I've had a generally favorable impression of the Kurds since first learning of them during the Iran Iraq war. Of course, that's based on superficial news items, but still, I feel sympathetic to their situation and admire their strength. It seems they have worked to our advantage in pursuing their own aims over the years, that's the impression I get. Anyway, apparently US foreign policy at this point is to ask of them, yes, but what have you done for us
lately? There is no way I can better illuminate my own thinking here than has already been done by these closing paragraphs.
New U.S. Policy: Kill the Kurds | Alternet
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New U.S. Policy: Kill the Kurds
An incoherent U.S. policy threatens the most effective fighting force against the Islamic State.
By William M. Boardman / Reader Supported News August 30, 2016
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There are roughly two million Kurds in Syria and about 30 million in the region. The Kurds have been subjugated and marginalized in all the countries where they live at one time or another. They have long been restive in Turkey. Then the chaos Americans brought to Iraq gave Iraqi Kurds some independence. In Syria, the Kurds earned greater independence by fighting ISIS more effectively than anyone else.
Having invaded Syria to fight ISIS, Turkey is now joining with Syrian rebels (of some sort) to attack Kurds. This is American policy at work. In effect, VP Biden has said: Hey, you Kurds, you’re subjugated people, you’ve been subjugated people long enough to be used to it, and you’re gonna stay subjugated, OK, so suck it up.
So we leave the Kurds to the mercy of their perennial persecutors, and for what? Some dim hope that Turkey will improve its human rights record and stop torturing prisoners? Or perhaps our wishful thinking is that if we abet the Turks in their darkest whims, maybe they won’t cozy up to the Russians so much? Whatever the Obama administration is thinking – assuming there is any thinking going on in this secretive government – American policy seems politically incoherent, as if it’s enough to say: This is what the American empire requires, don’t ask questions. But it is more than politically incoherent. American policy toward a people yearning to be free is morally repugnant.
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