and if you complain once more
Right?
(Headline: Saddam foes now lead new Iraqi government)
Cementing Iraq's first democratic government in 50 years, one of Saddam Hussein's most implacable enemies took his oath as president Thursday and quickly named another longtime foe of the ousted dictator to the powerful post of prime minister.
Wrong.
Yes, certainly. I can give you a very quick biographical sketch of Jalal Talabani. He was born in 1934 in a place in Kurdistan called [Kelkan], and he trained as a lawyer. He went to Baghdad University, joined the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which was then run by Mustafa Barzani, a tribal Islamic leader, and then fell out with him, with Barzani, Sr., and actually went over to work with the government in Baghdad. Then after quite few twists and turns in 1975, he again, he briefly joined the Kurdistan Democratic Party, then left to go and live in Beirut, and when he was in Beirut in the mid-1970s, he came under the influence of George Habash, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, P.F.L.P., who was a Marxist leader. And he then in 1976 set up along with others Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the P.U.K., which actually described itself as a Marxist-Leninist organization. And that is the organization of which he had been a leader. He has changed sides so often that I think it would be very boring for me to go through each twist and turn. There's a very long entry on him in my book, The Essential Middle East: A Comprehensive Guide.
Finally, I notice that he is being described as a greater leader who fought Saddam Hussein. I can tell you, Amy, that after this 1991 Gulf War, when there were uprising of Kurds which was suppressed by Saddam's regime, he then later on went to head a Kurdish delegation, and in June 1991, actually, they made a deal with Saddam Hussein, and I have a picture of him, Jalal Talabani, kissing the cheeks of Saddam Hussein. That picture appears in my book, Desert Shield, Desert Storm. Anybody can check it out. So, he is being described as a greater leader. Basically, he is, to put it simply, an opportunist.
I find it difficult to digest - to absorb, to process - any news about anything at all coming out of Iraq that does not have a byline with "Klein" or "Parenti" or "Fisk" somewhere. Indeed, unless the death toll reaches fifty plus on any given day, much of the info goes in one ear and out the next (and apparently, an afternoon of fresh attacks and dozens and dozens of casualties fails to move the big boys, too). There simply is nothing to respond to that makes any sense, hardly any dots to connect - when was the last time you saw a map of occupied Iraq? do you know where the Green Zone is, relative to Fallujah? - and responsible commentators seem to be at a loss to explain something, anything, happening there - the rigged elections earlier this year, for example: regardless of who demanded them, the facts on the ground dictate they areless than zero - see above - but even that was an argument of some kind, open to varying shades of interpretation, depending on how much of an anti-imperialist and cultural relavitist you might claim to be.
But enough of that. Bottom line, I just can't see a shape or form to the American reporting coming out of the 51st (or 52nd, if you count Afghanistan) state, save bottom-of-the-screen-crawl-bulletins or pseudo-controversies over who took what pictures of the bad guys, and why aren't they reporting about the schools, blah blah.
This piece of news did manage to shake me out of my hate-induced stupor, however; this, now, out of a country that the West - that America - spent over 10 years choking all the life out of, choking life out of 500,000 plus children, this is the arrival of the power and the glory of freedom's march in Babylon.
Just make sure you remember, no more rape rooms. And the schools. Don't forget the schools.
<< Home