Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
The genocide of the Yezidis has been forgotten By Zidan Ismail
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Yezidis
Robert Spencer : One of those who observed these events, “Salloum,” an iraqi
researcher and writer living in Baghdad and working at a Baghdad
university, explains: “It was the commitment of women in war with the
aim of intimidating and humiliating a religious minority and taking away
their dignity, and also with the aim of influencing the ethnic
composition of this religious minority, and therefore this act is part
of the efforts (genocide) that tried to change the Yezidis and their
beliefs and to influence the ethnic and religious composition of the
region.”
Salloum’s words make it clear that the main goal of the Islamic
State’s capture and rape of Yezidi women was to ensure that there would
be no Yezidi society in the future, and that other such minorities would
be neglected, regional conflicts prolonged, and protective measures
undertaken between Erbil and Baghdad on the one hand and Turkey and Iran
on the other hand.
Today, the surviving Yezidi community in Iraq is still suffering from
the effects of the genocide, which continues to this day. This
suffering is largely due to the fact that displaced persons, who are
estimated to be more than 250,000 people, are still trying to return
home. Yet their return is made difficult, and often impossible, by the
lack of political consensus between the conflicting parties in Iraq
around Sinjar, and repeated attacks by Turkey on the region, under the
pretext of pursuing the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
The conflict between the PKK and Turkey complicates the return of the
displaced Yezidis to Sinjar, according to journalist Saman Daoud, who
points out that the political differences between Baghdad and Erbil are
also a reason for the delayed return of the displaced are their areas of
origin.
Daoud argues that the solution lies in the existence of an
international agreement that urges the parties to the conflict to solve
the question of Sinjar in such a way that the Yezidis are guaranteed a
safe and sustainable return and, given the immense destruction, a
reconstruction fund for Sinjar. The region suffered immensely during the
war with ISIS, and more than 80% of Sinjar was destroyed.
Yet it seems that the international community has begun to neglect
the question of the Yezidis. The media also have forgotten what happened
to the Yezidis, as they are absorbed with the Russian-Ukrainian war,
which gets the most media coverage and has overshadowed all other
problems, although to some extent the crises are similar.
The neglect of the Yezidis has also led them to put their internal
differences aside. The public interest prompted Yezidi youth in Sinjar
to break their silence about the neglect of their cause by community
leaders, as well as the neglect of the Sinjar question by the Iraqi
government and its inability to solve the problem. All this forced the
youth to begin issuing warnings and get involved.
There were violent clashes between the Iraqi armed forces and the
Sinjar protection units “Al-Yabsha” in some civilian areas in Sinjar at
the beginning of this month, which led many families back to the refugee
camps in the greatest wave of displacement after the events of 2014.
This has prompted many Yezidi young people in Sinjar to join vigils to
denounce the violence and to call for the withdrawal of armed groups
from the city, with security handed over to the Iraqi security forces.
Members of the Yezidi community point to their destroyed houses and
accuse the international community, for all of its humanitarian
posturing, of neglecting their persistent suffering.
