Turkey, Erdogan, Andrew Brunson, Fethullah Gulen and the Kurds

 

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the man of the week, something which may give him an air of importance, but this time it is for all the wrong reasons. First indignity comes with President Erdoğan having American Pastor Andrew Brunson arrested on charges of his being a “national security risk” for unspecified involvement in “terrorism” after his having resided in Turkey for the last twenty years plus doing Heaven’s work. This arrest came about three months after the July 15, 2016, coup and soon after initial attempts and other threats failed in having former Erdoğan friend, the man who assisted placing Erdoğan in power, now the presumed coup organizer and Muslim cleric with thousands of religious followers, Fethullah Gulen extradited. Now Turkey’s President Erdoğan has made, kind of informal, formal offer, to trade holy man for holy man. The Turkish elite power structure has made it rather obvious that once they have Fethullah Gulen that his life will have become uninsurable, as the only formality left will be the date of his execution.

 

Forgetting the obvious sham charges made against Pastor Brunson and the sickening stench of Erdoğan’s offer, what about the coup charges against Fethullah Gulen. There were a number of items troubling about the coup which we saw as we observed the unfurling of events. One of the most unexplainable was the fact that a pilot presumably with the coup was in his fighter and followed the president’s passenger executive jet for forty-five minutes without shooting a single shot or rocket to try and down the unescorted craft despite knowing that President Erdoğan was traveling on the craft. He never made any demand for the plane carrying the target of the coup to land at an airbase controlled by the coup organizers or take any action other than to notify the coup command that he was following the aircraft with the President confirmed to be onboard. The coup did not close down broadcast facilities, did not take over command and control facilities leaving them for the military to all but immediately put down the coup attempt. Deaths were higher after the coupe ended when rounding up and arresting thousands of people from government and military from lists which were reportedly prepared weeks before the coup attempt. Everything about this coup smelled of an amateurish set-up by the government under the orders of Erdoğan in order to arrest and remove political opposition before an upcoming election, or in this case, to smooth the path for a Constitutional Referendum which presented the President, which is Erdoğan, with unprecedented powers and permits him a path with an office from which he would become a virtual dictator. The coup removed virtually all opposition to the Constitutional changes.

 

Meanwhile, the Muslim Cleric Fethullah Gulen is in his mid-seventies, partially disabled, resides in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania in the area of the Pocono Mountains north-northwest of Philadelphia and a well known retirement area. Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania is not exactly the best place from which to run a coup in Turkey. First thing is the distance from Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania to Ankara, Turkey, the capital city, is 5,258 miles. Second, Gulen was initially one of the people who allied with Erdoğan initially putting him initially into power in 2002 or 2003 and never challenged him or had his party opposing Erdoğan’s rule. Where Erdoğan came to the conclusion that it was necessary to eliminate Gulen, a retired cleric with no political ambitions that are known, is beyond reason or explanation. Taking Erdoğan’s desires for Gulen’s death as a given, then the arrest of American Pastor Andrew Brunson was simply a matter of being the person available in the wrong place at an inconvenient time. How long this trade has been in the offering is unknown. What is known is that the entire offer for an exchange of an innocent American Pastor for Gulen is an offensive offer while knowing that Erdoğan intends to have Gulen tried, convicted and executed all nice and neat and filled with legal appearance all in a public forum with witnesses and formal charges all already scripted. But Erdoğan’s perfidy does not end with Gulen, and nor does the world’s.

 

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Muslim Cleric Fethullah Gulen

 

