Corrections needed in article about Iraqi Turkmens published in Azzaman

Some corrections needed in the article published in Azzaman:

1) It is incorrect to say that Turkmens are a 'minority' in Iraq. On 28/07/2012 the Iraqi Parliamentarians unanimously recognized and voted that Turkmens are one of the three main ethnic components of Iraq, alongside the Arabs and the Kurds.

2) The following statement is incorrect: "Turkmen are part of large waves of emigration and settlement by Turks during the Ottoman Empire" because The Turkmen presence in Iraq pre-dates the Ottoman rule in Iraq.

The Turkmens came to Iraq from Turkestan (Central Asia) and particularly from today’s Turkmenistan, in successive waves.

The first recorded document of their existence as “Turks” in Iraq was in 632 AD in a peace treaty of “Banuqia”, between the Turkish prince Bozbörü Sülübay and Khalid Bin Walid, mentioned in the book of “Mu’jamul Buldan- Dictionary of the Countries” written by the Muslim historian Yaqut Al-Hamawi who mentioned about the existence of several Turkish principalities in Iraq and emphasized on two of them in central Euphrates called the Banuqlu and Batuqlu which were allied with the Sassanid Persian Empire.

Turks took high positions up to the level of prime ministry in the Sassanid Empire and portrayed the fiercest resistance against the Islamic Arab conquest of Iraq.

The high military capabilities of the Turkish soldiers attracted the attention of the muslim Arabs, so, the Umayyad Arab Empire recruited large numbers of Turkish military experts from Turkestan (Central Asia).
They became highly influential in the army and the administration of the Abbasid Empire which followed the Umayyads.

The Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad asked for the help of Tughrul Beg, the chief of the Seljuk Turks to remove the Persian Buwaihids who dominated Baghdad for a century. In 1055 the Caliph of Bagdad declared Tughrul Beg as a “Sultan” (the master of power) and from that day on, the Turkish era began and the Turks became the rulers of the Middle East.

The Turkish Era in Iraq

The word Turk and Turkmen became synonymous in the Middle East, one means the other.

The Turkmens established 6 states in Iraq:

1- The Seljuk Empire: 1055-1149                                    94 years
2- The Atabegs (of Musul, Erbil and Kerkuk): 1149-1258 109 years
3- The Ilkhans (Mongol and Turkish mix): 1258-1336       78 years
4- The Jalairids (Mongol and Turkish mix): 1336-1360     24 years
5- The Barans (Qara Qoyunlu) : 1360-1469                     109 years
6- The Bayindirs (Aq Qoyunlu): 1469-1508                       39 years

The Safawid Turks of Azerbaijan ruled Iraq:

1508-1534   26 years
1623- 1638  15 years 

Total :                                                                            41 years

Ottoman Turks ruled Iraq until the end of WW1: 

1534-1623      89 years
1638- 1918   280 years
Total:                                                                           369 years

Total Direct Turkish/Turkmen rule:                              863 years

3) It is not true that Turkmens are mostly Shiites. In reality approximately half of the Turkmen community is Shia while the other half is Sunna. It is quite common for Turkmen Shiites and Turkmen Sunna to intermarry.  

Article published in Azzaman: 

Iraqi minority asks for international protection

Azzaman, March 20, 2013

Iraqi Turkmen say they are not being treated properly and equally and have asked the United Nations and the European Union for protection.

In a statement, the head of a coalition grouping the various Iraqi Turkmen factions Arshad al-ٍSalehi said his people in the country were denied equal rights like other sections of the society.

He asked both the U.N. and the E.U. to exert pressure on the regional Kurdish government in the north and the central government in Baghdad to do more for granting equal rights to his minority.

Turkmen are members of a Turkish-speaking minority in Iraq and part of large waves of emigration and settlement by Turks during the Ottoman Empire which ruled the country for nearly 400 years.

