Yezidis – USA Gov Policy

The Yezidis are an ancient Kurdish/Arab people with a religion that combines elements of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and ancient pre-monotheistic devotion to the sun, the moon, water, fire, earth and air. There were approximately 70,000 Yezidis in Iraq, mostly in Nineveh Province near Mosul in the town of Sinjar until they were forced to flee from the violence of the Islamic State or ISIS.

Now 40,000 to 50,000 of them have fled to Mount Sinjar, a holy place to them since they believe that this is where Noah’s Ark came to rest after the great flood. The mountain has always been their home in Iraq with the remaining 180,000 Yezidis in the world living in Syria, Turkey, Iran, Armenia and Georgia. So the question remains as to why the ISIS wants so desperately to commit genocide on a peaceful people with no homeland, who bother no one and who have lived peacefully amongst both Christians and Muslims for centuries.

The simple answer is that the Caliphate that Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi is creating in the 21st century belongs in the 7th century. The ISIS will tolerate no one who does not subscribe to their fundamental and violent version of Islam for very long even if they pay the Jizya tax and assume the mantle of second class Dhimmitude. They also practice “Takfir” which is determining that those thought formerly to be pious Muslims are in fact not because they do not believe in the Caliph’s version of Islam. This then make them Kaffirs and subject to death as apostates.

The story of their persecution is therefore almost a template for modern middle east politics which for far too many Muslims cannot be separated from their religious beliefs and hatreds. There are Christians on the mountain also. Mosul was for a very long time a vibrant Christian community with numerous churches and monasteries all of which are now occupied by the IS who already have blown up the tomb of Yunus or Jonah. In this act of violent desecration which mimicked what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afganistan, the ISIS attacked not just a figure of Christian or Jewish importance but also a Muslim one.

But this was but a mild prelude to the slaughter that came next to both Christians and Yezidis. The ISIS spared no one. Catholic Online reported “There is a park in Mosul,” Mark Arabo told CNN during a Skype interview from San Diego, “where they actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick and have them in the park.” Other children were gunned down with their bodies left to rot in the sun. Men were crucified and beheaded, at least one woman was stripped naked , turned upside down, had her throat slit and her blood filled up a bowl beneath her as if she were slaughtered in an abattoir under religious law.
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We know this because of photos which the ISIS post as well as others to terrorize the population. Christian and Yezidi wives are also separated from their husbands, raped and forced to be wives to ISIS fighters all consistent with the rules of war established by Muhammed in the 7th century. On the mountain parents are reportedly throwing their children to their death rather than let them fall into the clutches of ISIS. 300,000 Chaldean Christians also have fled to Kurdistan or to Mount Sinjar where they beg for rescue.

As late as 2003 there were over one and a half million Christians living in a multi-sectarian secular but murderous Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Now that number has dwindled to between 350,000 to 450,000 all of whom are refugees on the run if in the north. Those who sought sanctuary in Kurdistan under the protection of the Peshmerga are now once again being threatened by The ISIS forces advancing on Erbil the Kurdish capital with state of the art U.S. made weapons captured from Iraqi soldiers who fled when attacked by the smaller forces of ISIS.

The Kurds are running out of ammunition and need to be re-supplied with everything up to date that the U.S. has. The U.S. also has to use overwhelming air power to obliterate this Da’esh army while it is still in the high desert in open convoys.

Meanwhile the people on the mountain wait for food and water to survive knowing that if they come down that mountain they will be butchered. Obama has promised them that help is on the way. He has inferred that he will use air power if U.S. interests are threatened. He has promised to avert a humanitarian genocide, perhaps in recognition that it was his misguided, premature withdrawal of US fores from Iraq that has caused this debacle to occur.

Larry Allison authored this analysis.

Quick Analysis

U.S. Nuclear Modernization is Urgent Priority

The undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force, Melissa Dalton, warns that “With two nuclear-armed peer competitors — Russia and China — and with both advancing their nuclear capability, the U.S. now, more than ever, must move at full speed to modernize its nuclear deterrence capability. That effort is not just for U.S. national security, but as well for partners who depend on the U.S.” She stressed that the threat from aggressive, unfriendly nuclear armed nations is unprecedented. “We face for the first time in our nation’s history, two strategic competitors that are nuclear states with large and growing nuclear arsenals. When we look at the [People’s Republic of China] and its breathtaking modernization over the last two decades, we see today they have over 500 operational nuclear warheads, far exceeding prior projections.” Some suspect that China’s nuclear force may even be larger than commonly believed. According to recent Pentagon report, “Over the next decade, the PRC will continue to rapidly modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces. Compared to the PLA’s nuclear modernization efforts a decade ago, current efforts dwarf previous attempts in both scale and complexity. The PRC is expanding the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms while investing in and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support further expansion of its nuclear forces. The Undersecretary noted that in coming years, the U.S. expects China’s warheads to exceed 1,000. Russia, the worlds preeminent nuclear power, also remains a challenge. “We see Russia brandishing its nuclear weapons in the context of the Ukraine conflict and also possessing novel nuclear capabilities that are designed to challenge our escalation calculus.The stakes are incredibly high.” Dalton noted that During the Cold War, the U.S. maintained top-notch nuclear deterrence, and the domestic defense industry stood ready to provide whatever was needed. But since the fall of the Soviet Union, and with the U.S. focused on other parts of the world for the past 20-plus years, the U.S. must now up its game. “We mortgaged our nuclear modernization for 30 years. We had the post-Cold War peace dividend… But the fact is, the bills are now way past due, and in that time, our competitors went to school on us, and they caught up.” With U.S. defense underpinned by its nuclear deterrent, modernization of that capability is a top priority for the Department of Defense, she stressed. Air Force Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said that while two-thirds of the nuclear triad, the ground systems and the aircraft-based systems belong to the Air Force — the submarine systems belong to the Navy — modernization is not just an Air Force effort or even just a Navy effort. “It is imperative that we understand that it’s not a Department [of Defense] imperative that we maintain the nuclear security and nuclear triad,” he said. “It is a national imperative. It’s national policy that the foundation of what we hold dear, the framework of that is nuclear deterrence. And to add to that, and I’ve seen this in the last 19 months of being in command, our allies and partners are counting on us more than ever.” Last year, Senator John Kennedy (R-La) warned that “Today, we no longer face just one threat. Russia still maintains the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, but China’s nuclear stockpile is growing rapidly. North Korea continues to threaten our allies with its collection of nuclear weapons. And, thanks to the disastrous Iran nuclear deal, Iran is marching ever closer to developing nuclear weapons of its own. The United States must now counter nuclear superpowers in both China and Russia while also deterring the itchy trigger fingers of unstable dictators like Kim Jong Un and the Ayatollah in Iran. We should be innovating and preparing our nuclear arsenal for this new global dynamic, but instead, our nuclear stockpile remains stuck in the Cold War. Simply put: America’s nuclear stockpile is old and shrinking. And while modernizing our nuclear arsenal should be a top priority, our effort to restart nuclear weapon production has been riddled with delays and poor planning. And we don’t have time to waste.” Photo: A Titan II missile on display inside the missile silo at Missile Site 8 in Green Valley, Ariz. (DoD)