ISLAND VOICES
Lingle's trip was heroic

Steve Tataii was a candidate for Congress in the 2002 elections.

As a Kurdish American, living in Hawai'i since 1977, I am proud to finally see a brave governor from my home state visit our troops in Iraq. This is indeed a positive landmark for international peace and nation building.

I am especially pleased to read about Gov. Linda Lingle's observation of our war against terrorism, and not just our search to find WMD. It is my strong belief WMD will be found the same way as Saddam the tyrant was found.

I wish our governor had the time to also travel to the north, where 5 million Kurds, with their unique language, culture and "man's oldest civilization" of over 12,000 years, live. I believe they are about to become an independent state after 84 years of struggle.

Gov. Lingle is correct about the threats posed by terrorists, and she should be decorated as one of our brave veterans, a rank she has now reached because the aircraft she was in came under enemy fire.

She knew the dangers involved, and yet she went. She knew the suicide bombings continued through the day she arrived in Baghdad.

Our troops in the north should help to bring back the 500,000 Kurds forced out of their homes from Kirkuk, as well as the 800,000 Kurds from Mosul. Many were killed after refusing to leave in the ethnic cleansing called "Arabization" that started in 1963. The "cleansing" escalated in 1988, soon after the Halabja chemical bombing, leaving more than 8,000 Kurds dead. Saddam killed more than 300,000 Kurds before being caught like a rat.

The First Independent Kurdistan was established in the 1945 Republic of Mahabad in Eastern Kurdistan, which was overthrown by the shah of Iran in 1946.

Our administration could not help the Kurds then, but we can easily help to create an Independent South Kurdistan now, despite the wrong claims by the three puppet regimes of Turkey, Iran and Syria.

We must allow the peace-loving Kurdish nation this chance, the same way we did when Kuwait's sovereignty and territorial integrity were secured by us and our allies in the 1991 gulf war. In fact, South Kurdistan with 5 million Kurds is still considered the largest nation without independence, not counting the 40 million Kurds in total.