Iraqi Turkmen mainly inhabit the oil-rich Province of Kirkuk but they also have large representation in the provinces of Mosul, Diyala and Salahudeen.

“The U.N. and the E.U. are required to pressure the central government (in Baghdad) and the (Kurdish) regional government to guarantee the protection of Turkmen,”said Salehi.

Most Turkmen in Iraq are Shiite-Muslims and their areas have been repeatedly targeted by deadly car bombings and violence by insurgents and members of al-Qaeda group in Iraq.

In Kirkuk, where most of them live, the Turkmen, like other minorities, complain of pressure and marginalization by Kurds who control most of the province through their militias and security forces.

http://www.azzaman.com/english/?p=670

Cancer Birth Defects, Depleted Uranium, 2012, Fallujah, Iraq, Europe FILM

PLEASE SHARE THIS FILM  




https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Uify1FZ5Tic#!

Citizens' campaign to arrest Blair continues

IN THIS ARTICLE THE AUTHOR REFERS TO THE IBC NUMBERS FOR IRAQI DEATHS DUE TO U.S-UK INVASION OF IRAQ

It is a well known fact that the number of Iraqi deaths due to the US - UK invasion and occupation of Iraq is greatly underestimated on Iraq Body Count website.

PLEASE SEE:

Gabriele Zamparini wrote: 'A propaganda train called 'Iraq Body Count' and friends'

IBC is actively helping the Bush junta to carry on this genocidal carnage because it actively helps the huge propaganda campaign aimed at making people ignore the scale of that carnage.
Every time you find an Iraq Body Count counter on the Web, write to the website’s editor and webmaster to inform them and kindly ask them to replace it with the Just Foreign Policy counter
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/156

Citizens' campaign to arrest Blair continues
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/03/20133209727608817.html

Citizens band together to arrest former British prime minister over involvement in Iraq's invasion a decade ago.
Simon Hooper Last Modified: 21 Mar 2013 08:07
ck



Blair's schedule is now a closely guarded secret to avoid protesters who stalk his public appearances [AFP]

London, United Kingdom - It was only as David Cronin saw Tony Blair and his entourage striding towards him that he finally plucked up the courage to go through with his plan to attempt to arrest the former British prime minister over his role in the invasion of Iraq and claim a bounty on his head.

"I walked up to him very briskly and managed to put my hand on his arm and say, 'Mr Blair, this is a citizen's arrest,'" Cronin told Al Jazeera of the 2010 encounter at the European Parliament in Brussels, where he worked as a journalist.

"I didn't have time to say anything else before his bodyguards pushed me away, so I just shouted at him, 'You are guilty of war crimes!' He looked at me for a split-second before I was bundled off. I can only describe it as a look of puzzlement and contempt."


"It's a complete joke that a guy who had helped to start two wars in the wider Middle East region is now swanning around posing as a peace envoy."

- David Cronin, Blair-arrest attemptee

door Marc Vandepitte, Dirk Adriaensens

Wist je dat? Onwaarschijnlijke cijfers over de georganiseerde vernietiging van Irak

De invasie in Irak tien jaar geleden veroorzaakte de ergste humanitaire crisis ter wereld. Het land werd, zoals vooraf was aangekondigd, systematisch vernietigd. De rauwe realiteit overtreft datgene wat je voor mogelijk acht. Niet geschikt voor gevoelige lezers. Met als bijlage het volledig hoofdstuk over Irak in het boek 'Het Midden-Oosten', exclusief voor de lezers van DeWereldMorgen.be

us war crimes

De lezers van dit artikel krijgen ook exclusieve toegang van uitgeverij EPO tot het hoofdstuk 'Na de doelbewuste vernietiging van Irak, een lente?' uit het boek 'Het Midden-Oosten - The times they are a-changin'.Je kan het bestellen hier in de webshop en de boekrecensie vind je hier.

