of no use to anyone. The hospitals are ignored in favour of multi-million dollar luxury hotels to entertain themselves and their guests. And to cap it all they have been the cause of immigration of hundreds of thousands of young and now illiterate young Kurds as well as others of all sorts and denominations. Nothing has been done to provide or force the UN to provide out of $7 billion dollars of Kurdish money from the Oil-for-Food programme, treatment for the most dangerous killer diseases such as cancer, heart attacks and other communicable and non-communicable diseases which cause the loss of the lives of thousands of people every day. Instead they have turned a deaf ear to the UN’s lies perpetrated by their mostly Arab staff, aiming at helping and defending the Baghdad regime, about the great “improvement” in infant mortality in Kurdistan over Central and southern Iraq which depicts the rates as much higher in the south than in the north. They have been going along with these lies to claim great improvements in healthcare and a “feather” for their administrative cap.

Anyone, even those with two blind eyes, can see that Iraqi hospitals and healthcare are far, far superior to anything found in Kurdistan. In fact nearly all serious medical conditions have to be treated in Baghdad or even Mosul and hardly any serious operations are carried out in Erbil or Slemani with the result that only those who can afford it and have no fear of the regime have any chance of being treated. Thus the Kurdish administration is helping the Iraqi regime to propagate the policy of keeping the Kurdish people dependent on the very regime which has been trying systematically to annihilate them.

The Kurdish governments will not allow any medium-to-large industry or proper infrastructure to be built because they are always terrified of the neighbours and reject any change which may go against the Iraqi regime’s old and long-standing policies for Kurdistan which consists of technological and economic starvation. As a result, there is no real economy and the country is kept as dependent on Iraq and external handouts as the enemies of the Kurds have always intended and wished.

In summary, therefore, if you examine what is happening with care you will see a couple of militia leaders who continue to falsely claim to represent the Kurdish nation. Without any hesitation they say the Kurds do not want freedom but only what those two leaders and their backers want, which as they have declared is to defend the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and the propagation of their neo-tribal system. They are talking about a “Federal Iraq” and using examples of federal states the systems and social structure and special circumstances of which they have hardly understood. They have published an document they falsely call a “Constitution of Federal Iraq” when they know that not even the so called “Iraqi Opposition” will accept it let alone the vast majority of Iraqis who have nothing to do with these groups. To-date, they have been unable to hold their much-talked-about “opposition” conference as a result of irresolvable discord and disagreements among the various factions and disgruntled Iraqi individuals and even the inclusion of well-known perpetrators of the Anfal and Chemical Genocide against our nation in their group has not enabled them to hold their meeting.

In their recent Paris “Conference”, organised by the Kurds even the Arab members of the Washington Six were not there to be seen. Whereas they claim international support for their “Federal Iraq”, the Americans made no mention of any support for the Kurds in their latest SCR resolution. Nor did a country such as Belgium or Germany agree to grant their visas to their members to attend a meeting held there. Instead they had another guy who is not one of the original six, presented as The Opposition spokesman. Despite all of that, the majority of Iraqi Arabs and the entire Arab nation consider them to be traitors and architects of another Israel. At best they consider that if these so called “Kurdish” leaders sell their own nation so short, today, then what would they be prepared to do with Arab lands and national interests, tomorrow?

Perhaps the Kurds have indeed wished for two blind eyes and had their wish realised. Maybe we should sign a petition to submit to the Bush Administration asking for a quick and surgical regime change and somehow we will be able to grow one or two healthy eyes again later.

The three million Palestinians and their Arab brothers have managed to have the entire world entangled in their self-created, xenophobic problem. They have also been able to turn the UN into an effective instrument to serve their nationalistic efforts to challenge the might of the USA and the West behind them and to replace them as the unarmed but disarming power in the world.

And while they have put their fingerprints firmly on UN resolution 1441 and turned it to their full advantage even though they are not Iraqis or have any direct link with the Iraqi problem, the Kurds who constitute the second nation in artificially constructed Iraq and who are mentioned in SCR 688 and 986 have been completely isolated and ignored with the aid and support of the Kurdish leaders themselves who seem to be hiding in smoke-filled hotel rooms in London and Washington with a few obscure and unknown Iraqis and disenfranchised military and intelligence men, doing their best to sell their "family silver" so to speak to reserve posts in a future Iraqi regime. Their supposed US and British friends have told them to hide behind curtains and keep silent about what is going on at the UN and on the international arena and they are obliging happily, not that they would have anything to say or do should they have been asked to participate.