Let us look at the recent declaration by the Iraqi Kurdish population. In a referendum where 72% of the population voted and 92% voted to declare independence which computes to 66.24% of the total population even if everyone who did not bother to vote would have voted against, a highly unlikely scenario. So, it is not improbable or an exaggeration to claim that over two-thirds of Kurds in Iraq would prefer living in their own nation. Such an idea should not be difficult, as they had been promised the reconstituting of Kurdistan after World War I for their assisting the allies against their Ottoman enemies. The valor shown by the Kurds against the Ottoman-Turks is part of the reason for the enmity between the two peoples. When the Sykes-Picot Treaty was enacted and the nations drawn up after World War I and colonized instead of by the Ottomans who had ruled the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) for over six-hundred years and by the Caliphate of the Arabs for five hundred years before that, simply put, there were many, many tribes and peoples who after being colonized, conquered by the Romans and the Greeks before that and earlier by Persia and previous to that Babylon who were really hoping their nations would return as the Europeans had promised. The Arabs also had dreams of having their Caliphate returned, as they had believed it had been usurped by the Ottomans. These tribes were cheated by the colonization by the Europeans and then cheated when the Europeans retreated and in virtually every case, they returned rule over to the Arabs ignoring the claims of the tribal indigenous peoples. Amongst the tribes were the Jewish People, Kurdish People, Berber Tribes, Druze Tribes, Bedouins, Nubians, Arameans, Phoenician-Carthaginians, Egyptians and numerous other tribes. Of these peoples, a few were promised their own lands amongst which are the Jews who reestablished their state of Israel on May 15, 1948, and the Kurds who were amongst those disenfranchised by the Sykes-Picot Treaty.

 

So far, the referendum by the Kurdish was opposed by Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, most of the European states and the United States State Department. The reason Iraq is against the referendum is obvious as these Kurds who were responsible for the referendum are all from the Autonomous Kurdish Region of Iraq. Their autonomous region has been pretty much ignored by the Iraqi government which spent little to no funds in support of either the Kurdish region, the Sunni central region or even to assist and save the Yazidi when they were trapped by the Islamic State (ISIS at that time) who had transmitted videos of their torture of many Yazidis and worse to their young women and the sole people in the world who assisted these Yazidi tribespeople were the Kurdish Peshmerga Militias who did a herculean effort to channel the trapped people to safety and have cared for these people as well as taking in many Sunni women and children who also were escaping from the Islamic State which conquered large areas of central Iraq. The Iraqi central government barely rules anywhere in Iraq outside the Shiite southern region and have only projected force into the central area since the Kurdish Peshmerga Militias initially stopped the Islamic State and pushed them back opening the way for the push to retake Mosul where the Kurdish forces were critical in the effort. Now that they have held this historic referendum, though having declared that they have not planned any action, are being threatened and demanded by the Iraq government to close all airports and surrender their borders to Iraqi forces. Basically, the Iraq government is demanding the Kurds simply surrender the lands and freedoms they have had, defended, protected and liberated from Islamic State regions all because they had a nonbinding referendum to measure the desires of their own people and had made no effort to enact or change their status. This attempt to cow them and make them knuckle under to a show of force and demands that they now forget their autonomy which they have enjoyed for the last decade plus, it just may end up backfiring forcing the Kurdish to decide to take the necessary steps to declare their independence.

 

Threats from Turkish President Erdoğan has also threatened the Kurds with closing their borders, ending the lucrative flow of oil from the Mosul oil fields through Turkey, and other moves to deter and intimidate the Kurds in efforts to dissuade the Kurdish Autonomous Region from declaring their independence. There have been rumored threats in Turkey against their own Kurdish population should the Iraqi Kurdish region declare their independence from Iraq. Iran also has a Kurdish population plus there is a somewhat autonomous region of Kurds in Syria which, with some assistance from their Iraqi brothers and sisters, stopped the Islamic State drive towards the Turkish border. Somewhat less known, was that much of the Turkish efforts which were claimed to be against the Islamic State actually targeted the Kurdish regions of northeastern Syria. This reached a point of serious challenge to the Kurdish efforts against the Islamic State that President Trump had to threaten President Erdoğan if he continued to refuse to end his offensive against the Kurdish forces. That proved to be sufficient to bring to an end these attacks but one could imagine Turkey, especially with Erdoğan as their President, attacking not only his Kurdish population and those in Syria but even entering Iraq and attacking the Kurdish there as well, something that there were reports of Turkey crossing into Iraq to target Kurdish forces.