“De weg naar Jeruzalem loopt via Bagdad”. Henry Kissinger

Doden, vermisten, vluchtelingen

Volgens de UNICEF verloren tussen 1991 en 2003 één miljoen Irakezen het leven, waaronder de helft kinderen, als gevolg van de economische sancties tegen het land. Dat was nog maar een prelude. Tussen de VS-invasie in maart 2003 en maart 2013 werden nog eens tot 1,5 miljoen Irakezen gedood.[1]

Het aantal vermiste personen wordt vandaag geschat op 250.000 tot meer dan één miljoen. Alleen al bij de ontheemde gezinnen worden bijna 100.000 kinderen vermist.

De invasie en bezetting achteraf waren de oorzaak van de grootste door conflict geïnduceerde volksverhuizing [p. 10] in de geschiedenis van het Midden-Oosten. Een VN rapport van 2008 rapporteerde 2,8 miljoen binnenlands ontheemden in Irak. Het Irakese Rode Kruis rapporteerde in juli 2007 dat er minstens 2,5 miljoen Irakezen naar het buitenlandgevlucht waren. Samen ging het dus om 5,3 miljoen vluchtelingen op een bevolking van 31 miljoen. Dat is één op zes.[2] Van de ontheemden in Irak zijn 80% vrouwen en kinderen jonger dan 12 jaar.

"Tussen de VS-invasie in maart 2003 en maart 2013 werden tot 1,5 miljoen Irakezen gedood. Eén op zes van de Irakezen is op de vlucht"

Terrorisme, marteling, opsluiting, trauma’s …

Irak was gedurende jaren het meest gewelddadige [p. 4] en minst veilige land ter wereld. In 2011 werd het voorbijgestoken door Somalië... Omwille van de vele bomaanslagen en het religieus geweld van diverse milities is het een gevaarlijker plaats dan Afghanistan. Meer dan één op drie slachtoffers van het mondiale terrorisme is een Irakees.

Anne Nivat's film : ‘IRAK: L’OMBRE DE LA GUERRE’ on Youtube

A MUST SEE : Film of French Reporter and Writer Anne Nivat:  ‘IRAK: L’OMBRE DE LA GUERRE’

'IRAQ, the shadow of war' 

To my Iraqi Turkmen friends: Anne stayed with a Turkmen family when she visited Kirkuk, she interviewed her hosts Mrs Nidret Hashem al-Hurmuzu, Mr Adeeb Ahmed Aljerrah, and Mr Ali Mehdi Sadek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5anXUtPH9pU

Why the war in Iraq was fought for Big Oil

Why the war in Iraq was fought for Big Oil

By Antonia Juhasz, Special to CNN

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fedition_meast+%28RSS%3A+Middle+East%29&utm_content=FaceBook

U.S. Marines in northern Kuwait gear up after receiving orders to cross the Iraqi border on March 20, 2003.

It has been 10 years since the American-led invasion of Iraq that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. Look back at moments from the war and the legacy it left behind. For more, view CNN's complete coverage of the Iraq War anniversary.



STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Juhasz: Opening up Iraq to foreign oil companies was main goal of Iraq War
Plans for Western oil exploration in Iraq were drawn up years before 2003 invasion
Bush administration pressured Iraqi government to pass law allowing foreign firms in
Chuck Hagel in 2007: "People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are."

Editor's note: Ten years ago the war in Iraq began. This week we focus on the people involved in the war, and the lives that changed forever. Antonia Juhasz, an oil industry analyst, is author of several books, including "The Bush Agenda" and "The Tyranny of Oil."

(CNN) -- Yes, the Iraq War was a war for oil, and it was a war with winners: Big Oil.

It has been 10 years since Operation Iraqi Freedom's bombs first landed in Baghdad. And while most of the U.S.-led coalition forces have long since gone, Western oil companies are only getting started.

Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq's domestic oil industry was fully nationalized and closed to Western oil companies. A decade of war later, it is largely privatized and utterly dominated by foreign firms.