The Kurdish leaders have been dreaming about a role in a future rich and affluent Iraqi government when they believe they would multiply the financial wealth they have already amassed out of what they believe to be a mere, and temporary "freak situation" which arose out of the second Gulf war. And so they have turned their backs to the events and are letting the "grown-ups" deal with them while they are playing their role in breaking the Kurdish spirit to prepare them for their Utopian solution for their beloved Iraq, little do they know that not everything the US wants will be achieved and even if they were the US will simply do what they know best, protect their vital interests.

Therefore, the Kurds may once again end up having made all the concessions on the Right to Self-Determination, the dirty work of our enemies to subjugate the Kurds to the will of the enemies of our homeland, and paid all the heavy prices in the hope that there will be a regime change and the leadership gaining some proportion of power but end up with nothing other than greater demands for the unification of Iraq and the spreading of the Arab hegemony over the Safe Haven with US and British blessing as a result of a, now, more-than-likely rapprochement And lacking an independent strategy and vision and with nothing to influence US policy with in the absence of a conflict between the US and Saddam, a great farce would unveil itself and the Kurdish people will once again be reclaimed by the Iraqi Arabs. Quite clearly the biggest crime which the Iraqi regime has committed was the Halabja and Anfal genocides and with the Kurds silent about them the Arabs are able to claim that Saddam is innocent of any crimes and that the US is merely trying to remove Saddam to get their hands over Iraqis oil. Already there is complete silence not only from the Arab side but also from the international community about those most evil crimes thanks to the absence of a true Kurdish voice. The US and in particular Britain have never had any qualms entertaining vile dictators and if it means continuing to do so to save themselves from terror attacks, then they would do so again.

Then the Kurdish leaders would probably have the choice of replacing the current Jash Kurds sitting behind Iraqi government desks (for which, unfortunately for them, they would have to strongly compete) or pick up their treasures and strong money boxes and head out towards London and Washington.

The second farce is even more amazing. If there is one thing the Americans should avoid it is the image of Inspector Cleuseau, the strange and rather comic French Police Inspector who bungles everything up and ends up empty-handed in the end having destroyed and demolished an entire city looking for a clever and illusive villain. Yet, in Hans Blix they could not have chosen a more precise match and perhaps a very similar ending to all the films depicting the loveable but quite useless inspector.

As I listened to and watched the affable old Swede and his Egyptian helper I could not help thinking of the Late Peter Sellers at a much later period of his life, facing the international press boasting about how he was going to catch the sophisticated, moustachioed "David Niven", and recover the invaluable jewel which he had stolen. Substitute Saddam for David Niven and Oil for the Invaluable jewel and you have the complete story. No one it seems cares whose oil it is – just that it must be taken out of the hands of one thief and into the hands of another, exactly as in the films.

To help the good Inspector, he was given a mandate, a kind of Commission if you like containing many articles starting with a reminder of an inventory of previous resolutions the villain has failed to comply with, to numerous articles (in the form of a UN Fetwa), deploring, declaring, noting, and so on. In among them and rather out of place, has been inserted a couple of praises for the League of Arab Nations and its Secretary General with the two distinct faces, one for the Arab street’s conscience displaying great displeasure and anger at American attitudes and condemning Israel and another for the Americans and their allies trying hard to fulfil his obligations as a loyal servant of the new Global order mastered by none other than the Americans.

And although no Arab state has or claims to have a nuclear programme or experience of such matters, out of all the states having such programmes they could not find anyone to head the International Atomic Energy Authority and so they employed an Egyptian thanks to the power and influence of twenty two votes given to a single nation. That is why he could not hide his real mandate when at the first opportunity he declared in Arabic that as far as he was concerned his main purpose was to bring about a rapprochement between Iraq and the United Nations in order that sanctions will be lifted off the suffering Iraqi People. The true purpose of their mission did not seem remotely of concern when he said that all they had to do was to ascertain that Iraq had not restarted or added to its nuclear programme which he thought had been proven non-existent four years ago anyway. Already, therefore, we find the insectors have decided and that the "Inspector" has fallen for the Villain’s Wife, again precisely as in the films. It would only be a matter of time when the Villain is turned into a kind and loving debonair gentleman who only kills for sport and not out of malice towards anyone.

