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[Previous entry: "Elson Boles in CounterPunch"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Lightening the mood: Nick and Ro"] 24 February 2003: "CounterPunch & Christopher Hitchens"
More brilliance from CounterPunch; Jack McCarthy's "I'll Drink to That". The editorial header reads "Another Ad Hominem Attack on Christopher Hitchens," and that is no more and no less than the truth. "There is already war in this part of Iraq, and on one side stands an elected Kurdish government with a multi-party system, 21 newspapers, four female judges, and a secular constitution."Maybe it is the booze rotting his brain, because the government Hitchens describes is about eight years out of date, and nine shades too rosy. Iraqi Kurdistan saw an attempt at "federal" government 1992 until 1994; it consisted of the two main Iraqi Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) led by Massoud Barzani, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Jalal Talabani. The "federal" government collapsed as the result of a disagreement, which was sparked not in the least place by the fact that the PUK wanted a cut of the money the KDP made (and continues to make) by allowing the smuggling of Iraqi diesel to Turkey, and luxury goods the other way. The result was an internal civil war - Kurds killing Kurds. The US brokered a cease-fire in 1996, but this broke down when the PUK, having received a fresh shipment of weapons from the Iranian government (and possibly some "advisors" as well), went on the offensive around Arbil (also spelt "Irbil" or "Erbil"). The KDP, in response, requested help from none other than Saddam himself, who sent an armoured column to wreck Arbil. In the process, the forward headquarters of the Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella body of Iraqi opposition, was destroyed, and the members of the local CIA field office had to do a runner for the Turkish border. This set back the cause of Iraqi opposition several years. The result has been that the Kurdish autonomous zone is only a "multi-party" state in that it has, since 1994, in effect been two single-party statelets. In the words of a 1997 Economist article: "Northern Iraq is no longer, as it was in the post-Gulf-war years, a centre for actual and potential democratic opposition to the Hussein regime."Little has changed since then. Hitchens again: "In this area of an otherwise wretched and terrified country, oil revenues are spent on schools and roads and hospitals instead of for the upkeep of a parasitic and cruel military oligarchy." The oil revenues Hitchens speaks of are the funds collected by the UN in the "oil-for-food" programme; 20% of these proceeds are set aside for civil works projects in Iraqi Kurdistan. The good works Hitchens describes are being performed by agencies of the United Nations. The main public work the KDP has funded is the repaving of the road to the Turkish border, so as to facilitate the aforementioned smuggling from which it skims a cut of the profits; the other was a football stadium. (source: The Economist, 18-Feb-1999, "The UN's own little Kurdish state") "In my opinion, these brave Kurds and their friends in the Iraqi opposition are fighting and dying on our behalf - and tackling our enemies for us."I concede that McCarthy has a point about Hitchens' drinking habits affecting his work, because this is unadulterated bollocks. The KDP never wanted Saddam toppled or the sanctions lifted; they were too busy making a profit off the smuggling (until the Turkish government sealed the border). And the PUK isn't doing any of the fighting, it wants the US to do it for them; around August last year, Talabani went to DC and announced the US would be welcome to use PUK territory as a base for an attack on Baghdad. He then retracted the offer, then repeated it. But the reason for that is quite simply that the PUK has territorial ambitions, and hopes to capture the city of Kirkuk - and, more importantly, the oilfields surrounding it - on the coat-tails of an American-led invasion (not just "blood for oil" but "somebody else's blood for oil"). Some cynical observers have commented on the remarkable fact that the PUK has been unwilling to take on Ansar al-Islam, despite the fact that the PUK has about 7,000 peshmerga irregulars while Ansar had about 700 members. A ten-to-one numerical superiority and they still won't fight; the usual jokes about the French and the Italians rather pale in comparison. Of course, one of the main reasons for this reticence is that peshmerga commanders fear the Iranians will provide Ansar with artillery support in the event of a peshmerga attack. As a result, the PUK leadership tells every journalist who will listen that Ansar is linked to Al-Qaeda (which may be true to the extent that some of the rank-and-file Al-Qaeda types fleeing Afghanistan may have sought refuge with Ansar, but whether there's more to it is open to serious doubt); the obvious goal being to get someone else to take on Ansar, someone whom the Iranians will be extremely hesitant to fire on. Someone like the US Army, in fact. Thus, the PUK is going out of its way to get the US to fight its enemies, rather than vice-versa. The fact that Hitchens gets this so very wrong rather detracts from some rather accurate observations about the anti-war demonstrators. Still, I suppose in that regard this column parallels the US administration's case against Saddam, i.e. it would be very compelling if it wasn't loaded down with a lot of damaging and unnecessary ballast. So how come the CounterPunchers can't come up with something better than a few ad hominems? I'd advise both Hitchens & McCarthy to get subscriptions to The Economist, but if they all shaped up, where would that leave me? Actually, there's a lady called Athena who hangs out on the same discussion board I do (ThreeWayAction); she had rather a good take on the anti-war protests. There's some lovely pictures on her site, too. Very soothing. Well, there's the ones of demonstrators as well; I have to admit that I feel awfully petty, because the first thing that I noticed, and which irked me the most, is the sign in this picture which has the word "irrelevant" misspelt. |
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