Many of us who are ardent supporters of Kurdish rights and aspirations have the gravest reservations about the so-called Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. This is a Stalinist cult organization, roughly akin to a Middle Eastern Shining Path group. (Its story, and the story of its bizarre leader Abdullah Öcalan, are well told in Aliza Marcus’ new book Blood And Belief: The PKK and the Kurdish Fight for Independence.) The attempt of this thuggish faction to exploit the new zone of freedom in Iraqi Kurdistan is highly irresponsible and plays directly into the hands of those forces in the Turkish military who want to resurrect Kemalist chauvinism as a weapon against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, which it sees as soft on Kurdish demands.

Christopher Hitchens. His bottom line on Turkey:

we do a favor to the democratization and modernization of that country by insisting that it get its troops out of Cyprus, pull its forces back from the border with Iraq, face the historic truth about Armenia, and in other ways cease to act as if the Ottoman system were still in operation.

Courtesy of the PUK news service a report from the The Times:

The Kurdish fighter tied back her hair in a scarf and hoisted a rifle over one shoulder before darting farther up the rugged mountain to escape the threat of a possible airstrike.

…..

The women are mostly former Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters who say that they now pursue more of an educational and co-ordinating role in support of Kurdish women’s rights. Airstrikes have become a regular hazard as tensions rise between their outlawed organisation and the Turkish Government.

…..

Treated as equals by their male counterparts on the battlefield as well as in the political arena, women fighters are trained to use Kalashnikovs, grenades and other weapons before being dispatched in mixed and single-sex units.

…..

At first the Turkish Army did not take the women rebels, who have been part of the PKK’s armed struggle since it was begun in 1984, seriously.

“Then they realised that the women are as tough if not tougher than the men,” said Ms Surbuz, an attractive woman with short, bobbed, brown hair.

“After this the soldiers stopped distinguishing between the male and the female fighters. I think they are now more afraid of the women because the women are more disciplined and they will never surrender.”

“We will either kill or be killed,” she added. “For me it is freedom, success or death. It is simple.”

…..

Ms Sterk, 34, a member of the commune’s management committee and the only woman on the base without experience as a fighter, said that she was imprisoned for four years because the Turkish authorities wrongly suspected her of being a member of the PKK. She was never prosecuted.

“After my release I joined up,” she said, noting that she wanted to help women to maximise their potential, as well as fight for the rights for Kurds in general.

“A woman should be able to share her power and trust herself to have the strength to do whatever she wants,” said Ms Sterk, who used to work at a state-run orphanage in Turkey while studying at university.

Scattering up the mountain face after the airstrike warning — the threat later turned out to be of a possible shelling from Iran, which is also fighting Kurdish rebels — the women left all belongings behind apart from their weapons.

“This is how we live,” Ms Sterk said as she apologetically ushered The Times away from the camp. “I must go to a safer place, but I am not scared.”

Hands Off the People of Kurdistan!

The piece of walking talking garbage otherwise know as Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells should be sacked:

Foreign Office minister Kim Howells has called for Britain and Saudi Arabia to work more closely together, despite their differences.

Mr Howells told a conference ahead of a state visit by Saudi leader King Abdullah that the two states could unite around their “shared values”.

Which shared values are these?

The Socialist Youth Network are holding a cocktail party for his most serene and regal Majesty this week–the lasses have promised to bring suitable male guardians with them and they will be sure to leave their passports at home.

Protest the Saudi state visit!

Wednesday 31st October, 6pm - 8pm

Saudi Embassy, 30-32 Charles Street, W1J 5DZ (next to Green Park station)

Speakers: Yahya al-Alfaifi (Saudi trade unionist), Katy Clark MP, John McDonnell MP, Marsha-Jane Thompson (SYN Co-Chair), Sandy Mitchell (former British prisoner in Saudi Arabia), Murad Qureshi AM, Peter Tatchell

See map here

SYN is organising a demonstration against the Saudi dictator Abdullah al Saud who is on a state visit to Britain at the invitation of the Government between 30th October - 1st November.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most repressive dictatorships on earth. There are no political parties, free elections, trade unions or independent media. Human rights abuses are rampant–including torture, floggings, amputations and public execution. Women are deprived of their most basic rights while gays face the prospect of death.