Meanwhile, George Bush the man playing the part of the frustrated and nervous Chief of Police will have to resort to "kill" the Inspector by any possible means but, as in the films, miss, every time, because of too many freak chances and at least twenty two big obstacles always standing in his way. The danger is, he may get manic and start cutting his own wrists or shoot his nose off, but madder and madder he will inevitably get. We will be wise to avoid getting in the way of the farcical battle, which will ensue. And George Bush would be wiser if he realised that he cannot send such men to recover his valuable assets.

Meanwhile our so called Kurdish leaders are having a nice little siesta, waiting and hoping their kitty will become fuller and they will be able to enjoy more handouts and continuing to drug the population with the anaesthetic of Arab-Kurdish "Federalism and Brotherhood". Why not since they have done so for ten years without a challenge by any Kurdish group or significant entity. Instead, the population has headed towards the West. Every single day, thousands of young men and women head to the UK and other western destinations seeking their bread and butter. Boys as young as fifteen, have fled "Liberated Kurdistan" for the begging bowls of the West. Apart from the basic minimum aid, the nation is fed with ludicrous and counterproductive propaganda, aimed entirely at breaking their spirit to destroy their self-esteem. A constant stream of "nonsense" about the "rosy" future awaiting them under a new version of Iraq is being pumped into their brains on a twenty-four hour daily basis to erase any trace of Kurdish patriotism and destroy any remnants of a sense of unity which might have remained, in favour of a Utopian system many versions of which have already been tried tested and failed.

Even those who are accused of carrying out terrible atrocities such as the Halabja and Anfal Genocide are invited to the so called "Opposition" conferences to be included into the "ideal" democratic future government for Iraq, as admitted by Dr F Massoum, Ex-Prime Minister of what both "patriotic Kurdish" parties claim to be "Arab-owned" Kurdistan, as he admitted on Arab News Network (ANN) this evening (18 Nov 2002). According to him nothing has been proven about their "personal" involvement in those atrocities. Apparently the fact that one of them was Saddam’s Chief of Military Intelligence and the other, Chief of Staff of the Military at the time of the Anfal campaign did not constitute proof of their involvement. But that is to be expected, for Dr Massoum admitted on another programme that he had signed six protocols with the Butcher of Halabja, Chemical Ali when he was "negotiating" with the Iraqi regime. One should wonder how anyone could accuse Saddam of any involvement without proof that he personally dropped the Chemical bombs on Halabja or buried the 182,000 Kurds with his own hands. I must hasten to add that the KDP have even less to be proud of, for their part in the dreadful state of affairs in Kurdistan is just as shameful.

If anyone wants to find out how harmful the two administrations in Kurdistan have really been, they should compare the way of life the leaderships and their cronies lead while under their very noses hundreds of thousands of ordinary Kurds are suffering lack of medicine and healthcare in addition to the terrible cold winters, scorching hot summers and dark and eerie nights. And while as I have repeatedly pointed out more than $7 billion is sitting in Banks thanks to Arab UN staff in charge of the funds, the Kurdish leaders, having sufficient funds at their disposal to live like royalty, do not move a finger. Instead they continue to build hotels, invest in Cafes and Restaurants and small trader businesses, which bring them millions of dollars a year.

More than two years ago one of those Leaders told me that they had people in the American Administration who were working on behalf of the Kurds activating the funds and getting more out of them to spend on the population’s healthcare and medical needs. He implied that we should do nothing other than sit and wait for them to come up with the answers. Last August I went back to Kurdistan having prepared a Cancer Hospital project as well as a few equally important projects to help the Kurds. Both administrations privately welcomed my efforts and thanked me for them but did absolutely nothing to help. They did invite me to dinners and allowed me to use their fleet of Toyotas and Land Cruisers which I did not need but apart from that and a couple of friendly chats the total effort was close to zero and only lasted while I was there. Since then complete and utter silence. For the past two years I have been banging my head against a brick wall and getting no response to any communication I have sent them.

To date nothing has been achieved. Last September I filmed the unbelievable squalor and misery of our people in filthy, unhealthy and very badly supplied hospitals. Our leaders are totally oblivious to those conditions or deliberately ignore them. If they get sick they simply jump into an airplane at an airport in one of the "neighbouring" states and fly off to first class hotel and hospital care. If in too much of a hurry they could always go to Baghdad and ask Chemical Ali to book them in.

For the past ten or more years the Kurdish leaders have adopted the worst possible strategy which is so self-defacing and capitalistic that Palestinian nationalists who call with all their might for a twenty third independent Arab State come hell or high water in the most uncompromising way with their supporters blowing up central New York and Washington and encouraging atrocious terror against civilians of the entire world, phone in from Gaza and from under the boot of Israeli soldiers to insult us and warn against us even thinking of demanding or getting any form of freedom.

