"You know what pisses me off the most?" Tony asked. Before I could answer, he injected, "Today people are Shi’ite, Sunni, Kurd, Turkmen, Chaldean, Assyrian. Nobody’s an Iraqi. I grew up in Iraq and everybody was an Iraqi then."

Tony then went on to describe the local Chaldean community in San Diego. He basically breaks it down into two categories: the average traitor; or the big traitor. The average traitors have accepted money from the U.S. government to go to Iraq and translate. The big traitors collaborate with the F.B.I.

Tony makes about $35,000 a year working up to 12 hours a day in his own business. He has been offered an annual wage of $150,000 to go to Iraq as a translator, but has refused. He says he would not be able to live with himself if he accepted such employment. He then would be an "average traitor."

I bring up this point because Iraq is falling apart quickly along sectarian lines. On August 7, 2005, Al-Jazeera News ran an article titled, "Iraq’s Kurds to Insist on Federalism". Massoud Barzani is the president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish area. He held out little hope that his people would be Iraqi. According to the article:

"We will not accept that Iraq’s identity is Islamic," Barzani told the autonomous Kurdistan parliament in Abril on Saturday. He also rejected suggestions that Iraq be termed an Arab nation. "Let Arab Iraq be part of the Arab nation — we are not," the Kurdish leader said.

Barzani’s remarks drew criticism from the stooge Iraqi government. Federalism will not work, they maintained. However, their message fell upon deaf ears. On August 11, 2005, Al-Jazeera News published an article called "Iraq Shia Leaders Call for Federal State." Same horse dung, different group. The article stated:

Iraqi Shia leaders have called for a federal state of their own in the south.

"Regarding federalism, we think that it is necessary to form one entire region in the south," said Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of one of the Shia Muslim parties in the Iraqi government.

Federalism was also favored by another Shia leader.

"Federalism has to be in all of Iraq. They are trying to prevent the Shia from enjoying their own federalism," Hadi al-Amiri, head of the Badr Brigades militia, told thousands of Shia gathered in the southern city of Najaf.

This is quite a complicated scenario. The Kurds do not consider themselves to be a part of an Arab country, a country that until March 2003 was considered the crown jewel of the Arab world. In addition, the Kurds reject an Islamic government.

On the other hand, the Shia want an Islamic government. The implications of varying cultures applying their own rules in a supposed unified country are immense. Imagine a Kurd drinking a beer at a local bar and then taking a few bottles with him when he went on a trip to the south of Iraq. If he gets stopped in Najaf by a policeman for a minor traffic violation and the cop sees the beer bottles in the car, the Kurd will soon be sans cojones for possessing alcohol.

I have read much about the federalism debate. A commonality is that the word "Iraqi" is rarely, if ever seen. The Kurdish leaders and the Shia leaders have openly stated that they are not interested in an Iraqi agenda. So much for Bush’s term "Operation Iraqi Freedom." There are few Iraqis left in the south and north of Iraq.

There is one group, however, that has put Iraqi interests at the top of its agenda: the Iraqi resistance. Instead of using the sectarian term "Sunni," which many resistance members are, the word "Iraqi" is always in the forefront.

The Kurds welcomed the U.S. invasion. They do not consider themselves Arabs or want to be a part of an Arab country. Yet, they can now call the shots that will dismember Iraq.

In the South, a major portion of the Shia leadership that has now come forth is anything but Iraqi. They are Shia first and many spent years in Iran, waiting for the day that Saddam was toppled. Their allegiance definitely is not with Iraq.

We hear the term "Balkanization" frequently. The U.S. government has stated that there will be no Balkanization of Iraq. However, U.S. intervention in a solid and unified Yugoslavia of the 1980s intentionally created the Balkanization of that area. Iraqization is the logical extension of Balkanization, and it is occurring at a rapid pace.

Someday, even the opponents of the Iraqi resistance will realize that those who are fighting the U.S. occupation and their quisling allies were the only true "Iraqis." The resisters are now pursuing their own version of "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Tony was right in his assessment of Iraqi expatriates living in the San Diego area. It is only a reflection of what is going on today in Iraq. Those in the stooge government are the big traitors, while those who openly work with the occupiers as translators, cooks, policemen, national guardsmen, and chauffeurs are the average traitors. They are also the same people who have robbed Iraq of an Iraqi identity.

I find it quite curious that those who opposed Saddam Hussein now are dismembering Iraq. This shows that they had no plan whatsoever for the country, only the pursuit of their own selfish interests.