Homelands

Between 1939 and 1945 the Nazis brutalized and murdered all the Jews and Roma they could get their hands on.  In 1948 a Jewish homeland was established in the Middle East, putting an end to state-sponsored genocide attempts.  The Roma, however, are still scapegoated and harassed all over Europe.  There is a lesson here.

For all we hear about the global corporate economy, nationalism has not died.  Marginalized peoples are not safe until they have a state of their own.  The Tutsi of Rwanda, the Uighurs of China and indigenous groups everywhere have faced extermination or forced "assimilation," usually because somebody coveted their land and its natural resources.  Again we are reminded of the probable fate of the Kurds.

When the modern-day Middle East was mapped a century ago by a few European statesmen (and Woodrow Wilson), the Kurds were divided among Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, where they have usually struggled for cohesion and survival.  In 1990 they were an integral part of Operation Desert Storm, which drove the Iraqi army out of Kuwait and protected the oilfields of Saudi Arabia.  That phase of the forever war ended with Saddam Hussein still in power; George H.W. Bush encouraged the Kurds to rise up against him and promptly abandoned them to his vengeance.  In spite of this, Kurds joined the allies a generation later to free Iraq and Syria from Islamic State.

Well, it's 2019 and time to betray the Kurds again.  Trumputin spent most of the morning on a series of tweets that read like psychiatric case notes, whining about how much money it costs to keep troops in Syria, how other countries take advantage of us, how he personally destroyed Islamic State (you know how lazy Obama is) and how great a tactician he is, the gist of which is that he wants to remove the troops and let his good friend Erdogan do whatever he wants in the region.  (And while Turkey wipes out the Kurds, Russia consolidates its hold on Syria.)  It's all good, including this final outburst of demented egomania:

"...If Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I've done before!).  They must, with Europe and others, watch over...the captured ISIS fighters and families....THE USA IS GREAT!"

"...The endless and ridiculous wars are ENDING!  We will be focused on the big picture, knowing we can always go back & BLAST!"

Nothing excites a coward like violence someplace else.  This particular coward is on record as believing he can destroy Afghanistan in a week, because he has no idea how big it is and because he's been itching to nuke something since election night.  (The relative lack of grammatical mistakes suggests this was actually written by another coward, probably Miller.)

Ever drop a rock on an anthill?  That's what it looked like.  Lindsey Graham says he talked to Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, and that doesn't happen often.  He's ready to introduce sanctions on Turkey if they invade Syria.  Susan Collins twisted her hankie and called the withdrawal "terribly unwise."  Ben Sasse finger-wagged, "Erdogan should carefully consider his privileged status as a NATO member.  The American people don't partner with genocidal regimes."  (I passed some water through my nose when I read that -- good one, Ben!)  Even Brian Kilmeade expressed reservations from his couch.  But the biggest and funniest squeal came from Pat Robertson, who says Trump may lose "the mandate of  heaven" if he abandons the Kurds.

Too late.  There is video purporting to be an air strike on the Kurdish-controlled border crossing between Syria and Iraq.  Erdogan doesn't believe in letting the grass grow under his feet.

United Nations, if you're listening:  Kurdistan now.