CPTnet
29
January 2012
IRAQ: Boom,
boom, boom bangs the war drum
By Pat
Thompson
We have
learned that some of our reporting on the conflict here in Kurdistan could be
used to justify military action against Iran.
Our team in recent months has included Canadian,
European, Kurdish, and U.S. members. From our CPT family and from world news,
we are aware that no one beats the drum of war louder and with such zeal as the
U.S. media and their allies, including Israel and certain members of the European
Union.
We do not
wish to be a part of this.
The
war-mongers claim, “They are terrorists. They may have nuclear weapons. We will
not buy their oil. We will not talk to them. We will not sell to them, until
they stop building nuclear weapons”. Sanctions have been imposed. Banks
have been restricted. Iran is under an imposed lock down.
At least
this is what we are told. Governments and their media tell us it is “right” to
impose economic sanctions, and it is “right” to use military action against a
“rogue” state which refuses to bow to their demands.
As if any
society has a monopoly on morality and the right to police the rest of the
world.
But who
is it that suffers? The Iranian Government with its control of the nation’s wealth?
No. It is, and always has been, the ethnically and religiously diverse people
of Iran. The West knows this and calls it acceptable, hoping that this
suffering will lead the people to pressure their government to change course.
Yet we know that the Iranian government, like western governments, does not always
answer to its people.
This is
affirmed by our brother and teammate Ramyar, an Iranian Kurd. Ramyar has been
in Iraq for six years during which he has been a friend, partner, and now an
intern with CPT. He has told us stories of his home, his land, his people, and
their customs, food, and music. He has also shared about the political system, and
his opposition to a heavily conservative form of Islam imposed on the once more
liberal country. He shared the history of how the Russian, British, and U.S.
empires have undermined the prosperity of Iran over the past 150 years.
Most movingly,
he has talked about his family, his mother and father, his sisters and brothers,
some of whom we have been blessed to meet in person despite the invisible walls
of state borders that separate him from them. When we decide to impose economic
or financial or military sanctions on Iran, we decide to make Ramyar’s family
suffer.
The CPT
Iraqi Kurdistan team, including Ramyar as a cherished member, opposes ALL
violence. We oppose the violence committed against the Kurdish people by the
Turkish, Iranian, and Arabic nations, as well as the political and economic
violence committed by the western nations. We also oppose the violence of war
mongering, of beating the war drum, of claiming the “right” to police the world.
CPT Iraqi
Kurdistan opposes all military action against Iran.