The US Senate Fails Those Who Fight ISIS on Behalf of the World

By Dr. Rashid Karadaghi:14650953583_a3117e8f03_n

While the Kurds applaud wholeheartedly the vote by the fifty-five Senators who supported arming the Kurdish Peshmerga directly in their courageous fight against one of the biggest evils facing humanity today, they deplore the vote by the forty-five who voted against the measure due to some totally indefensible reasoning. One wonders where those senators have been in the last year or so since ISIS started its vicious war against every national and religious group in the Middle East that have stood in their way. Even the semi-informed average citizen has heard of the savagery of ISIS and the bravery of the Peshmerga fighting them to keep both Kurdistan and the rest of the world safe from this modern day scourge called ISIS.

The Iraqi army, which the US Congress and Administration support with all the weapons it asks for, ran away from the battlefield in Mosul and Ramadi despite its vastly superior numbers and capabilities, leaving ISIS enough weapons and ammunitions and supplies to last a big army several years to fight with. The US, on the other hand, is unwilling to directly arm the Peshmerga, the only fighting force that is standing up to ISIS, thus forcing it to depend on whatever weapons trickle down from Baghdad, knowing that the last thing Baghdad wants to see is any victory by the Peshmerga over ISIS. It may sound strange and unbelievable to an outsider, but the truth is that Arab Iraq, no matter who is in power, sees the Kurds as an equal threat as ISIS and wouldn’t mind having ISIS around if it meant a weakening of the Kurds. Is this the kind of government that should be trusted with delivering to the Peshmerga their fair share of weapons?

Given the historic State Department anti-Kurd policies, there would have been very little chance for the current US Administration to listen to the Senate even if it had voted to supply the Peshmerga with arms directly. But that is beside the point, for the Senate should have taken the correct moral and political decision, which is to fully and in every way support those who are sacrificing their lives to fight a terrorist organization which is not only a threat to their own people but to the rest of humanity. Unfortunately, almost half of the Senators lacked the moral and political clarity and courage required of a leader and, instead, followed the erroneous advice of some out-of-touch bureaucrats.

The Kurds have many great friends and supporters in both the US House and Senate for which they are immensely grateful. However, some are still influenced by decades-old attitudes and policies that were dictated not by the truth about the Kurds but by erroneous information and outright lies about them created and perpetuated by the occupiers of Kurdistan and their supporters in the West. Otherwise, every policy-maker should ask this simple question: “Why on earth should the Kurdish people, numbering more than forty million and larger than two-thirds of the United Nations member states, be ruled by Arabs, Turks, and Persians? Why shouldn’t they rule themselves by themselves in their own homeland that has been theirs for as long as recorded history” This is undeniable history.

The Kurds were certainly living on their ancestral land of Kurdistan long before the Arabs and Turks came and invaded them and occupied their homeland, and they were there for as long as the Persians were in Persia. This is at the heart of all the issues relating to the Kurds. Had the Kurds been allowed to exercise their God-given right to live free in their own homeland, we wouldn’t be discussing this issue right now.

The question of whether the Peshmerga should be armed directly or through the Iraqi government grows out of the notion of the so-called territorial integrity of Iraq, a concept that the Kurds cannot relate to, a country that was created by mistake and no longer exists except in the minds of those who are oblivious to what is happening on the ground. The Kurds have never felt part of Iraq, the country that has waged war on them from the day when that state was established.

It is past time that the US and other Western countries overhauled their policies towards the Kurds all over occupied Kurdistan and adopted a policy that is in line with Western values and ideals of freedom and democracy and the right of all people to be free from oppression and to rule themselves by themselves. This is what the Kurds deserve, no more no less. The US Congress is the logical place to launch this historic change.

Pic from Free Kurdistan Flikr 

Dr Rashid Karadaghi is the author of The Azadi English-Kurdish Dictionary, the most comprehensive English-Kurdish dictionary ever published. A retired teacher and translator living in the USA, he writes many articles on the Kurdish issue.

2 Responses to The US Senate Fails Those Who Fight ISIS on Behalf of the World
  1. Majid
    June 27, 2015 | 03:45

    If Barzani does not step down, add PDK back to list of terrorist organizations.

  2. Sharmin
    June 28, 2015 | 19:43

    My name is Sharmin. I am a widow with 3 children. I will be take Ministry of Peshmergas to court. My husband killed in war. I ask explain from Masood Barzani and Foud Masoom. Who is responsible. My no one cares about my family on streets.

Leave a Reply

Wanting to leave an <em>phasis on your comment?

Trackback URL https://kurdistantribune.com/the-us-senate-fails-those-who-fight-isis-on-behalf-of-the-world/trackback/