I suppose you are right. It is much easier to let someone else take the risk and someone else's family to suffer the losses. However, the least they could do is stop complaining about being misunderstood. They are not. They are sitting back, out of fear I grant you, and letting the fanatics run the show. The fanatics are in the minority, as bullies always are, so there is no justifiable reason, other than fear, for letting them run the show.
For a people who like to allude to Saladin, they do show a remarkable lack of courage. Doesn't appear to be a single Patrick Henry in the whole lot.
Actually, to be fair, some Kurds have been outspoken for a long time, but the press isn't very interested either in what they have to say or in their striking success in North Iraq. Also, Karzai and Musharraf probably are finding it hard to get life insurance these days.