recent family photo
Posted on 05/13/2005 7:44:35 AM PDT by gopwinsin04
Ian is using that fine Oxford education to tell Iraqis how to live as well as he. He even wrote about it in an op-ed for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (GAG alert):
IRAQ: Civil war is still a real possibility
By IAN KLAUS
04/25/2005
Last month, during celebrations of the Kurdish New Year, Skylink Air and Logistic Support offered helicopter tours of Arbil, the largest Kurdish city in northern Iraq. Last Thursday, one of Skylink's two helicopters was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade just outside Baghdad en route to Mosul.
All aboard, including six employees of the American private security company Blackhawk USA, were killed. Insurgents claimed responsibility and, within minutes were at the crash site, gleefully videotaping the bodies and wreckage. The incident reveals more about the state of Iraq today than seems apparent at first.
Insurgents, be they Saddam loyalists or Islamic extremists, are waging a battle that barely differentiates between soldiers and civilians or between Iraqis and Americans. Theirs is a campaign of no rules; brutality reigns in the form of suicide bombs, beheadings and summary executions.
In addition to the six Americans killed in the attack on the helicopter, two of the passengers were security guards from Fiji, and the three-person crew was Bulgarian. Although the war in Iraq is often viewed, for better or worse, as an American endeavor, the situation on the ground is in fact quite international: an informal coalition of soldiers, businessmen and officials of non-governmental organizations from all over the world. Advertisement
An estimated 5,000 to 10,000 South African civilians are in Iraq working as bodyguards. Fijians, most of them devout Christians, operate as private security details, as do Ghurkas, the famed fighters from Nepal. While the American soldier has become the symbol of the international presence in Iraq, young humanitarian workers - like the recently slain Marla Ruzicka - and well-paid employees of large firms like Blackwater are also playing an integral role in moving the country forward.
The loss of the Skylight helicopter underscores, obviously, that Iraq is still an incredibly dangerous and hostile place. If you had been aboard the touring Skylink helicopter exactly one month earlier, however, taking in the sights of the mountainous north, you might well have concluded that this is a country transitioning from war to reconstruction, a welcoming place for brave investors and aid-workers alike.
An American film crew recently visited the Kurdistan area in the north of Iraq to film a series of advertisements for the region's government. The first ad will feature a montage of Kurds thanking the U.S. for toppling Saddam, a very public reaffirmation of their fondness for America. A second series of ads hopes to illustrate the relative security of Kurdish cities like Arbil and Sulymania compared to the rest of the country. The ads - and a longer documentary in the planning stages - aim to suggest that Iraqi Kurdistan is a place where helicopters are more likely to offer tours than to be shot down, notwithstanding the checkpoints, blast walls and bodyguards.
The working title of the documentary is "The Other Iraq," which raises the question of how "other" Kurdistan can get and still be one with greater Iraq.
While Kurdish officials in Baghdad continue to speak of their dedication to a pluralistic and unified country, central Iraq and Iraqi-Kurdistan increasingly are becoming very different places, separated by tremendous disparities in security and receptiveness to foreigners. Last week, for example, brought increased news of Shia-Sunni violence in the central region, bringing to the fore again the prospect of civil war.
The danger of this religious divide is matched, however, by the threat of Arab-Kurdish conflict that is rooted in historical prejudices and stoked by differing opinions of America and prospects for the future. Two Iraqs - one ravaged by war, one working towards reconstruction - is a dangerous recipe, simultaneously fueling jealousy and an appetite for independence.
If the Skylink helicopter had encountered refueling problems in Mosul, the plan was for it to stop in Arbil. The crew had been hoping to visit the Kurdish capital to do some shopping. The eleven men who died outside of Baghdad on Thursday were examples of the diverse and layered ways that people from all over the world are serving in Iraq in one way or another.
Skylink's two helicopters - one loaded last month with businessmen, journalists and diplomats for a new year's celebration in Iraqi-Kurdistan, the other brought down in flames by insurgents - bespeak a country going in two directions. They serve as a reminder that the war now being fought to stabilize Iraq is crucial to avoiding civil war in the future.
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Ian Klaus is a lecturer in American history and English at Salahaddin University, in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. He holds undergraduate degress in history from Washington University in St. Louis and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University in England.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/B8668A814BE421AA86256FEC003255A4?OpenDocument
sw
recent family photo
Heeheehee. 
Else what?
You'll get her Daddy Web Hubble after us?
He looks like a young Bill Clinton in that picture.
The GLOBE!!
Isn't this one of those unquestionable sources that Men in Black uses for its intelligence gathering?
Unquestionably accurate!
Ian is now lecturing on American History! With what qualifications, he goes out on dates with Chels??
I never said else, we should attack her politics, attack parents. But not her looks.
I think that Weekly World News is more entertaining than the Onion. My favorite is a cross-dressing Saddam Hussein.
Oh! I forgot, she is the daughter of her Thighness, the smartest woman on the face of the earth.
They're practically twins.
She is Butt Fugly!
the guy Ian looks like a younger bill clinton
Please read post 26
It's not so much the-waking-up-part... it's the 'knowin' what-you-did-part... that's the killer!
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