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Betrayal Times Two: Arabs and Kurds
The Brits betrayed the Arabs and now we betray the Kurds.
The Kurds field some all-woman combat units in a region not known for it (Israeli Defense Force excepted) and the women as well as the Kurdish men are fierce. They’ve had to be; they live in a rough neighborhood.
Kurdistan, in the “home of the Kurds” sense, includes parts of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. In the sense of an internationally recognized nation-state, Kurdistan does not exist. It almost did exist at the end of World War I.
The Kurds have a distinct language and a distinct culture. They have a national flag, national colors, and a national anthem that they will sing at the appearance of a mic — unlike us, we who passed over many great patriotic songs to adopt an anthem that only professionals (and not all of them) can sing.
Most Kurds were residing in the Ottoman Empire, which threw in with the Central Powers in WWI. The Ottoman Turks gave a good account of themselves, but the main event was in Western Europe, and the Central Powers lost.
If you saw “Lawrence of Arabia,” it was a reasonable approximation (with the usual Hollywood discount) of the British attempt to foment rebellion among Ottoman Arabs. T.E. Lawrence was an anthropologist who had “gone native” well before WWI.
