This is one of the most ignorant articles I have ever read. True, the Kurds tried to declare their independence on land that they have squatted on in Turkey, Armenia, Iraq, and Iran. However, their attempts at establishing an independent State were never successful. The necessary corollary is that "Kurdistan" is no more a country than are, say, the Confederate States in the U.S. that, like the Kurds, also tried to declare independence from the Union with the same lack of success. Indeed, the "ethnic cleansing" of the Kurds for which Saddam Hussein has been accused was actually nothing more that the Iraqi government's response to the Kurds’ attempt to declare their separate independence on Iraqi soil, and as such, it is analogous to the United States’ use of military force to suppress the Confederate States' attempt to declare their separate independence on U.S. soil.

It is articles like this one that exacerbates the problems currently facing the U.S. by rendering Americans wholly ignorant of the geopolitical climate in the Middle East.

Perhaps some day when African-Americans get fed up enough to declare an independent ethnic State on some portion of U.S. soil and China uses military force against the U.S. in an effort to force the U.S. to recognize the African-American State maybe then Americans will understand the true dynamics of Kurdish/Iraqi politics and realize their misgivings regarding Saddam Hussein and mideast politics in general.