That's clearly not the case. Chomsky -- that great master of "moral equivalance" -- talks about the Kurds *consistently* and has done so for years. As has much of the left which is engaged with the Middle East. Of course, that's in the wrong context, since it (rightly) indicts our buddy, Turkey. Hitchens suggestion that the left ignores the Kurds because they are *too anti-Hussein* is simply absurd.
As if the plight of the Kurds has *anything* to do with Bush's intentions for a post-Hussein Iraq.
> There is no
> positive vision by the Left of what the middle east should look like in a
> just world and little analysis on how to get there, again other than the
> negative of US getting out.
This is opposed to Bush's "positive vision" for the Middle East? The positive vision which includes a bantustanized Palestine, economically dependent on Israel, a US military-ruled Iraq, Turkey with a free hand to crush the Kurds?
The simple fact is that getting from where Iraq is today to an authentically democratic Iraq is *a very hard question* and it's not very clear that anyone has a "positive vision" for how to accomplish it. How does that problem uniquely condemn the left? (It's also pretty clear from Tariq Ali's analysis -- as Doug elicited from him -- that actual democratic elections in Iraq might well result in a shi'a dominated government, since shi'as are the numerical majority in Iraq. Even Hithens -- who's analytical acumen has falled into disrepair -- can see that the Bush crowd will not allow the possibility of an Iran-Iraq alliance, based on the religious bonds of shi'aism.)
This bit about 'no positive vision' is super tired; surely it's enough for leftish Americans to demand that their government *stop making things worse* in the region, which would include ending our support of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians and lifting the Iraqi sanctions, which mostly harm the Iraqi people -- you know, the ones "with whom we have no quarrel".
It might be easier to see one's way toward a democratic future for the region if the US would stop supporting and imposing such madness.
Kendall Clark