Saturday, October 21, 2017

Kurds Need Support, NOW!

What is happening to the Kurds in Iraq as I write this is absolutely disgusting, to say the least.  This past week, the Iraqi army, supported by Shia militias, overran the province of Kirkuk. Once again, Kurds are being driven from their homes, deprived of their possessions and stripped of their liberty. Once again, they've been abandoned by their allies. Worse, their supposed allies have turned against them. Yet, if it weren't for the Kurds and their Peshmerga forces, the so-called Islamic State could never have been defeated in Iraq. Kurdish forces are also responsible for all but vanquishing ISIL in northeastern Syria, culminating in the recent fall of Raqqa, the terrorist group's proclaimed capital.

Leaders all over the Middle East and especially in Iraq should be kissing the feet of the Kurds, not stepping on them. Without the sacrifices the Kurds made to defeat ISIL, the same leaders who are now pulling out all the stops to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdish state might themselves have been burned alive or had their heads chopped off at the hands of the Islamic State. But instead of being grateful, the whole region seems to have ganged up on the Kurdish people, while the Kurds' western allies sit idly by and do nothing but blame the victim, criticizing the leaders of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region for holding a referendum on whether their people should exercise their inalienable right to self-determination by breaking away from the European colonial construct we now know as Iraq.

My question at this point is, who in the international community will come out and support the Kurds' legitimate struggle for independence? Unfortunately, only one world leader has come out in support of the Kurds - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone as Israel has had clandestine ties with the Kurds of Iraq for decades. But this is first time I know of that an Israeli prime minister has publicly come out in support of Kurdish independence. Indeed, Prime Minister Netanyahu has even said that he is encouraging world leaders to support the Kurdish cause. It's nice know that the Kurds have someone rooting for them. But Israel is but one small country and although it punches way above its weight in many respects, it is not a superpower. It cannot, for example, enforce a no-fly zone the same way the U.S. did over Iraqi Kurdistan for many years when Saddam Hussein was still in power. Hence, the Kurds of Iraq will need more support than Israel can give in order to win their struggle for independence. If only they had the kind of support that the Palestinians have managed to garner from the international community.

Friday, October 6, 2017

Stop the War on the Car!

A couple of days ago, I read an article written by the Toronto Sun's Antonella Artuso about how the folks at the City of Toronto intend on shutting down subway parking lots in order to force commuters onto transit (see: City eyes shutting subway parking lots to drive commuters onto transit). It's yet another salvo fired by Toronto City Hall in their seemingly neverending war on the car. I just don't get it. Why can't the stiffs who govern Canada's biggest city and commercial capital get it through their thick skulls that people are going to drive no matter how inconvenient politicians make it for them. How do I know this? Because as long as public transit is slow, inefficient and overcrowded, people who are fortunate enough to have private vehicles will always use them to get where they're going.

The fact of the matter is that people who have the choice would rather get wherever they want to go in a nice, cozy private automobile instead of a smelly, overcrowded bus, streetcar or subway that doesn't take you to your destination without stopping at a bunch of places you don't need to be. So it's very unlikely that these people will switch to public transit no matter how bad the traffic is. And even if some of them do, it'll just make public transit worse by adding more people to an already overcrowded system. I have just about had enough with politicians who worry more about how people get from point A to point B than what they should be worrying about - making it easier to get from place to place in Toronto no matter what means of transportation people use. Besides, if the so-called progressives and social engineers want more people to use public transit, they should concentrate on making that public transit better, not making driving worse.