 

So, have there been any bright spots in the Kurdish story of their overwhelming voting for independence? Well, after having to refute the charges by Turkish President Erdoğan that the Israeli Mossad interfered in the Kurdish referendum, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stated Israel supports the establishment of a Kurdish state. Iraq’s Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani thanked the Israeli leader while repeating that the Kurds were not considering independence at this time. The remainder of the world has been either quiet or softly outspoken against the Kurdish referendum. The saddest thing was the United States refusing to back the Kurdish who has an operating democracy with many of the same freedoms prized by the people of the United States and share outlooks and efforts concerning the Islamic State and anti-terror operations in Syria and Iraq. We have stated before and proudly state once again that we favor the establishment of the nation of Kurdistan to include all the Kurdish regions willing to live under a democratic state based on individual rights, individual freedoms and an open capitalist economic model. The Iraqi Kurdish Autonomous Region has ruled such a region and respected the freedom of their people and shown great humanity which was most on display in their heroic actions in assisting the Yazidis who were trapped by the Islamic State and faced complete annihilation had nobody come to their aid. While the world rubbed their hands while doing little, the Kurdish Autonomous Region’s Peshmerga Militias that took steps and forced a wedge into the front lines opening an escape route for the Yazidis and then took in thousands of these victims of the Islamic State and has cared for them since. Many Yazidis are now residing within the Kurdish Autonomous Region enjoying their freedoms and likely also were taking part in the referendum. The Kurds are worthy of their own nation and the entirety of the Kurdish people may some day reestablish their homelands. In the meantime, should the Kurdish establish their independence they will face many of the challenges which Israel has faced in the past and to this day but can be assured that they will have a friend in Israel. We wish the Kurdish People the best and success in whatever their efforts in the future.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Kurdistan Will Become the New Israel

 

The speed with which the Kurdish referendum turned the Kurds into the new Jews and the idea of Kurdistan into the idea on November 30, 1947 by the United Nations to allow the Jews to have their state, if they could keep it, was predictable but still impressive. Just as in 1947, the Iraqi, Iranian, Syrian and Turkish leaders all threatening to destroy the Jewish State of Israel, even before its declaration; these same governments have threatened to blockade, invade and starve the Kurdish State even before it has been declared. We already have heard the term “disputed territories” as a reference to the potential Kurdish regions accompanying the threats to the region and the Kurdish People. The Iraqi government in Baghdad has already demanded the Kurds surrender their airports and borders to Baghdad and Turkey has threatened to close the border should the Kurds declare their nationhood. This threat to block all trade made despite the small item that the Turkish government makes a fair amount of profit from the oil pipeline which takes the crude from the Kurdish oil fields to Europe. We predict that should the Kurds succeed in declaring their freedom, the Turkish government will, at the very least, continue permitting the oil to flow and the money as well. That brings us to the next problem, what happens should the Kurds declare their independence from Baghdad.

 

There is one reality which the referendum revealed loudly and clearly, the Kurds will be declaring their independence, the only real question being how soon. Falah Mustafa Bakir, Head of Department of Foreign Relations for Kurdistan Regional Government, has stated he does not regret holding the referendum and has stated he would prefer to have negotiations with Baghdad and not start a confrontation. Bakir told Foreign Policy, “There is always the carrot and the stick. But they (Baghdad) have forgotten about the carrot. They know only the stick.” There is a lot that the Kurds could learn by simply looking to history, almost any history involving the Arabs and other people and remember two very important facts, that the Turkmen and the Iranians have been Arabized and share the Arab psyche when it comes to war or anything which opposes them. They both, along with the Arabs, all believe in Caliphate and the supremacy of their efforts in war and destiny as foretold in the Quran and thusly promised by Allah that all their lands will forever remain theirs and efforts to reclaim stolen lands are blessed and guaranteed. This is the reason they now believe they are about to go beyond the cusp and conquer all of Europe and will never end their war to destroy all of the Jewish State, Israel, and would never end efforts to destroy the Kurdish State once they should declare their independence. The Kurdish saving grace is their Peshmerga Militia just as the saving grace for Israel at the founding of the Jewish State was the disparate fighters who resisted British rule and became the initial Israeli Defense Force (IDF).

