It’s not a household acronym yet. PJAK is, according to the Guardian of London, “the Kurdistan Free Life Party, an armed Iranian Kurdish group that is stepping up its campaign for Kurdish rights against the theocratic regime in Tehran.”
PJAK is the fastest growing armed resistance group in Iran. Right – that Iran, the home of the birth of the modern anti-Western jihadist movement.
The Guardian, no pro-Bush newspaper, reports that resistance group has “3,000 or so members under arms in the mountains” and also – a datum that certainly will bring hope and cheer to progressives here in the United States – “it also claims tens of thousands of followers in secret cells in Iranian Kurdistan. Its campaigning on women's rights has struck a chord with young Iranian Kurdish women. The group says 45% of its fighters are female. Iranian authorities regard the group as a terrorist outfit being sponsored and armed by the US to increase pressure on Iran.
“On a recent visit to PJAK camps in the Qandil mountains the Guardian saw no evidence of American weaponry. The majority of its fighters toted Soviet-era Kalashnikovs. In an interview Biryar Gabar, a member of the leadership committee, said the group had no relations with the Americans, but was "open to any group that shares our ideals of a free federal democratic and secular Iran."
So then, here is a group – in Iran – that is feminist to the core and also deeply committed to democratic forms now on display within the Democrat Party here in the land of the free and the home of Chris Dodd, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton et al.
It is a military group composed in equal part of women and men now fighting jihadist groups originating in Iran who are largely responsible for the killing of American troops in Iraq.
The question is: Do we support them?
Anyone? Chris? Obama? Hillary?... Just jump right in.
PJAK is the fastest growing armed resistance group in Iran. Right – that Iran, the home of the birth of the modern anti-Western jihadist movement.
The Guardian, no pro-Bush newspaper, reports that resistance group has “3,000 or so members under arms in the mountains” and also – a datum that certainly will bring hope and cheer to progressives here in the United States – “it also claims tens of thousands of followers in secret cells in Iranian Kurdistan. Its campaigning on women's rights has struck a chord with young Iranian Kurdish women. The group says 45% of its fighters are female. Iranian authorities regard the group as a terrorist outfit being sponsored and armed by the US to increase pressure on Iran.
“On a recent visit to PJAK camps in the Qandil mountains the Guardian saw no evidence of American weaponry. The majority of its fighters toted Soviet-era Kalashnikovs. In an interview Biryar Gabar, a member of the leadership committee, said the group had no relations with the Americans, but was "open to any group that shares our ideals of a free federal democratic and secular Iran."
So then, here is a group – in Iran – that is feminist to the core and also deeply committed to democratic forms now on display within the Democrat Party here in the land of the free and the home of Chris Dodd, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton et al.
It is a military group composed in equal part of women and men now fighting jihadist groups originating in Iran who are largely responsible for the killing of American troops in Iraq.
The question is: Do we support them?
Anyone? Chris? Obama? Hillary?... Just jump right in.
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