About our "Shoulder to Shoulder" alliance. We had 10 KIA, the Kurds had 11,000

during the horrific five-year successful war to eliminate the Islamic State Caliphate.

Per WaPo https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/07/trump-abandons-syrian-kurds-top-commander-pleads-us-support/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

To my thinking that should earn U.S. support for creation of an entirely free and independent Kurdistan out of their federalized portion of Iraq.

Which, btw, Joe Biden proposed shortly after we toppled Saddam, and which to me made good sense then. At 40 million people the Kurds reportedly are the largest distinctive population in the work to lack a home nation. They have their own language, and their culture is not Shiite Arab, not Sunni Arab, not Persian, etc... it is Kurdish.

If we had helped establish a free Kurdistan in NE Iraq in 2003 or 2004 it would have pissed off Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. But what of it? Look what a godawful "ally" Turkey has been since then anyway. How much worse, if at all, would the Sunni-Shiite Iraqi Civil War have been had Kurdistan been a separate nation at the time? And who cares if Iran or Syria don't want there to be a Kurdistan anywhere on Earth?

If we had done that then, we'd have helped establish what today would be America's only politically moderate, religiously moderate, democratic ally in that part of the Muslim world. On top of that, it would be a militarily effective ally, probably would still be politically stable, AND, big bonus, the Kurds are modern-minded enough that they treat women like actual fellow human beings! Quite the novel concept in that neighborhood.

After helping us hold Iraq together since 2003 despite having every reason and many opportunities to try to break free, and after having FOUGHT the actual ground war for us against the Islamic State for five years, and with our intell, air support, and weapons, having WON that extremely critical war (at a cost of 24,000 wounded in addition to their 11,000 killed) - if ANY people in the world has earned our unwavering support in almost ANYTHING, it's the Kurds.

Instead, the self-serving, emoluments-burdened, Russian boot-licking, crazed ogre in our Oval Office, without warning, orders them ABANDONED to face, alone, the increasingly Islamist autocrat Erdogan's invading Turkish forces. With Erdogans' new best buddies the Russians lurking around too.

Un-fucking-believable.

We need a Free Kurdistan.

And if this newest insanity goes as badly as it might, Erdogan and Trump will both deserve to be dragged in shackles before an international war crimes tribunal in the Hague.