The British Government continues to prop up this regime at the behest of the oil and defence industry while hypocritically preaching about democracy and human rights abuses abroad.

Join the demonstration and make clear that British support for this vile dictatorship will no longer be tolerated!

The Register reports:

Scientists have dredged up the oldest known living creature and have called it Ming.

According to reports, the 405-year-old clam (for it is that kind of mollusc) has not been named for the ex-leader of the Liberal Democrats, but for the Ming Dynasty which ruled China when it was young. The clam is so old that during its youth Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne and Shakespeare was penning his famous works.

The ocean quahog clam was dredged up off the coast of Iceland, and researchers calculated its age by counting the rings on its shell.

…..

Sadly, since being discovered by science, Ming has popped its clogs. We can conclude from this that to live a long and healthy life, it would be advisable for a person to avoid being sliced in two by someone intent on counting one’s rings.

Shahid Malik, MP for Dewsbury and Minister for International Development, has been stopped–not for the first time–and searched for explosives by the Department of Homeland Security at Dulles airport in Washington DC.

The international development minister was stopped and searched at Washington DC’s Dulles airport after a series of meetings on tackling terrorism.

Mr Malik, MP for Dewsbury, West Yorks, had his hand luggage checked for explosives when returning to Heathrow.

He said the same thing happened to him at JFK airport in New York last year.

On that occasion he had been a keynote speaker at an event organised by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), alongside the FBI and Muslim organisations, to talk about tackling extremism and defeating terrorism.

‘Uhh Cletus, I thought them there moslem ministers was called imams–sounds suspicious, better get out the rubber  gloves.’

The first part of John Ware’s documentary on Iraq has just been screened. It was wholly damning on the lack of American planning for post-war Iraq. There is a summary here.

It wasn’t a comfort blanket for the conspiracy theorists or for those calling for the removal  of troops either. The programme made it clear that American policy was not long-term occupation, but rapid withdrawal and that that was part of the problem. Iraq required greater troop numbers and a long term commitment. The programme’s entire focus was on the lack of preparation for a post-war settlement and it certainly didn’t apologise for the state of Iraq under Saddam. Instead, it detailed the crucial underestimation of the legacy of 36 years of tyranny and the impact of war and sanctions.

The British government does not come out of it unscathed. The historian Charles Tripp repeats his concerns raised in his earlier article in the London Review of Books about the alternative power structures that underpin the insurgency that, “Blair seemed wholly uninterested in Iraq as a complex and puzzling political society, wanting confirmation merely that deposing Saddam Hussein would remove ‘evil’ from the country“. The problem with his disdain is that Saddam’s Iraq was undoubtedly an evil, however, for me, the issue was always going to be the way it should be removed, not the desirability of regime change itself, which was undeniable. Strong principles need to be supported by detailed knowledge and planning if they are to prevail.

My main reservations about the programme so far are that it has not included any Iraqi voices, nor has it mentioned the place where it went right, Kurdistan. The contrast between the Kurdish areas and the main centres of insurgency would seem to be important in understanding the nature of the crisis. (See too Bartle Bull’s more optimistic assessment in the October issue of Prospect). This is the crux of how the media reports Iraq. Peter Beaumont has written in the Observer of the two Iraqs - one a realm of ordinary life with a hunger for democracy and stability, the other a theatre for a bloody power struggle. To focus on either one at the expense of the other is to provide an incomplete picture.

Overall, the image of the supreme incompetence of the American administration, described in the programme as “dysfunctional“, is overwhelming and reminds me of the source of my own misgivings at the time.  The second programme is tomorrow and we will see what it says. I sincerely hope that for all the failings that it does not abandon the democratising project and instead urges what many of the contributors to this blog advocate, full support to the Iraqi left and the institutions of civil society, such as trade unions, that are fighting to recover from the crisis and rebuild an Iraq worth having.