Aletho News

Why Interventionists Won’t Help the Kurds

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | October 16, 2019

An interesting aspect of the controversy over Syria is the reaction of interventionists to what they call President Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds. They’re saying that Trump should have kept those 50 U.S. troops serving as a tripwire between Turkish military forces and the Kurds. Removing the tripwire, they say, enabled Turkey to attack the Kurds.

Why is that interesting?

Because, as far as I know, not one single interventionist has traveled to Syria to join up with the Kurds to help them fight the Turkish forces attacking them!

What’s up with that?

After all, let’s keep in mind that it’s really not that difficult for an interventionist to travel to Syria. Just buy a plane ticket, pack your bags, grab your passport, and head on out. No one is going to stop you. Once you get into the Middle East, there will be plenty of people to direct you on how you get to the Kurds.

Then, once you reach the Kurds, just volunteer your services to them. Tell them that you would like to help them. You can be a shooter, or a cook, or a medic. Older interventionists can volunteer to be suicide bombers. What’s important is that you interventionists will be living your principles. You will be helping out people who you ardently believe need help.

As far as I know, not one single interventionist has done that. Instead, they’ve just been filling the newspapers and television talk shows about how important it is that “we” help the Kurds.

Here’s my prediction: Not one single American interventionist is going to travel to Syria to join up with the Kurds and help them out.

Why not?

The reason is simple: Interventionists place a higher value on their everyday lives here in the United States than they do on helping the Kurds. They have jobs. They like going home to their families. They like going on vacation. They like going to sporting events and concerts. They enjoy television. They have hobbies.

All of those things are more important to interventionists than going to Syria to help the people that they say “we” need to help.

Vicarious bravery

There’s that pronoun again — “we.” Interventionists love to use it, they don’t really mean “we” because that pronoun would include them, and they would rather stay here at home than go to Syria to take up arms against the Turks.

By “we,” the interventionists are always referring to U.S. soldiers. Interventionists feel like they are showing how brave and courageous they are by boisterously exclaiming how “we” need to help the Kurds.

What type of “help” are interventionists referring to? Why, military help, of course. They want U.S. soldiers to be killing and dying to help the Kurds, while the interventionists remain here at home going to work, spending time with their families, going on vacation, and attending sporting events and concerts.

Equally interesting, interventionists are willing to sacrifice whatever number of U.S. troops are necessary to keep the Kurds from being killed by the Turks. After all, don’t forget: the purpose of using those 50 U.S. troops as a tripwire is to guarantee that more U.S. soldiers will be committed to battle if the tripwire is triggered. In the mind of the interventionist, if that means thousands or even tens of thousands of U.S. troops losing their lives or limbs in the defense of the Kurds, well, that’s just the way it is.

Maybe U.S. soldiers ought to keep all this in mind the next time an interventionist thanks them for their service. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

October 16, 2019 - Posted by aletho | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Supremacism, Social Darwinism | Syria, United States