 

The Kurds have made the first mistake in delaying declaring their independence. The longer they postpone their declaration, the lower their opportunities will become, as their lands will be taken over piece by piece by Arabs settling. They will relocate Kurdish villages and replace them with Arab inhabitants one after the other bringing in more Arabs from every Arab nation, from Iraq, from Egypt, from Syria until there is no distinct Kurdish region in Iraq and that will end any opportunity for Kurdish independence. What the Arabs will do to the Kurdish region will be exactly what Saddam Hussein did to the Kurds from Kirkuk and Mosul. This is the reality the Kurdish people will face if they refuse to act definitively and immediately. Their only hope is their community and that is what will be destroyed while they talk, and the Arabs will talk and talk as they destroy the Kurdish People just as the Palestinian Arabs, a construct who are actually simply Arabs from Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and various other Arab nations, will never give up until the State of Israel is destroyed and the Jewish People are destroyed, made to live a slavish life under the thumb of the Arabs who consider themselves superior to all others. The Kurdish People have two hopes, declaring Kurdistan now and forever and the Peshmerga Militias which proved worthy enough to bring ISIS spreading across the lands to an end and then push them back and open the gates to Mosul aiding in their defeat there. The Kurdish People believe in their Kurdistan and need to actually do exactly what the Arabs, Iranian and Turks fear most, declare the Greater Kurdistan for all the Kurdish People. Below is our idea for a proposed Kurdistan which simply takes parts of Syria and Iraq leaving Turkey alone with its current borders.

 

Our Idea for a Proposed Kurdistan

 

The Kurds of Syria need to request to join their fellow Kurds and can do so by holding their own independence referendum as soon as they can arrange such. They then formally request to join their lands with the Kurdish regions of Iraq and promise to accept whatever style of government the Iraqi Kurds propose surrendering their ideas of a socialist state under a strong leader who would inevitably become a dictator which has proven time and again around the world to lead to disaster, just as President Trump stated loudly at the United Nations in his General Assembly speech where he stated,

”The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented. From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure. Those who preach the tenets of these discredited ideologies only contribute to the continued suffering of the people who live under these cruel systems.”

The entire of the Kurdish People must be one which means permitting the Kurds of Turkey who desire to live under the rule of their own people and government to be permitted to immigrate to the new lands of Kurdistan. This would end the separative movements within Turkey as the Kurds desiring not to live under Erdogan and Turkish rule would have an option and Turkey would benefit in no longer having a restive and resisting people within their borders. The Kurds would benefit by having their own lands and rule. The Middle East would gain as an entire people would now no longer reside under the false borders imposed by the Europeans, namely the French and British who imposed the Sykes-Picot Treaty in order to make the Middle East unable to be ruled by any governance other than an oppressive rule. The establishing of Kurdistan could be the first step in a complete redrawing of the Middle East according to tribal and religious alliances making for more opportunity for harmony and potentially an economic revival and a brighter future for all in the Middle East and perhaps beyond. A Kurdistan could be the first step to redrawing the lines ending decades of stagnation and oppression. The leadership will oppose any change, as that would end their power. Either eventually the separate tribal and religious factions will gain their independence or there will be eternal struggles and warfare leaving the entirety of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) economically backwards, politically backwards, and societally disrupted with continued oppressions and constant upheaval and revolts.

 

Map of the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

 

The current examples of what the Sykes-Picot Agreement has wrought are Syria and Iraq. Syria has all but dissolved and will likely and unfortunately be returned largely to the rule of Bashir al-Assad thanks largely to Iran and an assist from Russian air-power. Iraq is also a partially dissolved state reliant upon Iran if it is to restore rule from Baghdad. The establishing of the nation of Kurdistan would free parts of both Syria and Iraq from oppressive rulers. Perhaps it might lead to dividing Iraq and Syria into their differing sectors by Shia and Sunni establishing nations who share religious beliefs and values. Of course, such a plan would only work providing the Sunni and Shia could decide to let go of their centuries old enmity. Whatever the future of the Middle East, if the Kurds desire to remain a people and preserve their culture, their only hope is to form a single nation incorporating the majority of their people residing in the immediate region and defending their lands with such vigor as to make all wary of engaging them in the future. The sad thing is it will more than likely require them defending their nations, once declared, from an immediate attack, if history is any lesson. The sooner they start, the better the outlook as time will result in a weakening of their position just as the not allowing Israel to be established immediately after the San Remo Conference and Treaty of Sèvres instead of waiting a quarter century allowing hundreds of thousands of Arabs to be settled within the borders set aside for the Jewish State. The Kurds must avoid permitting tens or hundreds of thousands of Arab to be implanted within what they desire as borders or they will face the same kind of terror warfare Israel has faced from even before her founding and right up to the latest attacks which came immediately after Mahmoud Abbas publically called for Days of Rage.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Kurdistan Independence Referendum

