This post has nothing to do with any other threads except one, some time ago, in which John asked where people got their information and I mentioned I liked The Economist. Just by coincidence, after being so puffed up with pride that I got a letter published in the Economist (and not just a little filler in the LR corner), I actually decided I should read the magazine, rather than just, I dunno, frame it or something.
Here are two articles from which I learned a lot. I just offer them up as examples of why I like the magazine. I also noted in the Globe and Mail today that the circulation for the US's 3 major serious general current interest magazines (whatever that phrase means), The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly and Harper's, are actually up -- that the Cyberage hasn't harmed them in the least. I subscribe to the first 2 and am being forced by cut-backs to let the 3rd one go, but find them very useful, too. Anyway, these are, I'm afraid, both premium material (available on the internet only to subscribers) so I'm going to cheat and share them with you. The first is about the Kurds and Turkey, and the second is about the rebellion in Côte d'Ivoire Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds Allies from hell Oct 3rd 2002 | ANKARA >From The Economist print edition While the Kurds look to semi-independence in a post-Saddam Iraq, some Turks are looking back to Ottoman dominion with nostalgia AS THE American administration accelerates its efforts to drum up international support to unseat Saddam Hussein, it faces open dissent from two of its most prized, and most mutually hostile, allies: Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds. With tension growing between the two, American officials are trying to find a magic formula to satisfy their irreconcilable demands. Turkey, declaring that it will not take part in any operation against Iraq that could result in the creation of an independent state for that country's 3.5m or so Kurds, has vowed to intervene militarily should the Iraqi Kurds make any move in that direction. No matter that the Kurds themselves say they understand that independence is not a realistic ambition. Turkey also says that it is equally opposed to the establishment of the federal zone within a united Iraq that the Iraqi Kurds insist is their right, and that they are demanding in exchange for their support for an American-led operation. Turkey fears that a federal arrangement would lead to similar demands not just from its own 12m-odd Kurds, but also from Iran's 6m. It would, suggests a Turkish diplomat, “create an inextinguishable inferno of regional chaos and instability.” Turkey has economic worries as well. Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, was in Ankara this week. He reminded his Turkish hosts that, should war break out, Turkey's wobbly economy would be shaken by the loss of Iraqi business. Trade between the two has climbed back to its pre-Gulf war level of $1 billion a year. The dilemma for America is that, in a war, help would be needed from both Turkey and the Kurds. Turkish bases are necessary for bombing raids, and the 50,000 fighters under Iraqi-Kurdish control would be useful in overthrowing Mr Hussein. And if American troops were to be deployed in Kurdish territory, they would need to come through Turkey. The Iraqi Kurds are adamant that Turkish forces themselves should not take part in any operation, if for no other reason than that the presence of Turks would invite Iranian intervention. They are even threatening, as a last resort, to cut a deal with Mr Hussein should the Americans ignore their demands. Taha Yassin Ramadan, Iraq's deputy president, told a visiting group of Turkish journalists last month that the Iraqi people would fight alongside “our Kurdish brothers” to keep Turkish forces out of their country. Mr Ramadan was responding to a claim, made last month by Turkey's defence minister, Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, that Kirkuk, Iraq's main oil-producing region and an erstwhile part of the Ottoman empire, was historically part of Turkey. Kirkuk, which is now under Baghdad's control, is intended by Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, the two Kurdish leaders who have been running northern Iraq since the end of the Gulf war, to be the capital of their proposed federal state. Kirkuk, declared Mr Barzani, could become “a graveyard for Turkish troops just as it had been for Ottoman forces”. Mr Barzani and Mr Talabani are old enemies. But this week they came together to agree on a new draft constitution for their envisaged “zone”, and the Kurdish regional parliament is due to reconvene on October 4th for the first time since 1994. This new-found unity is deeply disturbing to the Kurds' regional foes—Iraq, Turkey and Iran—which for decades backed one Kurdish faction against the other to keep the Kurds weak and divided. Indeed, not so long ago, the Turks and Mr Barzani, whose Kurdistan Democratic Party controls Iraq's 700km (450-mile) border with Turkey, were the best of friends. Aided by Mr Barzani's fighters, Turkish troops would wade into northern Iraq to hunt down separatist Turkish Kurd rebels in their mountain hideouts. In exchange, Turkey allowed its truck drivers to smuggle in lots of Iraqi diesel on which Mr Barzani's group would levy taxes. Revenue from this illicit trade (to which America turned a blind eye) helped finance the construction of hundreds of new schools, roads and hospitals in KDP-held territory, as well as a fledgling Kurdish army and local police force. But once Turkey had captured Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish rebel chief, in 1999 and he had called off his 15-year insurgency, Mr Barzani ceased to be useful. Instead, he came to be perceived as a threat, not least because he began mending fences with Mr Ocalan's group. In a bid to curb the KDP's influence Turkey banned the flow of Iraqi oil. It has also been courting Mr Talabani, while arming and training militia drawn from an ethnic Turkic minority known as the the Turcomens, which is based in Mr Barzani's territory. The Iraqi Kurds are misguided, say Turkish officials, in thinking that their support is as important to America as Turkey's. “If the Kurds are naive enough to believe that they are in the same league as Turkey, that only proves that they have not learnt from history,” says one stern official. The Iraqi Kurds have not forgotten a rather more recent bit of history. Memories of how America failed to protect them from Iraq's army after encouraging them to rebel against Mr Hussein at the end of the Gulf war is etched in their minds. This, their leaders say, is precisely why they want watertight guarantees of protection in return for their support. And these guarantees, says Safeen Dizayee, a prominent KDP official, “include protection not just against Iraq but against all foreign forces that would destabilise the region.” Apparently the Côte d'Ivoire story isn't premium after all, so here's the link. If it doesn't work, let me know and I'll post the article: http://www.economist.com/world/africa/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1372126 -- Marc A. Schindler Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada -- Gateway to the Boreal Parkland "The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." --Michelangelo Buonarroti Note: This communication represents the informal personal views of the author solely; its contents do not necessarily reflect those of the author’s employer, nor those of any organization with which the author may be associated. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ==^^=============================================================== This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP9AU.bWix1n Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^^===============================================================
