Please don't type in all CAPS, it's the equivalent to YELLING, let alone hard to read, thank you.
I often wonder if the lack of positive news is an attempt to avoid having places where good is being done targeted and attacked.
i think Iraq needs more Critics than thanking ppl! because the latter is very easy to do!
big difference between giving hope and thanking ppl for what they do!
remember the applause phenomena!
I think what ITM is doing is important, and I'm sorry to read things like what was written in the NYT. I'm also glad you decided to vote and to get rid of Tarzani.
Some people in the west have a very one dimensional opinion of Iraqis. They believe you must all feel or believe one way (as they think you should believe).
We are all entitled to our opinions, even when they are not popular in our country. That is what freedom is all about.
Perhaps the brothers of ITM are not speaking for all the Iraqi people but just speaking for themselves.
Isn't that what we all do? Just speak for ourselves?
I think they should say just what they want to say and not worry about pleasing anyone except themselves.
From what I have read on this blog, Kurdo must feel the same way.
Good luck with the elections.
Why not vote for the ITM boys and their party as you like them and have been struggling to find a party to vote for? Are they standing on one of the lists, or are they standing in their own right, or are they not actually standing? I don't really agree with their politics, but they clearly want a better, freer Iraq, and by supporting a non-Kurdish party you would be doing your bit towards breaking down Iraqi sectarianism.
The ironic thing is that these one-dimensional liberals are guilty of worse bigotry than the worse red-neck SOutherner in the 1950s in that the think Iraqis all must have a single opinion and anyone that doen't is highly suspect. Also the reason they went after Condi Rice in her hearings today; they pull out all their claws if someone who isn't white dares to be conservative.
Yeah Mike O - can you believe what the head of the NAACP said about Condi Rice and Colin Powell?! Unbelievable. As if because someone is black they should have a certain ideology - and if they don't hold fast to that certain ideology than it means they are 'Uncle Toms'. Of course - he didn't use that phrase but that is, in effect, what he was saying. It disgusts me.
Oh yes - and go Kurds! I'm happy to see you debating about the vote. The debate is important. (as is the vote)
Re Iraq the Model, I read a New York Times article on it, and felt that the reporter was downright dismayed to track it down to three real-live Iraqi Arab men. This is what you bloggers in Iraq, Kurdistan, wherever are up against.
Mike O, about one-dimensional liberals, racism, and the like, I'm afraid that as something of a liberal (albeit more a Lord Acton one than a John Kerry of even Bill Clinton one), I'll have to agree with you. My own impression of the Southern, "Redneck" racists of yesteryear was that their stereotyping and prejudices were full of holes--i.e., they'd say the worst things about blacks as a people, but then make exceptions for every black person they actually knew. Finally, when it came to a choice between their social racism and their Christian consciences, they went with the latter. people "Redneck".
I pray for Iraq that the elections will show them that they can trust people of other ethnicities and religions and work together for a common goo
"They just speak for themselves"
Well said. I despair at these people you see on the news, or worse reporting the news, talking about "Iraqi opinion" or "The Iraqi people want this and that". Stereotypes just make it worse. As Kurdo says, people from the ME *hold* varying opinions not only in politics but across a large spectrum of things in life.
It's sad that the Western Media is always willing to cast a picture that only emphasises these streotypes (the "cutting infidels heads off" type) and ignores all the good will and forward-thinking a lot of people in the ME are trying to make.
There is no Iraqi , no arab, no muslem & no Middle East Model for election, but there is a civilized & free Kurdish election that is why savage turk, arabs, ajams & other lousy stinking muslems are against our will for free independent Kurdistan without savagery of surrounding neighbors ( muslem pigs).
Tony Castalino,
will you please go back and read what you just wrote; you sound like a hard-core racist.
Kurdo, thank you my brother.
Long live the free aand united IRAQI people.
I'm a regular reader of blogs like kurdo or healingiraq. In the biginning I expecitly picked pro-American blogs as well as anti-American blogs for a balanced view. But when I ran into iraqthemodel it felt strange reading it. I don't know why, but I didn't have the ipression that it was written by someone living in the same country as Kurdo or Zeyad.
Iraq cannot be a model for anywhere as the majority of its population are arabs. One of the most backward aggressive and violent groups of people in the world, no one not the kurds of kurdistan, not the africans of Sudan, not the berbers of morroco can escape the long arm of the fascist arab nation Whether it be a bomb in an kindergarden or a savage throat cutting it seems that arabs will stoop to any depth to incarcerate and oppres there neighbours.
Har bizhi Kurd u Kurdistan
Kurdo must be CIA too.
uh that was intended with sarcasm btw 
Once upon a time, the Kurds were as fierce as the Arabs. What happened?
I spend a lot of time reading Iraqi blogs everyday, including ITM, yours, and perhaps a dozen others. I confess that, in the end, I sometimes do feel like everyone in Iraq must be a head-lopping, AK-toting, nihilist or well on his way to becoming a victim of one. Then again, I know that it cannot be so.
I wonder why the police or ING cannot seem even to protect themselves, much less their fellow citizens. Of course, I know that there must be situations in which they do succeed. We certainly do not see such stories in the US, only the road side bombs, suicide attacks, etc.
I tell myself that at least I understand the reasoning of Palestinian suiciders (I don't agree, but I understand the "logic" they use, i.e. "their cause"); but I am completely at a loss to understand any suicide bomber in Iraq. The Americans will leave as soon as the situation is safe for Iraqis so the bombers only prolong the occupation. If they are Saddam supporters, one assumes that their suppo
The logic is that the Sunna arabs who comprise about the same of the iraqi population (20-25%) as do the kurds have been the sole power in Iraqi politics for 80 years (except abdul karims brief rule). Now they are in a situation in which there victims, who have been oppresed and abused since ottoman times, are about to assume power. They presume perhaps rightly that a shia governement will lead to reprisals and neglect for there region of the country, which has quite alot of the military expertise but lacks all of iraqs abundant natural resoources. These are the recipes for a civil war which is inevitabel. If the coalition does not seek out a peacful means to the division of iraq into 3 independent sovereign nations, the world is about to experience bosnia on speed. Imagine even wwith marines around at least 70 iraqis die everyday, now imagine no central authority and no troops. The end of Iraq is near and there is a distinct lack of preeration.
Here is further proof that the U.S. is using chemical weapons in Iraq.
Is it not clear to everyone by now that the Iraqis want nothing to do with Western "democracy"? The form of government preferred by Arab Muslims is rule by a strong, just leader like Saddam Hussein or the rulers of any of the other Arab countries.
Impeach Bushitler!
Bring the troops home now!
Power to the people!
You are a unpatriotic fool, who has dispalyed his stupidity of politics by claiming that soddom hussein is a just man on a kurdish website. Any way we kurds are muslims and i can assure you that the majority of us kurds do want demcracy.....
hi
why do not u write in kurdish?
i dont think it is so dificult.
best wishes
saman sweden
Kurdo!!! Good for you!!. I am so glad to hear your words of support about the brothers at Iraq the Model
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