Iraqi Kurds: A Forgotten People

To hear the steady beat of bad news from Iraq, you'd think the whole country is awash in sectarian strife and car bombings. But one part of Iraq has been remarkably peaceful, especially for American troops. The Kurds throughout history have been a rugged warrior race, but they have no beef with democracy or America, and no U.S. forces have been killed or kidnapped in Kurdish areas of Iraq. In fact, 90 percent of the Kurds have a favorable impression of America, a real anomaly in the Arab and Muslim world. A major reason for that is because American forces and their allies did so much to protect the Kurds from the killing wrath of Saddam Hussein, starting a few months after the end of the first Gulf war. The long-time dictator definitely had it in for the Kurds, and if he's executed in the days ahead, one of the major reasons will be for the war crimes he committed against them in the 70s and 80s. That includes gassing, bombing, and killing Kurds by the hundreds of thousands, and chasing hundreds of thousands of others out of their ancient territories. Much of that had to do with oil, because Kurds occupy some of Iraq's most oil-rich regions. The same is true for Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iran; they're sitting on some of the most valuable oil reserves in those three lands. That is why Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran have all so fiercely opposed the idea of a free Kurdistan, carved out of their four nations. It's one of the reasons Kurds have been among the most enthusiastic of voters in post-Saddam Iraq. They believe there's a real chance in a truly democratic Iraq, that they'll be able to divest themselves of Baghdad's control, and continue to at least maintain their status as a fairly autonomous region. Then maybe some day, they could translate that into true freedom, as a prosperous, independent Kurdistan. They'll likely have to do it all on their own, though. The same world that's so adamant in demanding that 10 million Palestinians be given their own homeland, never raises a similar cry for the 30 million Kurds -- by far, the world's largest ethnic minority without a home to call its own.