Here’s a fact that you probably haven’t seen trending lately: With a population as high as 45 million, the Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without their own country.
Genetically, Kurds are descendants of North Mesopotamian (Caucasus) and Near East peoples. Today, they are primarily Sunni Muslims. They’ve engaged in a long bloody struggle to attain independence for what they call Kurdistan but lack the public relations muscle for their cause to get mentioned at Hollywood awards shows.
On the contrary, Kurds are regularly used as geo-political pawns and have been targeted for actual genocide without pushback from, well… anyone.
The destruction continues to this day with Turkey killing at least 40,000 Kurds in recent years.
Let’s take a look at how things tend to play out for those oppressed Middle Eastern people who are not deemed worthy of a hashtag.
In 1975, during a border dispute between Iraq and the Shah of Iran (a major U.S. ally at the time), then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger secretly and manipulatively channeled $16 million in military aid to Iraqi Kurds.
The Kurds succumbed to the spin, believing Washington was finally supporting their right to self-determination. In reality, the U.S. was using the Kurdish rebels to sap the resources of the Iraqi regime and coerce them into a settlement so American access to oil was not impeded.
That settlement came at the 1975 OPEC summit, at which time the U.S. promised Iraq that support for the Kurds would be immediately withdrawn. As Iraq subsequently wiped out the Kurdish rebels, Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani sent a message to Kissinger. It read in part:
“Our movement and people are being destroyed in an unbelievable way, with silence from everyone. We feel, Your Excellency, that the United States has a moral and political responsibility towards our people, who have committed themselves to your country’s policy.”
One can easily imagine Kissinger getting off on being called “your excellency,” while cringing at the concept of moral responsibility, but he did not directly reply to Barzani.
Instead, he instructed a staff member: “Promise them anything, give them what they get, and fuck them if they can’t take a joke.”
When asked to justify America’s duplicity towards the Kurds, Kissinger delivered a one-liner that effectively sums up the perpetual purpose of U.S. foreign policy: “Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.”
Where are all the clever [sic] nicknames?
A little more than a decade after Kissinger’s trademark depravity, another then-U.S. ally took things to another level against the Kurds.
Saddam Hussein was once considered a useful tool for furthering Washington’s nefarious agendas. For example, in the late 1980s, the aforementioned Iran-Iraq war was raging. When the U.S. learned that Iran was about to exploit an Iraqi military weakness, they told Hussein.
The Home of the Brave™ (with Ronald Reagan as the current figurehead) was fully aware that Saddam would attack Iranians with chemical weapons.
Such U.S. indifference to international war crimes spurred Hussein to try carrying out his long-term goal of eradicating the Kurdish people. He launched a patently genocidal campaign in 1988.
Case in point: On the morning of March 16, 1988, Iraqi warplanes and artillery pounded the Kurdish town of Halabja in northern Iraq with mustard gas and the deadly nerve agent sarin.
Some 5,000 people — mainly women and children — suffered gruesome deaths on the day, and up to 12,000 lost their lives shortly afterward. (The photo up top was taken in Halabja shortly after the attack.)
“Weapons of mass destruction” were commonly cited as a pretext for war in 2003, but in 1988, the U.S. and Britain did not call for a military strike after Saddam gassed Kurds at Halabja.
In fact, both nations continued to support Hussein. Why?
One contributing factor was the 24 U.S. corporations then supplying Iraq with nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile technology. That list included Honeywell, Rockwell, Hewlett Packard, Dupont, Eastman Kodak, and Bechtel.
Fast-forward to 2003: As yet another pretext for yet another illegal and immoral war, The Land of the Free™ was suddenly proclaiming that Saddam Hussein had to be removed because [wait for it] he gassed “his own people.”
Forty-five million Kurds remain invisible and landless today.
Where are the “protests” and worldwide outrage (and hate crimes) in response?
Despite this (and so much more) being public knowledge, I still see innumerable folks (who view themselves as woke or awake) falling for similar machinations and deceptions today — when it serves their myopic and manipulated narratives.
As someone who once allowed my good intentions to be highjacked by delusions of grandeur, I view this reality with some compassion. However, if I can break free, anyone can break free. It begins with a willingness to gently but firmly interrogate oneself.
In the name of emerging victorious in this spiritual war, it is LONG overdue for all of us to develop ears to hear and eyes to see.
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G'day MZ, unfortunately down my way your average dill wouldn't know the difference between a Kurd & curd. It's ALL about the score in the footy & get out of the way of the idiot box. I'm currently looking for another planet to reside.👍🇦🇺😃
Yes. The Kurds. No longer fashionable. Like the Uiyghurs. Like the Nigerian schoolgirls. Served a purpose.
"SQUIRREL!"