The Western Misrepresentation of Iraqi Factionalism

If you were inclined to accept what you read in the Western mainstream media (MSM), regarding Iraqi factionalism, you could be forgiven for believing that the Police Commando Death Squads are Shia militiamen from the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades; you could also be forgiven for believing that the death squads operated with the approval of the Interior Ministry and the Shia Alliance; you could also be forgiven for believing that most of the deaths in Iraq were caused by these Shia militias; and you would also be forgiven for thinking that the Kurdish region is relatively free from ethnic conflict and that Kurds play no part in the "insurgency". In the regard the Western MSM is guilty of perpetuating a lie - there is enough information coming out of Iraq for the Western MSM to know this is palpable nonsense.

Firstly, death squads are not limited to one ethnic group or religious sect; all militias are involved in sectarian and ethnic violence, none more so than the Kurdish Pesh Merga. Even prior to the invasion of Iraq, the Kurdish Pesh Merga with the support of the United States had adopted a policy of ethnic cleansing. The United States refers to the policy of supporting friendly death squads in Iraq as "the Salvador option". However, the Western MSM consistently links the Police Commando Death Squads, to the Badr Brigades and the Mahdi army and hints at Iranian involvement, which is exemplified in the New York Times article, "Oil, Politics and Bloodshed Corrupt an Iraqi City", notwithstanding that not evidence has been produced to prove this sectarian assertion. Not even scant regard is given to Sayyed Abdul Aziz Hakim, the leader of the SCIRI, emphatic denial of Badr involvement and accusation that the United States is obstructing the Ministry of the Interior and therefore exacerbating the conflict, made in an interview with the Washington Post. Apparently the Bush administration has more credibility than the senior figure in the Shia alliance and brother of the Shia political leader, Ayatullah Sayyed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim (ra), until his assassination in August 2003, which the United States are widely suspected of having a hand in.

What is notable about the Police Commando Death Squads is that they wear police commando uniforms and balaclavas. Why is this?

Having spoken to many Iraqis, both living in Baghdad and Basra, I am struck by the logical paradox with the Western MSM assertion: neither the Badr Brigades nor the Mahdi Army would have any need to wear the Police Commando Uniforms. They do not need the uniforms to travel incognito; they are able to pass themselves off as Arabs with a greater degree of success than occupation forces, due to the rather obvious fact, that in the main they are! Nor is it a sensible means of concealing their sectarian and political affiliations, given that they are associated with the police commandos. It is far more likely that these death squads are populated by Occupation forces and Kurdish Pesh Merga, both of whom are would need to obscure their faces to conceal their ethnicity, as is evident when the British SAS were caught carrying out an attack on a police station in Basra. Moreover, should the Badr Brigades and Mahdi Army wish to carry out attacks, they have previously always done so openly and not in disguise.

Yet it would suit US foreign policy for the Kurds to be dissociated from both the "insurgency" and inter factional violence (or civil war), a view the Western MSM largely perpetuates, notwithstanding that it is palpable nonsense. The attempt to create a Kurdistan is arguably the greatest obstacle to peaceful resolution to the civil war in Iraq. The Assyrian media publication, AINA describes the present situation thus:

"In the bizarre and twisted reality of Iraq, the indigenous people of Mesopotamia (including Iraq), driven to the brink of extinction by genocide, are today humiliatingly reduced to just "another minority" seeking power. This by the Kurds no less, who have been painted as the victims of the Middle East, instead of genocide deniers and occupiers, which in fact, they are. Thanks to the same Western lobby groups paid by the billions of dollars the Kurds have reaped from northern Iraq's natural resources and border tariffs which they've controlled since the Safe Haven was established. Also thanks to the U.S. Administration and its allies eager to topple Saddam and find in Iraq their "Northern Alliance"."

