Would you support a Kurdish state?

[sasquatch]

Poll question: Would you support a Kurdish state?

When people talk about Iraq and democracy everyone say's it would be an islamic republic and to hell with democracy. I disagree if we did bring democracy in Iraq it would break into three seperate states. A Kurdish state, a Shia state and a Sunni state. I think we should support a Kurdish state but the question is how do you feel about that?

[IranianDemocrat]

1. HELL NO!

Do you know anything about the kurds? If they had their own country it would be Afghanistan II- a new haven for terorrists. The Kurdistan Workers Party would get control of the government and work for the toppling of the Turkish, Iranian, and Iraqi governments.

[sasquatch]

6. That could be a good thing except for Turkey

To get back at the torture that they put those people through.

[Darranar]

19. Just like a Palestinian state?

You seem to have a very low opinion of a people's right to determine their own fate.

[IranianDemocrat]

22. It's so easy for you to say.

I have dealt with Kurds firsthand, I don't trust any of them.

[sasquatch]

29. I take it you were in the Iranian army?

Please don't take offense to that question. I know good American citizens that were caught up in the Iraq/Iran war. You still hate the Kurds because they didn't like whom you had to fight for. Please don't hold it against them.

[dutchdemocrat]

38. I have dealt with Iranians first hand

I have dealt with "Iranians" first hand and don't trust them.

Insert "Jews" "Blacks" "Hindus" "Women" "Whites" "Chinks" "Communists" "Gays"

Get the point?

[sasquatch]

42. And DutchDemocrat knocks it out of the park

:bounce: Good work Dutch

[Julien Sorel]

48. I have a good friend who's a Kurd.

I would literally trust him with my life, and have come close to doing just that a couple of times. Your statement is incredibly insulting.

[radwriter0555]

45. Why is it our/mine/your (no offense) BUSINESS?

Leave them alone. Let them, and all the other middle east countries ALONE.

[Boudicea]

2. I support the Iraqis running Iraq and us staying the hell

out of it.

[sasquatch]

7. Me too

I'd just want to give weapons to the Kurds to protect them from the Turks though.

[HEyHEY]

3. I say give them Prince Edward Island

Truly, I do not know, I would have to do some reading first

[dutchdemocrat]

39. Are you a Newfie by Chance?

Picking on someone else 'for a change'?

Lol.

:)

[FlashHarry]

4. Well, considering Iraq is a European construct...

I'd say the Kurds probably do deserve their own state. Whether or not that is geopolitically feasible at this time, is another question entirely.

BTW, was Iraq a result of the Sykes Picot treaty? I'm just guessing. Usually, when you see straight lines on a map of Africa or the Middle East, you know it was drawn by European politicians with no regard given to tribal geography. (C.f. The Yoruba, Ibo and Hausa tribes encompassed by Nigeria.)

[IndianaGreen]

25. Israel is also an European construct

created by the illegal immigration of thousands of Europeans into Palestine. Using your logic, we should also do away with Israel and erase it from the face of the Earth.

The people of Iraq don't want their country divided in a British "divide and conquer" colonial scheme, and neither should we.

[KittyWampus]

36. If Kurds Want Their Own State- And They Are Iraqis

then how can you make this statement?

"the people of Iraq don't want their country divided"

Apparently SOME of the Iraqis DO want a seperate country...

And it seems you're using this situation to express your idealogical distaste for British Colonial expansionism...

How about looking at each situaiton as unique?

[Mairead]

40. So why exactly do the Jews deserve a state but the Kurds don't?

Or were you being ironic and I missed it?

Kurdistan has been around as an ethnic entity for quite some time. The great Salah ed-Din was a Kurd.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

49. There should be

an Israeli state...

a Palestinian state

a Kurdish state

and

a Tibetan state....

[JohnKleeb]

50. I agree with you completely

[_Jumper_]

5. No

Doing so what be a diplomatic nightmare. Not only would it anger Turkey and Iran, it would also ostensibly lend credence to the claims of many in the Muslim world who thought the war was a war that had dismembering Iraq as one of its chief objectives.

[sasquatch]

9. Who cares about the war's objective

It was purely about oil and they and everyone else in the world knows that now. Including the american sheeple.

[_Jumper_]

10. We have to minimize the damage done by the war

If it is perceived as just about oil that is much better than it being considered about oil and a war to dismember an Arab country for Israel.

[sasquatch]

13. Let's just apologize and leave then

[JohnKleeb]

8. I am unsure

I am not really knowledgable in this area.

[sasquatch]

14. But you're the Sasquatch genius of the day award winner.

This should be right up your alley;)

[JohnKleeb]

26. but thats baseball not Kurds

Now if it was about Northern Ireland.
*clears throat and yells in best Irish voice* BRITS OUT

[sasquatch]

28. I agree with that too

(put's on teutonic warrior clothes and clears throat to do his best German accent) I SIDE WITH HIM:P ;-)

[JohnKleeb]

30. heh yea

Ya frigging Kraut j/k.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

11. I had to vote 'other' because

although I believe the Kurds should have the right to self-determination, I realize the reality that you just can't undo history. And the best hope for the future of our world -- is certainly not a return to tribalism.

[JohnKleeb]

12. same as I, now whos the third

[Zynx]

15. No.

That would be a monumental policy fuckup. I can't imagine all of the problems that would cause. Please don't make this thing a bigger disaster than it already is.

