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A Call for Healing

A Call for Healing
Democrats Call for Healing the Country
Showing posts with label Kurdish Religious Tolerance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kurdish Religious Tolerance. Show all posts

Feb 5, 2017

Why Should We Help the Kurds?



Why should we help the Kurds?   Because the Kurds could easily become another democratic island of stability in the Middle East, like Israel.  The Kurds are a group of people united by their own separate language and culture, split between Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The Kurds are definitely not trying to turn the clock back to the 7th century. The Kurds are mostly secular Sunni Muslims who believe in religious tolerance.  They also include Kurdish speaking Yazidis, Shiites and Christians.  During the ISIS advances, they took in Arab refugees without regard for religion, Christians, Shiites and Sunnis.  They helped organize, train and arm Yazidis and Arab Christian militias.  They have women fighters in their militia units, some trained as snipers.  The Kurds even have regular commercial flights from the Kurdish Regional Capital, Erbil, Iraq, to Tel Aviv, Israel.  The Kurds are as close as you can get to democratic tolerant folks outside of Israel.  Iraqi Kurds are extremely pro American.  They believe the US saved them from annihilation when Saddam Hussein was lashing out after the first Gulf War.  They are trying to get as close to us as they can.  

The Kurds have been the most effective military units fighting ISIS.  In Syria, they are so reliable that it’s an embarrassment.  The Kurds have to recruit and train Sunni Arab defense forces to control the Arab villages they capture from ISIS.  While the villagers are happy ISIS is gone, they will not accept a Kurdish occupation.  To keep the villages free of ISIS, the villagers need weapons and training.   ISIS never captured any Kurdish weapons in working condition during their original advances.  When Kurdish militia retreats it's because they're out of ammo or taking horrendous casualties. 

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