 

Day before yesterday, the Kurdish People in Iraq voted in a referendum on whether they desire to declare their independence from Iraq or remain part of a nation which craves their oil but wishes them the worst. The vote was decisively for independence with over ninety percent of the Kurds voting claiming their desire for their own state at long last. As seventy-two percent of eligible Kurds voted, that brings the result to close to two-thirds of all Kurds eligible voting for independence. That is an overwhelming result in anyone’s book but should they act on this they will face Iraqi troops invading and a boycott or worse from Turkey along with a closed border militarily enforced. Iran may also invade in order to quash the movement. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, has ordered the Kurds to hand over control of airports and borders by Friday; the Iraqi parliament passed a thirteen-point resolution Wednesday aimed to chip at Kurdistan autonomy and posing new challenges with some expected threats. Fortunately for the Kurds, their Kurdish Peshmerga Militias who performed so admirably against the ISIS threat will also be the ones defending their freedom should invasions result. The similarities to what Israel faced on May 15, 1948 when declaring Jewish independence and what the Kurds are likely to face is unavoidable, especially when the friendship between the two peoples is taken into account.

 

Despite the fact that the Kurdish are mostly Sunni Muslims as was Saddam Hussein, when he was the dictatorial President of Iraq he regularly used the Kurdish population in military experiments as the subject or target of new weapons or simply for practice. The attack has been chronicled well by Aljazeera English quoted below.

“On the morning of March 16, 1988, Iraqi war planes and artillery pounded the Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq with mustard gas and the deadly nerve agent sarin.
Some 5,000 people – mainly women and children – died on the day, and up to 12,000 have lost their lives since. The method was the same as the Ghouta gas attack in Damascus, on August 21, 2013, just over 25 years later.
In both instances a conventional pre-bombardment – to break windows and doors and to get people underground – was followed by the deadly chemical weapons, sarin and mustard agent.
Heavier than air – and with no windows and doors to stop the “gas” – it found its victims helpless and unprotected in underground cellars and air-raid shelters. These crimes against humanity were then followed up with a conventional bombardment to destroy the evidence.”

The Kurdish Village of Halabja, unfortunately, was far from the only Kurdish village attacked by Saddam Hussein though it was the most well documented and was used heavily in his war crimes trial. Saddam had also regularly had Kurdish farmers strafed while they worked their fields watching from his command craft enjoying the spectacle. And after Saddam was deposed and the United States prematurely abandoned the Kurdish to the new bosses, the Shia in the south were out for a little payback after Saddam Hussein. The best that can be said for the Shia government of Iraq, which is largely controlled by Iranian officers, is that they largely ignore the Kurdish areas other than Mosul from which there comes oil and a command over much of the central and all the northern highways thus controlling the infrastructure of roadways plus the large Mosul Dam and hydroelectric generating plants which produces a significant amount of the total electrical output in Iraq. The dam is also in need of repair without which it is in danger of failure which would cause major flooding and damage in Baghdad as well as Mosul and across the nation all the way to where it feeds the Arabian Gulf.

 

Montage of Saddam Hussein’s Chemical Gas Attack on Kurdish Village of Halabja

 