Antonia Juhasz

From ExxonMobil and Chevron to BP and Shell, the West's largest oil companies have set up shop in Iraq. So have a slew of American oil service companies, including Halliburton, the Texas-based firm Dick Cheney ran before becoming George W. Bush's running mate in 2000.

The war is the one and only reason for this long sought and newly acquired access.

FULL COVERAGE: The Iraq War, 10 years on

Oil was not the only goal of the Iraq War, but it was certainly the central one, as top U.S. military and political figures have attested to in the years following the invasion.

"Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that," said General John Abizaid in 2007, former head of U.S. Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq. Former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan agreed, writing in his memoir: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." Then-Senator and now Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the same in 2007: "People say we're not fighting for oil. Of course we are."

Witness to war in Iraq

Baby Noor: An unfinished miracle

Iraq: Where were the journalists?

Surviving al Qaeda

For the first time in about 30 years, Western oil companies are exploring for and producing oil in Iraq from some of the world's largest oil fields and reaping enormous profit. And while the U.S. has also maintained a fairly consistent level of Iraq oil imports since the invasion, the benefits are not finding their way through Iraq's economy or society.

These outcomes were by design, the result of a decade of U.S. government and oil company pressure. In 1998,Kenneth Derr, then CEO of Chevron, said, "Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas-reserves I'd love Chevron to have access to." Today it does.

EXCLUSIVE: Hans Blix on 'terrible mistake' in Iraq

In 2000, Big Oil, including Exxon, Chevron, BP, and Shell, spent more money to get fellow oilmen George W. Bush and Dick Cheney into office than they had spent on any previous election. Just over a week into Bush's first term, their efforts paid off when the National Energy Policy Development Group, chaired by Dick Cheney, was formed, bringing the administration and the oil companies together to plot our collective energy future. In March, the task force reviewed lists and maps outlining Iraq's entire oil productive capacity.

Planning for a military invasion was soon underway. Bush's first Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, said in 2004: "Already by February [2001], the talk was mostly about logistics. Not the why [to invade Iraq], but the how and how quickly."

In its final report in May 2001, the task force argued that Middle Eastern countries should be urged "to open up areas of their energy sectors to foreign investment." This is precisely what has been achieved in Iraq.

Here's how they did it.

The State Department Future of Iraq Project's Oil and Energy Working Group met from February 2002 to April 2003 and agreed that Iraq "should be opened to international oil companies as quickly as possible after the war."

Sunni and Shia divided in Iraq, the land of Cain and Abel

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/iraq/130315/cain-abel-iraq-sunni-shia-rift



1 / 20

A body rests on a gurney at the Yarmouk hospital morgue in Baghdad, Iraq. Parents make a pilgrimage here every day in search of lost relatives that have disappeared during the night. These photographs are a selection of Franco Pagetti's work in Iraq over the last decade.
PHOTO BY: Franco Pagetti/VII






















July 26, 2006 - A body rests on a gurney at the Yarmouk hospital morgue in Baghdad, Iraq. Parents make a pilgrimage here every day in search of lost relatives that have disappeared during the night. These photographs are a selection of Franco Pagetti's work in Iraq over the last decade.
PHOTO BY: Franco Pagetti/VII


Jane Arraf

March 18, 2013 06:02

Sunni and Shia divided in Iraq, the land of Cain and Abel


How the US invasion of Iraq unleashed a chain reaction of sectarian violence.


DAKUK, Iraq — In the rugged landscape of northern Iraq where biblical tradition holds that Cain killed Abel, the ancient fault lines of sectarian and ethnic conflict are laid bare.

There is no map that points to where the Old Testament story of Adam and Eve’s first-born son killing his brother might have taken place. The Bible says only that it lays ‘East of Eden.’ But 13th century historian Yacout al-Hamawi places it in the shadow of the Hamreen Mountains near this ancient town that would have been on the road from Babylon to Nineveh.

