We hope that the fourth time will be the last time that U.S forces are called upon to save the Iraqi Army in Baiji.
It is worth remembering in this regard that June 6 was the 71st anniversary of D-Day, when the Western Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy to liberate Europe from Nazi tyranny. By end of the day over 10,000 Allied troops had been killed. Thousands more would die in the weeks and months that followed before Germany surrendered in May 1945.
Many Americans killed in Europe in World Wars I and II were buried in American cemeteries in France. That country has granted the United States a special, perpetual concession to the land occupied by the cemeteries, free of any charge or tax. The cemeteries are managed by the American government, under Congressional acts that provide yearly financial support for their maintenance, and the Stars and Stripes fly over them.
By early 2010, 4,373 U.S. troops had been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and more have died since. However, unlike France Iraq has not permitted the establishment of a cemetary for the fallen Americans nor has it allowed any discussion concerning the building of memorial in the country to honor American soldiers who paid the ultimate price to save the Iraqis … from themselves.
Since last year when twelve Assyrian fighters took a stand to defend the Assyrian people in their ancestral homeland an all-volunteer Assyrian Army which has since grown significantly has been fighting in Iraq and Syria without any support or help from the global community.
In late August the Iraqi Shia military commanders we are currently supporting boarded two C-130s in the dead of night and abandoned the Mosul battlefield to ISIS. Shortly thereafter KRG forces also left despite pledges to stay and despite the KRG’s current demands to administer the Nineveh Plains after CF forces have cleared ISIS from the region. In the wake of their departure Sunni villagers who did not join ISIS fled to deserted Christian Assyrian villages and occupied the homes of the former owners.
Unfortunately the State Department will ask U.S. military forces and our embattled Assyrian community to submit to being governed by non-Assyrian leaders and to fight for and support individuals who have no intention of implementing U.S. policy in the region.
The reality is that the State Department is too stubborn and also too afraid of a possible backlash from those individuals to do otherwise. For the same reason the U.S. will withhold support for the Assyrian Army even though the Assyrians have repeatedly demonstrated that they are the only group in the conflict in Iraq who can be counted on to be reliable allies of western democracies.