Those responsible for this situation and suspect strategy are leading our nation from one gigantic humiliation and massacre to another. People all over the world today think of us either as a nation without dignity and integrity or a bunch of uncivilised idiots going against all international trends and principles.

While all that the West sees in us are the hordes of young Kurds, arriving in trucks with stories all centring around the following:

"We escaped from Iraq because we were asked to join Saddam’s Martyr Brigades or the Al-Quds Army being groomed by the Arab government of Iraq for the liberation of Jerusalem from the Jews".

And they claim that their fathers or brothers were all members of the Ba;ath party, worked and fought for the regime against their own nation and for that reason they did not seek refuge in the "liberated" zones. It is a pathetic situation because the truth probably is that most of these people have come through "liberated" Kurdistan and most probably from that part because they cannot bear the situation there or because they cannot find any means of earning a living under the "rosy" conditions which the KDP and PUK have provided for our nation.

If one did not know the way the party leaderships frequently and voluntarily make their ridiculous denials (on behalf of all of us Kurds) that we have never, do not ever and will never, never want liberty, freedom and an independent homeland, it would probably be possible to say that all our leaders are born nincompoops. But even if we leave international politics aside and just consider the way they have been running the country we would still face a great riddle. Are these leaders able to think in the normal way all mankind is able to, or are they made of some inferior material unable to think straight and accomplish the simplest of tasks?

If we were to look at their own personal success we will have to take our hats off for the way they have managed to survive and the way they have kept a large number of highly qualified Kurds loathed to going back to serve their homeland. We could not honestly ask anyone to leave a comfortable life to go and become answerable to semi-literate ex Iraqi-trained administrators who were quite useful for the old Iraqi regime in ways I would hate to reiterate here, as Party informers on their own Kurdish brethren or as Security Officers, Jash and all sorts of other ranks of lackeys of the regime. I am quite aware that many would now tell us they were freedom fighters working for Kurdish rights and the liberation of our homeland but what we have seen over the past twelve years have removed any and all doubt that they were and still are working for their own personal gratification alone.

I say this because after twelve years we have developed a thick and sticky layer of rich party members, which is now tightly isolating the Kurdish government and ordinary people. I believe that this layer would now do anything to keep its wealth, power and positions and would, but for the fact they fear Western and International repercussions, use the most violent and despicable methods to prolong their hold on power. I also believe that they would much rather make a deal with the Iraqi government than do anything, which would serve the people and anger any of their enemies in any way. Their power has always and will always be against their own people as we saw quite clearly in 1996 when one side brought back the blood-thirsty Iraqi Republican Guards and the other ran like scared rabbits all the way to Tehran

And so given their pedigree it is no wonder that our country suffers from a large number of ills. The two governments often boast about how the conditions are better in Kurdistan than in the rest of Iraq. No one should believe this claim for a moment. For a start, the conditions in Baghdad and the Sunni towns and cities were a million miles away from that in Kurdistan. They were far superior in every aspect such as education, health, housing, and every other sector of the economy. Today the Iraqi regime is battling hard and long for their Arab population, providing an infinitely better hospital care, medicine and medical training than is available in Kurdistan. They are running universities comparable to those in the West. Construction and reconstruction is far better and no one would even consider building those substandard dwellings, which the Kurdish government so proudly shows on their TV stations which they say have been paid for out of the Oil-for-Food programme.

At a time when Baghdad has worked hard and succeeded to get out of its isolation to the point of resuming its dispatching of people to be trained in the West and the Arab countries, invite hundreds of foreign companies and makes multi-billion pound deals with them, using the oil-for-food programme and their own special means, they have full control over the part programme which is concerned with humanitarian aid to the Kurds as well. The most important aid aspect of the SCR986 programme is healthcare by the UN’s own criterion. The fact is however, most Kurds who need any type of treatment other than the most basic, needs to go to Baghdad, thanks mainly to the fact that the Iraqis have no obstacles put before them to get equipment, medicines and expertise many of whom come willingly and with the consent of Britain and other European countries and Iraqis are able to go to Europe for treatment or send doctors and medical workers for further training.

