Kurd tribes in Syrian region participated willingly in Armenian (Christian) slaughter during WWI.
NOT ALL KURDS PARTICIPATED – OTHER TRIBES PROTECTED ARMENIANS
We found these commentaries on the history of conflict there interesting because the left here and about have been practicing virtual hagiography about the Kurds in Syria and decrying Trump’s policy to get our foot soldiers out of the sector. (Orange man bad). Experienced military analysis we have excerpted and linked to in a previous post maintain that we owe today’s Kurds there nothing as it has been even-steven – and that the Syrian Kurds /PKK loyalty is to opportunism.
Historically that appears to be the MO in that region. The early Kurd PKK (Marxist political party) oriented tribes there were willing participants in the Armenian (Christian) genocide according to these articles.
From an article in Antiwar.com by Morgan E. Hunter Kurdish Participation in the Armenian Genocide (excerpt)
Not widely known in the United States, but very well known in the region, is that among the most enthusiastic participants in the Armenian massacres of 1915 were Kurdish Muslim tribesmen, who largely inhabited the same regions of Anatolia as Armenian Christian peasants. This fact also goes unmentioned in the New York Times piece, but can be found by a casual perusal of Wikipedia, and the associated footnotes.
The Ottoman government of World War I (whose most important leaders, such as Kemal Pasha and Enver Pasha, were actually Albanians by ethnicity) considered Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians as a potential fifth column for the Russians, and made every effort to encourage Muslim attacks on them. The best parallel is with anti-Jewish pogroms in Czarist Russia of that same era, which were encouraged by government officials but mostly carried out by local Polish and Ukrainian peasants.
In the context of the House resolution, it is ironically appropriate that the only Kurdish political party that has actually acknowledged that Kurds participated willingly in the Armenian massacres, and were not just ordered to do so by the Ottoman government – namely the PKK – is the only Kurdish party that is condemned by the US Government as a terrorist organization. I will discuss the PKK and its Syrian offshoot, the PYD in a subsequent article.
Related reading: Kurdish recognition of the Armenian Genocide
So not only are the the Syrian/Turkey area Kurds Marxists with that philosophy’s affinity for terrorism (notwithstanding any overlapping jihadist tendencies that might aggravate some Kurds) they are very tribal oriented and opportunistic. Its a mess that the religion of peace needs to work out. The UN, or better other agencies, can perform any refugee support effort to take place in that area of the world — with orderly emigration focused in that area.