Since the United States withdrew under orders from President Obama, Mosul was taken over by the Islamic State. They were threatening to destroy the Mosul Dam just because. Did Iran with their military come and free the city or did their puppets in Iraq come with their military or the Sunni militias to free Mosul? They did get credit for doing so in the New York Times who gave the Kurdish Peshmerga Militias bare mention when truth be told, had the Kurdish Peshmerga Militias not cleared the entrance to Mosul and performed much of the heavy lifting, Mosul would have taken far longer to have been retaken, if it had been at all. The Kurdish forces also did a large part of the clearing of the northern half of Mosul of Islamic State fighters who remained hidden trying to merge with the population to attack at a later time when fortunes might be changed. Now the Iraqi government is claiming Mosul largely because Iran desperately desires to control this pivotal and central city. Mosul is at the core of the Kurdish hopes as they believe that Mosul belongs to them as many of the Kurds who were forcably removed under Saddam Hussein have now returned following the defeat of the Islamic State with a large and formidable Kurdish effort. The world owes the Kurds across the region much thanks as it was the Kurdish forces who put an end to the spread of Islamic State when it was known as ISIS and was swallowing up large swaths of central Iraq and Syria defeating every force they encountered until they were pushed to a halt and then backed right out of Kobani, Syria and that proved to be the turning point as after that the Kurdish YPG forces in Syria backed by Peshmerga started the push-back against the Islamic State which also contributed to the retaking of Mosul. Had Kurdish forces not proven that the Islamic State could be beaten, their reputation might have continued winning many battles for them by the Syrian or Iraqi military troops fleeing before their rumored advance. The Kurds are the reason the world is now talking about taking Raqa, the presumed Islamic State capital city.

 

Our Idea for a Proposed Kurdistan

 

What is so very disturbing is that much of the world is not prepared to give the Kurdish their due by backing them should they declare independence. The United States State Department requested the Kurdish officials postpone the vote as it was an inconvenient timing for the State Department and they informed the Kurds that they would get back to them on a better time to schedule their referendum. One can be assured that the State Department would promptly forget that the Kurdish People desired independence and would eventually sell them out to the highest bidder just as the British did after World War I when they reneged on their promise to back the formation of a Kurdish homeland. They succeeded in forcing the Kurds to accept Arab rule in much the same manner as they attempted to do with the Jews as the British also opposed a Jewish State and wanted the Zionists to accept Arab rule or shared rule with the Arabs having the majority vote. Israeli officials defeated the British finally in 1948 and ignored the United States State Department which requested that the Zionists wait until it would be a more convenient time for the State Department to be able to support a Jewish State, better known as never. The Kurds deserve their own state and the recognition of the world as well as their thanks for being the ones who stepped up and started the initial defeat of the Islamic State. The United Nations, United States, NATO, Russia, Iran, Iraq and almost anyone else you care to mention are against Kurdish independence. The Kurds have received support from some of the Sunni Arab villages along their proposed border preferring the Kurds to the Iranian and Iraqi Shiites. There has also been support from Saudi Arabia which is reasonable, as they will prefer anybody over the Iranians who are their enemies. Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria and seemingly the world is against Kurdish independence with one obvious exception, Israel. That is the single supporting state which has quietly provided the Kurds with intelligence, equipment, logistics, weapons and training all in a very clandestine manner.

 

The final item we believe and feel we absolutely need to express, should the Kurds in Iraq declare their independence, we hope that more nations and organizations than just Israel and Saudi Arabia recognize their declaration. Hopefully the fact that Israel and Saudi Arabia recognize the newly formed Kurdistan, assuming the declaration is approved, will prevent any military attempts at intervention by the government in Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus or Ankara. Further, it would be very helpful if the United Nations would at least hold a General Assembly vote supporting the Kurdish independence as soon as possible as it becomes appropriate and have that followed by a Security Council recognition granting them recognition as a state by the United Nations. Finally, the map we posted above would be something for the far future as the current declaration is regarding only the Iraqi Kurds. The border would remain within the current borders of northern Iraq and hopefully move south to include Mosul. The rest of the Kurdish regions would need to be addressed separately and if they were to desire to also vote for independence and desire to merge with the Iraqi Kurds, the first item they would need renounce is their socialist political principles as the Iraqi Kurds have stated their desire for democratic elections and a capitalist free economy. One of the rules of joining an established system is that you must accept that system, not demand it alter to meet your expectations. One thing which is clear, if the Kurds desire to ever gain the recognition from President Trump, the first thing they must not become is a socialist run nation. President Trump kind of made his feelings known concerning anything tinged by socialism during his United Nations speech. Thankfully, the Kurds of Iraq desire a free state and economy unrestricted by the chocking restraints of socialism. All that remains is the final count of their referendum. Obviously, we are hoping they choose to be free and run their own lives and nation, as we now have seen. We can only hope and wish them the best and pray that other free nations will assist the Kurds in their bid for freedom, though as was proven by Israel, friends will be as scarce as hens’ teeth.

 

Beyond the Cusp