OUR VERY OWN CARGO CULT:

Kurds give thanks to gods (Catherine Taylor, 07apr03, The Australian)

"LOOK, there go our planes."

Nawal Ali smiles widely and raises calloused hands to the sky, pointing out the vapour trail of a B-52 bomber heading towards the Iraqi cities of Kirkuk and Mosul. "I think it must be a Kurdish God who has sent the US and the UK to save us," says Ali, a 36-year-old mother of eight children and two grandchildren. "I pray for the Americans every night and would sacrifice myself for them."

Support for the US-led war in Iraq has reached hysterical proportions in this ragged little township on the outskirts of Erbil, in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. [...]

Ali and her family now live in a one-room hut made of mud and concrete bricks.

There is a mood of hope in the camp that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein will give Kurdish families a chance to return to their former homes.

"I can't wait to return," says Fatah. "Kirkuk is my destiny. It is the Jerusalem of the Kurds."

Yet the looming battle for Kirkuk is shaping up as one of the more unpredictable of the war. The potential for inter-ethnic conflict, complicated by the wary eye of Turkey, could create long-term problems.

Plans for a triumphant homecoming by Kirkuk exiles worry human rights groups, which fear civil war once the Iraq regime has been ousted. Reprisal attacks are possible if Kurdish families find Arabs living on their land and in their homes.

It may come to a U.S.-Turkish war, but the Kurds seem one of the few peoples in the Middle East who seriously long, and are willing to fight, for their own freedom. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 6, 2003 12:49 PM