The worst bit of comparison must however be reserved for the way the two administrations (The Iraqi and the Kurdish) look at the SCR 986 resolution. The Iraqis have played a big part in utilising the resolution to their full advantage while the Kurds have done hardly anything. The Iraqis have been using most if not all of the funds allocated to them and have even managed to gradually eat into the Kurdish portion, while the Kurds have done no more than a few botched up projects, lacking the will and the drive to ask for and take what rightfully belongs to the people of Kurdistan. Rumour has it corruption in the Kurdish administration is rife right at the top of the power ladder, which goes completely unchecked or is even encouraged. Heads would undoubtedly roll if such corruption existed in the Iraqi administration.

Thus this illogical "strategic" stance by the Kurds is not simply a necessary evil which is adopted out of fear of loss of Kurdish "sovereignty" over the Safe Haven or because of any weird and temporary world political condition in the hope that it will soon pass and they may resume their belief in their just causes, but something which has become part and parcel of the makeup of the Kurdish political parties, leaders and their mafia – like membership. Therefore it is far from being a reluctant shot-gun wedding between the leaders and their people’s long-time tormentors, which we have to endure, because the world would suddenly collapse all around us if we didn’t, but rather, one between true lovers one side of which (the Kurdish parties) are dying to sacrifice their entire nation for, for the sake of the earliest possible fulfilment and consummation.

Because if we were to assume that the Kurdish parties and their leaders had an iota of patriotic spirit, then any other explanation would only be possible if:

The Kurdish parties in power did at least some of the following:

1. Instilled a patriotic spirit, which rejuvenated Kurdish aspirations to repair decades of damage to the Kurdish psyche and the greatly deformed Kurdish character perpetrated by the very people whom the Kurdish leaderships are courting today. Not, as they are doing, to follow a policy of further devastation of their self-esteem and confidence in their abilities to survive and the denial of Kurdish rights as they have been consistently doing. Throughout their previous dealings with the enemy they had been doing shady deals behind the back of the people. Today however they are offering the homeland for sale openly and on prime-time satellite TV in the full view of their flocks with the "sheep" completely silent or even oblivious of what they are doing.

2. United the Kurdish alphabet and adopted or provided new Kurdish books rather than Baghdad-supplied ones with pictures of Saddam on every other page and Ba’athist propaganda sandwiched between physics and maths text and equations. As a result even our own history is still told according to Saddam’s twisted view of the world and ancient Mesopotamian history.

3. Campaigned vigorously for the use of all the SCR986 funds in a truly effective way for the benefit of our nation and for full involvement in a programme designed to help the populations of the three Kurdish governorates.

4. Campaigned vigorously at the UN for legitimate Kurdish rights and tried their best to get involved in any decision concerning Iraq because they would impinge on the fate of the Kurds too, taking absolutely no "No" for an answer. If what they say about democracy in Kurdistan is true then they could have used that "fact" as the best supporting argument to be involved in UN decisions concerning the welfare and wellbeing of the nation, as nearly 14% of the population with the only "democratic" system in the land. They often claimed there was or they knew no way of doing so, or they did not know how but when I provided them with an effective, economic, realistic and even gainful method of doing so they turned it down claiming it might upset one or more of our enemies and that they were leaving the matter totally dependent on what the Americans and British may or may not do for us, should they ever get round to thinking about our interests in isolation to their own.

5. Campaigned vigorously to get compensation for all the hundreds of thousands of victims of Anfal and Halabja and the continuing abuse of human rights in the rest of the Kurdish areas including ethnic cleansing in Kirkuk, Mosul and other places. Instead they have done the complete opposite by hardly ever mentioning those Genocidal acts on their rather bland, useless and boring Satellite TV stations which behave in very similar ways to the Iraqi ones. These same TV Stations are currently used to glorify the leaders of the relevant parties funding them and do the complete opposite of nation-building by broadcasting propaganda aimed at de-nationalising Kurdistan and bringing up our young on a diet of national self degradation having spent decades telling everyone that they were a nation of Kurds, enticed them to rebel against every Iraqi government, and asking them to sacrifice their lives and livelihoods for that cause. And just when the international circumstances created the best opportunity for them, thanks mainly to the stupid mistakes of our arch enemies, they put the breaks on and have been working against the trend trying to abort that golden opportunity for the people to achieve their full freedom and forcing the people to accept the bare minimum by frightening them of dire consequences if they dared ask for their natural and legal rights.

6. Campaigned for the real construction of economic, industrial and social infrastructures of which Kurdistan has been deprived for the last century, instead of just building hotels for their pleasure and houses for their party leaders and ministers already living in palatial dwellings in prominent luxury.

7. Campaigned vigorously to try and stem the loss of our youth and intelligentsia to the social security existence in the West, instead of encouraging them to leave to get their hands on their last dollars.

