Kurdish freedom fighters, quietly allied with America, made international headlines this year when they liberated the Syrian city of Kobani from the beastly rule of the Islamic State (ISIS) in January, and again ten months later when they freed the Iraqi city of Sinjar.
The rule that began with ISIS' invasion of those two cities in late 2014 had been brutal: Christians and Kurds in both cities were murdered and raped in thousands. Their liberation by the Kurdish freedom fighters one year later saved countless others from the same fate. It was said by some at the time that this liberation was made mainly possible by the Kurdish-American alliance.
That alliance and the good will toward America it created among the Kurds did not begin a year ago with the fight against ISIS. Rather it began 25 years before that as the Americans and Kurds faced another common foe, according to Azad Jabbar Mustafa, the president of the Kurdish Student Association headquartered on the campus of Texas A&M.
“The origin of the love and loyalty we Kurds feel for America did not start with our common fight against ISIS. It goes back to George [H.W.] Bush who in 1991 led the multi-national force to push Saddam Hussein’s army out of Kuwait in the Persian Gulf War,” Azad said. “While Bush decided to allow Hussein to remain in power, the overwhelming victory of America and her allies sent a message to the victimized and brutalized Iraqi Kurds that Hussein was not invincible.”
The historical suffering of those Iraqi Kurds has been fairly well documented. The Kurds, an eclectic, peaceful Muslim sect, which can trace its Middle Eastern origins back 4,000 years, were among the groups singled out for destruction by Saddam Hussein. They currently number approximately 6 million people, living mainly in Kurdistan in north Iraq, and they constitute 17 percent of Iraq’s total population.
