Minneapolis
City Pages - Apr. 26, 2000
Good
Kurds, Bad Kurds
by Jelana Petrovic
Photojournalist
Kevin McKiernan stumbled upon the Kurdish cause nine
years ago while reporting on the convoluted aftermath
of the Gulf War. The Iraqi Kurds, slyly coaxed by the
U.S. government into rebelling against Saddam's forces
(and then unexpectedly abandoned), had been dying like
flies. McKiernan tracked down the story, but he discovered
upon returning to sunny California that no one really
wanted to hear about this particular brand of ethnic
cleansing.
Yet
the story didn't end there.
Instead
of repackaging his product to appease the networks, the
doggedly persistent McKiernan dug deeperīthis time into
the cause of the Turkish Kurds, an invisible minority
of 15 million with no rights in an ostensible democracy.
Kurdish refugees in southeast Turkey number more than
2 million; the majority have lost their homes following
a bestial scorched-earth campaign by the Turkish army.
And, yes, you guessed it: The U.S. still doesn't want
to hear about it, not least because we sell billions
of dollars worth of weapons to their diligent military
each year. Good Kurds, Bad Kurds is an education in how
Machiavellian U.S. foreign policy really is, and the
footage, which includes some embarrassing interviews
with State Department robots, is sharply edited and compelling.
Don't miss it.
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