8. Campaigned vigorously to call back and welcome the learned intellectuals (in all their shades of opinion and persuasions) from the Diaspora back to the homeland not to praise the Prime Minister, his family or his great vision and then go back to Europe, but to start effective and practical programmes of problem-solving at the highest possible speeds to alleviate the people’s suffering and build a modern productive society, instead of impeding their work, cold-shouldering them, standing in their way or asking them to set up shops and small businesses and then demand half their profits for allowing them to do so, as is currently the practice.

9. Weeded out the scroungers and those party hangers-on who are forming an impenetrable barrier, between the people and those who are controlling and leading them, in favour of scientists and technologists who could make enormous and lasting contributions to the wellbeing and future progress of our homeland.

10. Established a competent Policy-Making and Planning Authority out of real experts and not just party members to bring into effect the above actions.

11. Shown trust in the people and cared for the welfare of all the people and not just their close party operatives and cronies.

12. Never have done anything, which would make the division of Kurdistan permanent as they keep trying to do by pushing the idea that we are four separate and distinct nations. Our brothers are not those who have oppressed and tormented us for decades and centuries but our own kith and kin across the artificial borders. A leadership that keeps singing the praises of our enemies calling them "brothers" and claiming common history have never said anything and would never dare say anything about the fact that our true and real brothers who share our history are none other than the Kurds on the other sides of the frontiers.

However, what we find is sadly an attempt by those Kurds in control of our destiny at getting rich quick while maintaining "friendly" relations with neighbouring states in case they would have to leave and remove their dependents from Kurdistan to where their fat bank accounts are. They are a layer of people who have the greatest contempt for their nation to the extent that they would not even bother to reply to attempts by Kurdish patriots willing to serve the people for fear their own inadequacies and failures will be exposed.

By contrast the Saddam regime may be violent and bloodthirsty but the Arabs everywhere acknowledge that they are "patriotic" Arabs who genuinely wish for the Arab nation to unite and be strong again. They are proud of the Iraqi dictator’s Arab pedigree and would never sacrifice the blood or dignity of one of their own for that of a foreigner, and that includes at the top of the list our Kurdish nation and their uncaring leaders. And, despite all that is known about the nasty violent nature of the philosophy which the Iraqis have adopted to achieve Arab "greatness" and the spreading of Arab power to the whole of Israel and what they consider Arab lands far and wide, the whole of the Arab world has risen to aid them and acknowledge that they are basically working for the nation. Unfortunately, the behaviour of our "leaders" does not inspire any confidence and makes every Kurdish patriot feel insulted and humiliated especially when they so openly and shamelessly demonstrate their subservience to everyone but their own kith and kin.

And so the Kurds are completely demoralised both inside and outside Kurdistan, and come the slightest hint of things going wrong both leaderships would skip the country as quickly as you could say boo, because they know the demoralised nation they have helped subjugate would not do anything to protect selfish and worthless leaders. Why should they when these same leaders have been campaigning to keep Kurdistan a subject of the Arab world and part of the "inseparable" land of Arab Iraq? Neither would they stand in the way of the enemy if they knew the best result would be to retain such worthless and useless politicians?

Will SRC 1441 end the same way as SCR986 and others?

 The Arab States met in Cairo in a move to aid of their “oppressed” and “innocent” brother Iraqi regime. They are unhappy and “livid” for the United States managed to get the resolution which Britain advised her to get in order to allow the Arabs to claim they have an excuse to accept US attack against Iraq. Even highly “nationalistic” Syrian Arab Republic whose Ba’ath party imposes the word “Arab” on everything mentioned ion Syrian Arab TV, radio, posters or films and videos, voted for the resolution and then tried to justify its action in a most ludicrous way.

 The Syrians are the most nationalistic of all Arabs on paper. Even when they mention the air they breath, they have to say: the “Arab” air. However, the Arab foreign ministers have come up with a demand that: The inspectors should not antagonise or provoke the Iraqis and should be professional and neutral. And as a gesture of goodwill they have asked that Arab inspectors must be part of the inspection teams, not in an admission that they have Arabs who have expertise in the manufacture and technology of chemical and biological warfare or atomic weapons of mass destruction denied by Iraq and all the Arab States. Oh No! Rather, it is because they are intimating that the inspectors appointed by Arab Albaradii, Hans Blix and UN’s “honorary Arab” Secretary General, may be composed of western anti-Arab anti-Islam, “crusading” nationals who would find Iraq guilty of having those weapons and the inclusion of “honest”, “professional” and “neutral” Arabs would “balance” the political nature of the expected teams..

