Who become fixers for the Western media? Those who speak a language of the West, especially English, in the literal sense, of course, but also the language of the West in the figurative sense, the language of political liberalism and humanitarian imperialism.
It is no surprise that the point of view of a Kurdish man from Halabja largely overlaps with that of of the liberal, humanitarian empire. It would be astonishing if it didn't. Many Kurds must have felt about America precisely the way Albanians in Kosovo felt about it: their best shot at independence from the country of which they have never felt themselves to be an integral part. And they felt this feeling more deeply than Albanians, as Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party government was incomparably more brutal toward Kurds than the Yugoslav government ever was toward Albanians.
But it is not just a Kurdish fixer who thought that way in Iraq. In an essay Nuri published in New York Times Magazine, he says, "I supported the war, as did many of my countrymen and _pretty much all the fixers_" (emphasis, "At War, at Home, at Risk," 29 July 2007, <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/magazine/29iraqi-t.html>). That is the power of hegemony. Just about all countries have ethnic and regional disparities and grievances, some of them very severe, which the empire can exploit, but even without them the empire can find a faction who support its doings, especially among the better off or better educated than the average, in just about any country it wants to conquer. And it is through the eyes of that faction that we in the West see their country, for they are the ones who speak our language.
You can watch a video of Nuri speaking about his work as a fixer -- "What Is a Fxier?": <http://nytimesshorts.feedroom.com/?fr_chl=97f52bf2c0dfa26879703c7be3fdf331dbe061fb&rf=bm> -- Yoshie