Barely more than a 100 years ago, Turkey executed what is considered by historians the first major genocide of the 20th century – the murder of hundreds of thousands of Armenians – perhaps as many as 1.5 million – and the driving of hundreds of thousands of other Armenians into the desert, where many perished either at the hands of Turkish zealots or by starvation.
This week, as winter approaches, hundreds of thousands of Syrian and Turkish Kurds have already been driven from their homes by Turkey – with the approval of the president of the United States Donald J. Trump – into some of the very same deserts that became the grave sites of so many Armenians barely a century ago.
“I am afraid, my friends, that the ugly chapters of genocides and the deep-rooted history of persecution in the Middle East will last longer if we ignore the facts,” activist Widad Akreyi has written. “If we keep silent, we will probably witness another genocide at a future date, and the price we may pay for neglecting our duty to act may prove to be too high.”
That future date is upon us.
Today, in spite of agreement on a negotiated “pause” – falsely described as a “cease-fire” by Trump and Vice President Pence, and contradicted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – attacks from Turkish and Turkish-backed militias on Syrian Kurds, American allies whom Trump has abandoned, continue.
A negotiated “pause,” which was implemented without consultation or approval from the Kurds.
It appears that Russian forces have occupied positions previously held by American forces, that desperate Kurds are so desperate they are appealing for protection from Syrian President Bashar Hafez al-Assad, he who is responsible for the killing of more than 500,000 Syrians in an 8-year-long civil war, and that Iranian aid to the Syrian regime continues unabated.
Reports continue to appear that American forces, shamed and humiliated by their commander-in-chief’s servile capitulation to Turkish President Erdogan, have had to blow up their own ammunition depots and vital assets as they rapidly withdrew in the face of the Turkish advance against America’s staunchest allies in the Middle East – the Kurds.
Trump, through negotiations led by Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, not only agreed to let Turkey ethnically cleanse all Kurds from their own lands in Syria – Kurds who lost more than 11,000 fighters as they fought alongside Americans in our battle against ISIS – but also agreed not to sanction them for doing so.