 So, they have demanded that some Arabs should be included, preferably all should be Arabs. A) to make sure that the teams do not cheat and unfairly accuse their dear Iraqi brothers of cheating or lying about their arsenals of WMDs, and B) to cash in on some of the large amount of expenses which will be paid to the members of the inspection teams.

 For all their clever tactics the Arab heads of states have in my opinion fallen into a trap of their own making, which the USA and Israel may exploit. The USA who are the main protagonist in the political “cat and mouse” game openly being played on the world scene should now make sure that a good proportion of the inspectors sent into Iraq be US and British citizens.. Previously the Iraqis complained that some of the inspectors should be Russian or French and the US was having difficulty convincing the UN that some should be American. And Israel may also wish to have their own inspectors on the team for they do have WMDs and are far more expert at inspecting for those awful weapons as well as having been at the receiving end of Iraq’s Skud missiles. But the most eligible nations to be allowed “observation” status should be  the Iranians and the Kurds who were the main and most affected victims of the evil of the Iraqi regime and they should ask for their own “inspectors” to be on the team even if they only had experience of dying by those “Islamic Crescentade” weapons.

 But whatever happens the world should draw a lesson from the UN’s handling of the SCR 986 for which they have handed over the implementation of the aid programme entirely to the Baghdad regime and their cronies, the vast majority of whom are from those Arab countries who are today asking for their “experts” to be included in the weapons inspection teams which would be responsible for disarming their beloved “Iraqi regime”. It is my experience that many of the Arab “experts” appointed by the UN for the implementation of SCR986 resolution in Kurdistan are far from being expert or honest in their duties to administer aid to the Kurds. Any Arab experts on the inspections teams will therefore be more likely of very low expertise or moral honesty and will be doing nothing but Saddam’s bidding and striving to help him get off the hook.

 The SCR 986 is a sham and a failure and if the US and Britain want SCR 1441 to go the same way then they should allow the Arab states to dictate the composition of the inspection teams and end up causing more suffering to the Iraqi people and making a fool of themselves. For months the French and Russian friends and trade partners of Saddam have, with the aid of the 22 Arab states frustrated all effort to bring Saddam’s regime to heel. George Bush has appeared aggressive, naive and caused a great deal of resentment against his country and provoked many a lone terrorist to attack his country’s interests and that of his allies. Now the Arabs want to make a real mockery of all his efforts, having tasted or thought to have tasted victory and the US backing down.

The Light and Darkness  

In a glimpse of eternity, the Spark attacked Darkness. Behold, it shouted to Darkness. I am the means of your destruction, and for a while less than Time and more than just an insignificant epoch, it nearly was. I burn so that you disappear. Without me there is only nothingness in your vast folds. I am the energy and the reason. There is no knowledge without my flame; no enlightenment; no physical world while you spread your wings of nothing-laden ignorance, constant and useless uniformity. Nothing would grow, nor flourish or glow if I disappeared which is what you always try to make me do. If it were not for the flickering and beat of my heart, no one would see, smell or hear or have any sense whatsoever.

There would be no beauty nor love, honesty nor truth. No warmth or comfort. You really are the pits and the depth of the abyss. You propagate the unknown and the unknowable. You do not feel, react or have any ups or downs; just monotonous, motionless and dead blackness, breeding silence. You inspire fear, and mysteries lurk inside of you. You are the very spirit of black magic and terrifying fictitious creatures. You block all of life and activity; allow all evil to work in your recesses, and in secret and yet you are made of pure nothingness, a purveyor of ignorance supreme and the hegemony of banality. Without me there would be no space, nor dimension. There would be no science nor technology; no life nor existence; no beginning nor end, no “here” and no “there” no ups or downs. No birth, procreation, life or death. You are a useless mass of annoying triviality, occupying the vastness of the universe and far, far beyond. Because of you I have to spend all my energy to maintain existence.

Ah, yes, said Darkness. But I always prevail in the end! For while you burn to keep “alive” for just a tiny instant flicker of my eternity, you may never continue or spread forever and will eventually fade away and succumb to my superiority, disappearing without ever being able to return or provide evidence of having been. Your entire universe is not even a pinhead compared to my vastness. I am the rule and the law to which you and all your beings must, eventually adhere. I am the basis while you are a mere exception.

