Solarbûn li dijî qirkirinê (Solidarity against Genocide)

While I oppose any coups, I believe President Trump’s misguided and reckless decision to abandon the Kurds is reason enough for voters to deny him a second term. Personally I cannot in good conscience vote for a President whose actions unleash genocide, nor one who then callously defends them mocking, “The Kurds didn’t help at Normandy.”[2]

Trump’s decision was not “a promise kept” as he claims since troops are still in Iraq whose government is virulently anti-American. Unlike Baghdad’s leaders, the Kurds have proven to be staunch allies who have valiantly defended our interests as well as those of the free world at the cost of more than 11,000 lives in Syria alone agaist ISIS as opposed to America's losses of eight.[3] They also made a Churchillian stand in Iraq and courageously fought ISIS when it appeared the rest of the country was on the verge of total capitulation.

Furthermore, this so-called promise kept breaks a more important one – defeating ISIS since a consequence of abandoning the Kurds has led to the unprovoked Turkish invasion of Syria that he and the world knew was coming based on Erdoğan’s repeated threats, which has resulted in the liberation of thousands of ISIS prisoners enabling them to regroup to fight another day. President Trump alone and no one else is responsible for their newfound freedom.

How about instead of plotting a coup, Congress takes meaningful action and passes a resolution re-committing troops to the Syrian region administered by the Kurds where universal suffrage, freedom of religion and other rights so anathemic to much of that region are present. After all, if members of Congress mean what they say, they should easily pass such a resolution with a veto-proof majority. It could also help the legislative branch regain some of its lost power to “imperial” presidencies that have usurped war-making powers even though Article I, Section 8, Claus 11 of the Constitution “vests in Congress the power to declare war.” Of course, I doubt this will happen since no one in Washington, D.C. has the will or the courage to do what is right.

Just days before President Trump made his ill-advised decision, the Syrian Kurds (YPG) had agreed to pull back all heavy weapons from near the Turkish border and permit a joint US-Turkish presence in an established safe-zone to address Ankara’s national security concerns. Presidents Trump and Erdoğan ignored this gesture since to the latter, his motives were never about Turkish security interests – they were rather about opening a new campaign of genocide this time against the Kurds emboldened by an apathetic world that still ignores their 1914-23 genocide against the Armenians that killed some 1.5 million.

While the Kurds have been left little choice but to align themselves with the Assad regime and Russia, such a move likely will buy them only a little time. If history repeats itself, they too will turn on the Kurds as so many past regimes and allies have when they no longer needed them. Considering the Kurds number about 30 million, it is time the world recognize they deserve a contiguous state (in the parts of Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran they inhabit) and work towards such establishment since such a state is the only guarantee the Kurds can be protected against genocide. The United States and an apathetic world will never defend them, proven by their historical examples of mere talk, no action and abandonment when they deem the Kurdish people have outlived their usefulness to their national and political objectives.

Last, even though I have little hope the world will act to stop this new campaign of genocide since international bodies such as the United Nations have consistently looked the other way and avoided use of the term to mitigate their obligations to act – it does bother me, to put it mildly and it is frustrating when innocents needlessly die even if they are in far away lands. During the first two decades of this new millennium – the only glimmer of hope that occurred was when President Obama took quick action to spare the Yazidis from falling victim to genocide when ISIS attempted to exterminate them in the mountainous regions of Iraq.

With a heavy heart and hopes and prayers that things will be different this time despite my skepticism and one day genocide will be a thing of the past, I share three of the photos, I took in Bosnia in 1994 when the genocidal campaign was still raging there, the middle which inspired my poem, “Children of War (©1999):”

Despite the passage of time, these images remain indelibly etched into my memory and I cannot help but protest – “Not again!” since the post Holocaust vow – “Never again!” remains as elusive as ever.

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