Our moral cowardice

Spengler is beyond angry at Washington's foreign policy elite for not supporting the independence vote today by the Kurds in Iraq.

Since September 11, 2001, we've been told that America has to ally with moderate Muslims against "extremism." There are in fact moderate Muslims in the world. The Kurds are "moderate Muslims." The Kurds do not persecute nonbelievers. They don't hate Jews and Christians. They don't forbid women to leave the house without a male relative; in fact, their militias are the only effective fighting force in the world that includes women in front-line combat units. They protect Iraqi Christians against ISIS, and Iraq's Christians in turn support Kurdish independence. They have excellent and long-standing relations with the State of Israel. Jewish life is flourishing in the Kurdish Autonomous Region in the north of Iraq.

Most of all, Kurdish fighters are the spearhead of American-backed ground forces fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq. They do not only act the way we say we want Muslims to act, protecting Christians and Jews and promoting the equality of women. They shed blood for what they believe in.

The Kurds are everything that George W. Bush and Barack Obama told us we should find in the Islamic world, and more. They want nothing but friendship with the United States of America. And we have thrown them under the bus. There isn't an Appalachian outhouse that stinks worse than our foreign policy Establishment.

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