And no matter how you look at it I am the truth and you are but an aberration. Your struggle is to maintain an imbalance; a freak moment of disturbance you call “creation”, an abnormal occurrence when I am the normal and the stable. The entities you so desperately try to expose out of my innermost being are better covered up, hidden, in tranquility than fighting to survive and fighting each other to prevail and occupy each other’s spaces. And who provides the rules of space other than you? Who shows that the entities, conflicting or otherwise, must have their own little pathetic spaces and entices them to attack each other and occupy those shabby and uncomfortable spaces, displacing each other in the name of mere ideas or beliefs? You, of course! Therefore it is you who is evil. It is you who is meddling in things beyond your control or power. It is you who strives to fill in the enormity of my absoluteness. Like a crazed megalomaniac you feverishly burn trying to spread everywhere even though you know that with all your speed you will always be staying where you are.

Without you none of that nonsense would ever be, because you taught those nasty little creatures, you call “mankind”, about Time and Space. You created the illusion for them that they are independently “thinking” beings who could first of all have “problems” and then try to solve them only to find out that they could not depend on you to maintain them forever or even for a fraction of it and, thus, they have soon to flicker back into my folds and disappear for all of eternity. You are the great deceiver and a most cruel one at that for just as your little “creations” start understanding your rather ridiculous rules, of the most futile game of life, they find they have changed so much, thanks again to your inability to maintain their shapes and appearance, that they can no longer function even according to your own laws, so they “die”. Yes, die! What a ridiculous idea system? Without you there would be no death because nothing and no one could be fooled into thinking they are alive or have a lifespan.  While within my bosom you could never be alive and, therefore, would never die.

Your influence is temporary, dishonest and deceptive. Without you the ”things” that you create occupying tiny bits of me and give names and Time slots to would not start believing in themselves only to pop out after a short epoch of your imaginary Time dimension, and they would not have to disappear back into me with nothing to show for. No matter how much you try you cannot keep any of your hallucinatory “objects” or “entities” for longer than a tiny epoch by my lifespan, which is eternal and forever. I am the unseen and I am the origin of all things and I will always prevail for it is from here that you start and to here you will return.

So now tell me, who is the substance of wisdom and who is the bringer of knowledge? Who is tranquility and the superior thingness that your creatures are seeking to discover?

I am the reason even though I do not speak with or promote complex arguments. I am the beginning, the process and the end all combined in an instant. I am your certain conclusion, all the past and all the future and I will always be in absolute control. I need no justification, analysis, logical soul-searching or the destruction of things to find out how they are made. I need no rest or test and no trials. There is no urgency in my world, just dark eternal peace. Most importantly I need no God to justify myself with.

Your world is a fictitious one, which needs you to burn and burn and burn in order to keep on going. I do not have to exert any effort to persist. Your entire existence is to illuminate a small portion of my vast skirt. Compared to me you are but a pinprick with an even shorter duration…

And so the lack of light boasted about the fact that it was absolute and infinite and that Light was just an aberration; a futile and wasteful effort while Darkness would always take over once the light has faded and died down.

Whereas Light which brought about illusions of existence and life lasted only a tiny epoch in time and even that meant a great deal of effort only to die down and return to mother darkness. Light exposed all the secrets and demanded answers and for that it needed actors and raw materials for these “living” things to use in the uncovering of the “truth”. The point however which Darkness was making was why go to all that length only to end up wanting to go back to tranquility, which is what every one of those actors yearns for throughout their entire short being. In other words Light caused things to be created to mature from very primitive and early beginnings, wonder about themselves, make unsuccessful attempts at trying to sort out all the mess and return to the quietness and Darkness.

They need to work and think so that the mysteries are solved. But why do we need to do that? The answer is because we need to feel we have found out the truth and then our minds and hearts will rest. And when we rest we tend to die and the “truth” which we work so hard to uncover always dies with us. What remains is the nothingness for the light’s creations. Which is the very point Darkness was trying to make in a long-winded way.

In other words, here you are enjoying the quiet and trouble-free tranquility of darkness but somehow light begins to disturb things, stirring, agitating and for an instant, all sorts of things are created, put to work, and many a truth is discovered and then we go and die back into the bosom of our mother Darkness.

As I reflected on these two arguments it occurred to me that by the same token, ignorance is the prevalent condition among the people of Light. It is everywhere even among the well educated and the learned. Trying to change it is precisely synonymous of the Light using all its energy trying to illuminate Darkness. The great consensus is the property of those who would rather they did not know than those who sought after knowledge. Much of mankind’s history is full of the terrible actions of the brutal, the illiterate and the primitive savage.