Hamid Afandi, PDK minister of Pesh Merga affairs describes Kirkuk as the "most important place to Kurdish people", it is also the most important place to the Sunni Arabs and Turks, who are indigenous to the region, since it is an oil rich city. An independent or fully autonomous Kurdistan would be less attractive to foreign investors and Kurds without Kirkuk, yet it is inconceivable that Sunni Arabs would or could concede this territory to the Kurds. Thus Afandi says of Kirkuk and Mosul:

"We'd use the Saddam plan, not America's plan. I would send more than 10,000 peshmerga and we'd destroy them. We'd kill them in the middle of the street and make the people afraid. The U.S. should attack the families of terrorists, and knock down their houses".

The internal Kurdish conflicts are hardly alluded to in the Western MSM, yet this undermines the very concept of a Kurdish region. At present there are effectively two Kurdish regions, one run by Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani and the PUK and the other by the pompously described, Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister, Massoud Barzani and the PDK . The cease fire between these two factions is tentative at best. 1996 during a civil war in the then autonomous Kurdish region, the PDK with the approval of the United States and the assistance of the Iraqi army tried to massacre the more Left Wing PUK. At present, the Kurdish region is essentially two separate corrupt fascist dictatorships.

"Each party set up its own capital and formed its own cabinet, a divided situation that still exists today. The parties control virtually every aspect of Kurdish life.

For the December 15 elections, the two parties were merged together to increase their seats in parliament, and forced the small ones to do so as well. After the Kurdistan Islamic Union, a small party in PDK territory, pulled out of the coalition, their offices in five separate cities were simultaneously shot-up and torched. According to news reports, four Islamic Union party members were killed--two shot in the head." ( "Bush's Hopes in the Hands of Kurdish Gangsters" - The Brooklyn Rail).

The PDK is rarely referred to at all in the Western MSM, with good reason given its sixty year history of genocide, ethnic cleansing, terrorism and organised crime. When it is mentioned it is usually described as a rival Kurdish political movement to the PUK, in truth the PDK is better described as a private militia run Barzani family. Whilst both these political organisations have come to a political accommodation with Iran, particularly the PUK, and no longer seek expansion into Turkish territory, the Kurdish PKK terrorist group that has declared war on Turkey, Syria and Iran maintains bases in the Kurdish region, and is largely allowed to operate unfettered. Moreover, not that you would know it from reports in the Western MSM, al-Qaeda in Iraq (Tawhid and Jihad) is a Kurdish group, as is Ansar al-Islam. Hence the reason that so much of al-Qaeda in Iraq's attacks, target the Kurdish Pesh Merga and the PUK and KDP, including the reprisal for the assassination of al-Zarqawi's. Yet, al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda in Iraq are always identified as an extreme faction in the Sunni insurgency and never as part of the Kurdish insurgency, notwithstanding that there is no relationship between Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Sunni resistance.

Another even more absurd Western MSM distortion is that the United States is seeking to bring an end to factionalism and arrest the current civil war. Nothing could be further from the truth, the United States has actively destabilised the Iraqi government. It was the Occupiers and not the Iraqis electorate that determined the balance of power in the Iraqi election. Both Iraqi national elections have seen the Shia Alliance achieve a majority of the popular vote, something the Labour Party did not come close to doing in the British 2005 election, yet both Shia Alliance administrations have been forced into an unhappy and ultimately futile coalition with other political entities, and have been cobbled by US interference, which has exacerbated instability and sectarian and ethnic conflict.

Notwithstanding the conflicts between SCIRI, Fadhila and Dawa, which are not irresolvable, the Shia Alliance, if allowed and with Iranian support, could at least make the greater part of Iraq governable, rather than just the green zone. Nor is a compromise with the Sunni Arabs insurmountable; in essence, they not unreasonably want an autonomous region that includes Kirkuk and Mosul and an end in sight to the occupation. Yet the United States is hostile to Shia hegemony in the region, preferring to give tacit succour to Kurdish expansionism, whilst not fully supporting it, and blaming Iran for the current state of anarchy in Iraq , when in truth, it is Iran that is preventing all out civil war.