Today, in this same troubled land, the divisions that have wracked the region for centuries are coming to the surface. On the tenth anniversary of the US-led war in Iraq, the struggle for power is playing out not just in the halls of government and parliament but in the car-bomb factories and bank accounts that fuel sectarian attacks.

Some believe the seeds of the popular movements across the Arab world that have toppled dictatorial regimes were sown with the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. In Iraq, the demise of his iron-fisted dictatorship blew the lid off of suppressed sectarian conflict and opened the door to regional extremists.

In a country known for its relative religious tolerance, one of the biggest forces at play has become an ideology in which a tiny number of Sunni Muslims believe it is a religious duty to kill Shia Muslims. Those attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq are again increasing. Some believe the al-Qaeda front group is hijacking a growing protest movement by Sunni Iraqis who believe they have been displaced by the Shia’s historic rise to power.

In a culture in which neighbors refer to each other as brothers, the parables of Cain and Abel are still being played out in this ancient land of prophets.



Dozens of Jewish, Christian and Muslim prophets — major and minor — are believed to have been born and have died here. In Islam the split between Shia and Sunni over who should succeed the Prophet Muhammad was irrevocably deepened on the battlefield in Karbala with the killing of Imam Hussein.

In modern Iraq, sectarian divisions were cemented over by a socialist, pan-Arab Baath party. But it was the Shia, a minority in the region but a majority in Iraq, whose religion was suppressed. Saddam Hussein, who saw any competing allegiances as a threat to his power, banned public commemorations of Shia rituals and imprisoned and assassinated hundreds of clerics and deported thousands of Iraqi Shia.

2003 – 2013 : Dix ans de guerre en Irak en deux documentaires

2003 – 2013 : Dix ans de guerre en Irak en deux documentaires
18/03/2013





Ville de Debis en Irak (Reuters/STRINGER Iraq)



La guerre d’Irak a 10 ans. Attaque de Bagdad, traque de Saddam Hussein, état du pays aujourd’hui : deux documentaires font le récit d’un chaos organisé.


Dix ans après le début d’un des conflits les plus injustifiés de notre ère, l’insensée guerre d’Irak, lancée par une coalition menée par les États-Unis sous des prétextes fallacieux, un documentaire fait le point sur ses prémisses en mars 2003, un autre sur l’état du pays en 2013.

Tonnerre roulant sur Bagdad de Jean-Pierre Krief retrace essentiellement, en deux parties, l’attaque de Bagdad, avant, pendant et après. Enquête très détaillée, fruit de quatre ans et demi de travail sur le terrain, tissée de témoignages d’Irakiens, d’Américains et d’une multitude d’images d’archives. S’il se concentre sur l’année 2003 et ne développe pas les événements dans toute l’Irak, ce film donne néanmoins un très bon aperçu de l’effet de cette guerre dans un pays qui ne tenait debout que grâce à l’implacable parti Baas, bras armé du dictateur Saddam Hussein. L’édifice s’est effondré comme un château de cartes dès l’arrivée de la coalition occidentale.

Un pays miné de l’intérieur

Le film de Krief montre clairement comment les États-Unis n’ont fait qu’une bouchée d’un pays miné de l’intérieur ; le long embargo en avait détruit l’économie et réduit les habitants à la misère. Dès lors, son armée, sous-équipée, ne pouvait faire face à l’armada américaine. On découvre d’ailleurs un édifiant document filmé, où des stratèges irakiens exhibent fièrement à Saddam Hussein les armes de destruction massives prévues pour que le peuple puisse résister à l’envahisseur : des lance-pierres, des clous et des arcs ! On est loin des armes chimiques prétextées pour envahir l’Irak (soit dit en passant, lors des préparatifs de leur armée dépenaillée, on constate que ce sont les Irakiens qui craignaient les attaques chimiques des Américains).

