David McDowall's A Modern History of the Kurds is a good read if you want to learn just about anything about the Kurds. Though it is a bit long.
Here is a speech to the UN by Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. He briefly mentions the Kurds in the beginning.
And a speech by Jalal Talabani to the UN in 2005.
This talks about the mass graves found in Iraq.
Here is the PBS Frontline report on the al Anfal Campaign. That was the name of the campaign of genocide against the Kurds which resulted in the destruction of the 4000 Kurdish villages as well as the gas attacks including the Halabja gas attack.
Turkey's actions against their Kurdish population over the years have been nothing less than despicable. Almost every use of their air force since becoming a state has been against their own Kurdish population. McDowall goes into great detail about the Kurds in Turkey in his book mentioned above.
Also, this is an interesting statement to the UN in 2004 by Jose Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate
Here are some excerpts:
> Like many of you and millions of peace demonstrators, we are opposed to violence and wars. But we must ask ourselves some troubling questions. Should we oppose the use of force even in the face of genocide and ethnic cleansing?
> In the eternal dilemma of war and peace, there are pacifists and idealists who oppose the use of force under any circumstance. There are the realists who support the use of force under certain circumstances, namely if it has been sanctioned by the UN Security Council.
> Those who are absolutely against the use of force have been unable to articulate a better strategy for dealing with the savagery of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Patient diplomacy lasts as long it lasts; it might bear fruit, or it might not. Genocide, however, continues as we can see in Sudan where thousands of our fellow human beings are dying right now.
and:
> Where there is a chance today for democracy in Iraq, a hasty withdrawal would deliver the Iraqi and the Kurdish peoples into the brutal hands of a Taliban-style regime that would destabilize the entire region. If I were a political leader of any consequence and I were asked about the options for Iraq, I would say retreating and conceding victory to the terrorists is not an option — the consequences would be far too high to even contemplate.
> Hence, we hope that the US, which initiated the war in Iraq and gallantly freed the Iraqi people from a tyrant, will walk half-way and meet those on the other side of the debate. The US and its allies should not alone shoulder the burden of Iraq.
Personally, I do not think the US should be using howitzers or air strikes. They do not have a place in a counterinsurgency. Unfortunately, not using those weapons means a greater likelihood of increased casualties being sustained by US and allied forces. That is what happened when air strikes were cut back a few months ago, US casualties increased. Nobody here wants civilians to die and nobody here wants soldiers to die so it is a lose-lose situation. General McChrystal once said that for every insurgent killed another twenty take his place. Many units help out the local population and defend them from insurgent attacks. That is what works. Provincial Reconstruction Teams are tasked with that specific objective.
A long time ago people made up their minds about how they felt about these wars. For some it was before they even started. And they refuse to accept any new information that goes counter to their preexisting belief. This has created a huge disconnect between what those people believe is going on and what is actually going on.