[Breezy du Nord]

16. Isn't that exactly what Israel was?

And look how bad that turned out.

[sasquatch]

17. It turned bad because of American Christian and Jewish zionist

They think of Arab people as primitive beast that needed to be killed off. If we would stay out of it there wouldn't be any long term problems.

[cprise]

37. Let's turn Mississippi into Black Nation

That will take the pressure off all the blacks and the whites in the country, and then US and BN will have international peace. Uh, huh...

No Thank You. This is racial thinking at its most misleading and foolish. It's 1920s progressivism, which is to say sh!tty progressivism.

Hopefully the Kurds will have to work out their troubles and feelings of persecution inside a larger democratic framework.

[sasquatch]

43. That would be Trent Lott's hell

Gee did you think Nazi Grmany should've occupied France to keep it from beng a french only republic.

[dutchdemocrat]

52. It's not racial (I pray you don't use the word 'racialist').

It's ethnic... and it seems you living in America have no concept in your 'melting pot' - or of what it is like to have a history that goes back thousands of years. Yes thousands.

Do yourself a favour and do some travelling overseas one day. You might learn something. And wear a Canadian flag on your luggage.

[JohnKleeb]

53. DD I am a American but I remember my ethnicites

Remembering where you "came from" is instrumental in my liberalism, as a result I am not hostile to immigrants.

[Darranar]

18. YES!

THEY HAVE BEEN OPPRESSED! GIVE THEM A STATE!

[IndianaGreen]

20. Who are we to tell the people of Iraq what their choices ought to be?

The people of Iraq are united in their struggle for independence from American colonial occupation.

The question of a Kurdish state is laughable for such a state would include a good chunk of Turkey and Iran.

I will not support the Balkanization of Iraq, particularly when it becomes a desperate attempt by the neocons to regain control over a country they have no business in occupying.

[DuctapeFatwa]

21. There IS a Kurdish state, has been for millennia, I support recognizing it

A state is more than a piece of paper signed by some rich old fart in Washington.

[sasquatch]

24. Very true all people should keep hope alive!

Hell look at the Cubs fans:P

[Kamika]

23. absolutely not

What you guys need to realize is that a kurdish state would be one part from iraq, one part from iran and one part from turkey.

You realize the problems that would create?

[sasquatch]

27. You don't seem to get it

It would just be in Iraq. If they tried to expand it we would cut off ties with them.

[Kamika]

31. oh a nice little conflict we would have started

You really think the kurds would be happy with only one part of their country? no it would be like pakistan and india over kashmir , and im sure turkey and iran would be SOO happy with us helping the kurds establish the base

[sasquatch]

33. No, They started!

Look everyone supports Israil just not the atrocities they commit on thier niehbors. The same will be with Kurdistan if we do it right.

[dutchdemocrat]

32. The Kurds deserve a homeland.

Kurds from all other nations would flock there and the pressure would be off, especially in Turkey... They were left out when the British carved out the region and are the largest ethnic group in the world without a place to call their own (note that Israel).

[sasquatch]

34. Thank you for understanding.

[cprise]

35. And building yet another state based on ethnicity

...just piles more racism and sectarianism onto the international political scene.

An Iraqi province in that general region is a far better idea. Let their elected representatives wrestle with the rest of Iraq. Even if they are 'opressed', they will still have some local control.

[sasquatch]

41. it doesn't have to be based on ethnicity

it could welcome all it would just be called Kurdistan

[Mairead]

44. Israel *isn't* based on ethnicity, it's based on *religion*

and that's the problem (not least for the actual Semitic Jews, who are a deprecated minority precisely because of their ethnicity). Kurdistan would be based on ethnic identity, which is also the basis for all European states.

[Kamika]

46. some argues israel is ethnicity based

I have a friend in israel who is very secular, she is in no way religious, still she sees herself as a jew. She argues that after ww judaism became a ethnicity. And i tend to agree on that.

[Mairead]

51. Secular shmecular...it's a religious state because whether you're accepted

as a Jew depends on a religious rule, not on whether you're observant. If your friend had been born to a non-Jewish mum and Jewish dad, she'd be a non-Jew as far as Israel's concerned. Whereas she could be of any ethnicity at all, as long as she meets the 'Jew' test.

Uri Avnery, in one of his columns, noted with scorn that some rabbi had recruited some converts from a South American aboriginal village and got Israel to sponsor their immigration and give them the full benefits due to Jews.

[Nikia]

47. I don't know

I have studied international politics and history and am unsure if this is a good idea or not. Borders of many countries in the Mideast and Africa were drawn by the European powers, not by ethnicity or any other local distinctions. It is not to say that people of varying ethnicities cannot learn to live in peace and should. If the Kurds want their own country and the other countries involved are agreeable to this with reciprocal immigration of affected people, there should be a Kurdish state. If the countries involved will go to war over this or terrorism will result or if Kurds outside the terrority will be excluded or if other ethnicites inside the terrority will be persecuted, a Kurdish state could be a diplomatic nightmare. There is also the issue of which peoples deserve their own state. There are many other peoples who want their own state. There are also those who are comfortable living as a minority in other states or at least see it as less problematic than having their own state. Then we have the U.S., a multi ethnic state united by somewhat common ideals.