La prise de Bagdad en elle-même n’est pas passionnante car, comme on s’en souvient, elle ne rencontra aucune résistance, sauf à l’aéroport défendu par la garde républicaine du régime. L’essentiel des combats se déroula ailleurs dans le pays. On relate tout de même cette bataille de l’aéroport, et la destruction d’une imposante statue de Saddam avec l’aide de l’armée US, ainsi que certains détails étranges, comme la protection du ministère du Pétrole irakien par un char Abrams (américain) alors que le musée de Bagdad était livré au pillage sans que personne ne moufte.

Le rôle devastateur du gouverneur d’Irak, Paul Bremer
Mis à part le médusant témoignage d’un certain Eric Maddox – version réelle de Dan, le tortionnaire de Zero Dark Thirty –, inquiétant interrogateur de la DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) qui narre comment il a fait craquer un garde du corps dévoué de Saddam, lequel l’a mis sur la piste du raïs tapi sous terre, le film de Krief a surtout le mérite de mettre en évidence le rôle dévastateur de Paul Bremer, gouverneur d’Irak de mai 2003 à juin 2004. Celui-ci, par une série de décrets, a irrémédiablement plongé le pays dans le chaos, notamment en prononçant la dissolution du parti Baas et de l’armée irakienne, ou la fermeture des usines d’État, mesures qui eurent comme effet de réduire au chômage et d’enrager des centaines de milliers d’Irakiens. S’ensuivit une litanie infernale d’attentats et une montée en puissance de la haine anti-yankee. La guerre a aussi eu pour effet de déchaîner les unes contre les autres des communautés jusque-là soudées tant bien que mal, notamment les Arabes chiites et sunnites, les Kurdes et les Turkmènes. Certes, les Kurdes, martyrisés par Saddam, ont plutôt bénéficié du conflit.

C’est du reste notable dans Irak, l’ombre de la guerre d’Anne Nivat, reporter de guerre aguerrie, qui sillonne l’Irak depuis 2003 et y retourne en 2013 pour faire le point. À Kirkouk, centre pétrolier, elle constate la mainmise des Kurdes sur l’or noir. Ils dominent la ville aux dépens des autres communautés, particulièrement les Turkmènes, ravalés au rang de caste inférieure, qui n’en mènent pas large. D’ailleurs personne, dans l’Irak de 2013 qu’Anne Nivat parcourt de long en large, en dépit de nombreux obstacles (certaines villes n’étant accessibles que grâce à des connivences locales), n’en mène “large”.

Et au fait, les Irakiens ?

“L’Irak est en phase postopératoire”, explique à la reporter un dominicain francophone, le père Youssif (occasion de découvrir la persistance inattendue d’une communauté chrétienne locale). Si nombreux craignent l’imminence d’une guerre civile, la vie quotidienne se réorganise timidement. Les commerçants en profitent, surtout les restaurateurs de Bagdad : en l’absence de distractions, leurs établissements restent les seuls havres de loisirs. Mais la précarité est omniprésente. Par exemple dans le milieu artistique de Bagdad, réduit à la portion congrue. Un prof d’arts plastiques explique que tous ses étudiants envisagent de s’exiler à l’étranger. Tout comme le jeune pharmacien sympathique, vivant près de la frontière irakienne, chez qui Anne Nivat séjourne.

Grâce au film de Jean-Pierre Krief, qui détaille le processus initial de la guerre, et à celui d’Anne Nivat, qui fait l’inventaire de ses conséquences, on peut raisonnablement conclure que la résurrection de l’Irak sera ardue, voire miraculeuse.

Vincent Ostria

Tonnerre roulant sur Bagdad (Bande annonce) de Jean-Pierre Krief. Mardi 19 mars, 20 h 50, Arte

Irak, l’ombre de la guerre d’Anne Nivat. Lundi 18 mars, 23 h 15, France 3