The Article by the American Enterprise Institute states: “So, an up-and-coming official in Barzani’s political party believes that fighting Shi‘ites should trump defeating the Islamic State? The Obama administration’s response? Give the Kurds an additional $415 million. Sometimes, throwing money at a problem doesn’t resolve the problem, especially when the Kurds seem more intent on collecting aid than fighting corruption, and when the goal of defeating the Islamic State remains secondary to playing intra-Iraqi political games.”

“Iraqi Kurdistan has spent millions of dollars on lobbying to depict itself as a democracy, as an ideological ally of the United States in the region, and as committed to the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh). The reality is far more complex.”

“In the weeks before ISIS seized Mosul, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) apparently supplied some weaponry, like Kornet anti-tank missiles, to ISIS in order to weaken the central government with whom Masoud Barzani was locked in a political dispute.”

On 19 APR 16 NEC-SE posted:  Really, Did Billions of U.S. Taxpayer Dollars and 4,497 U.S. Combat Deaths Bring Democracy to Iraq?

In the posting, we stated:  In Washington, it is hard for the politicians who are on the KRG’s political payroll to admit that they may have taken monies from the wrong partner for years, especially during an election year. It is harder when they do so knowing fully that the Assyrians are undergoing genocide.

On 11 MAR 15 NEC-SE posted the article: Miracles, Genocide, and War Crimes

In the article, we stated: “In a recent debate-style discussion in Irbil, Iraq, conducted by an Assyrian blogger, she stated that the ISIS of today is no different than the Ottoman Turks and their Kurdish allies from 100 years ago. In her assessment, the Kurds of 100 years ago conducted the same type of actions in support of the Ottoman Turks that ISIS is conducting against the Assyrians today . . .. When 11 Kurdish participants, who denied her accusations, challenged the blogger, she replied with a simple question: ‘Is your grandmother Kurdish or is or was she Assyrian?’ Eight out of 11 Kurds stated that their grandmothers were Assyrian. The Kurds of 100 years ago took many Assyrian women captive during the Assyrian genocide–just as ISIS is doing today.

The reality is that, from the Assyrian Christian perspective, the Muslim Sunni Kurds have not changed significantly in the last 100 years, given several facts: 37 members of the KRG are members of the Islamic brotherhood; almost 300 members of their religious affairs departments have joined ISIS; and a large number of Muslim Sunni Kurds have joined ISIS to fight other Sunni Muslim Kurds. The only difference now is that the U.S. political apparatus, the State Department, and the Pentagon have no true allies left in the Middle East. They believe the Muslim Sunni Kurds can be sold to their bosses and the American people as a different type of Sunni Muslim because of their apparent willingness to fight the Turks, Iran, and Sunni Arabs at the request and the beckoning of the U.S. and other western nations. It is a false belief based on an equally false narrative that the large and effective Kurdish lobby in D.C. uses to secure more financial support from Congress and moral support from the Western media. Some of the U.S. taxpayer monies flowing into Kurdish coffers are used by the Muslim Sunni Kurds to “buy” the service of Assyrians in Kurdish armed forces.

http://nec-se.webbar312.net/2016/04/19/really-did-billions-of-u-s-taxpayer-dollars-and-4497-u-s-combat-deaths-bring-democracy-to-iraq/

On 21 MAR 16, NEC-SE posted:  The Kurds will take DoD monies and support but their hearts belong to their first love, the Russians.

In the posting, we stated: Over the past 25 years, the U.S. Air Force has served as a de facto air force for the various Kurdish groups fighting in Iraq and Syria. The DoD has spent billions of dollars to help the Kurds realize their aspirations in the region. Today, the majority of Pentagon service personnel who served a year or two with the Kurds in Iraq are still willing to fall on their swords for Kurdish leaders and fighters who couldn’t care less about the American regional interests and the sacrifices these Americans who defend them now have made on behalf of the Kurds.

When the U.S. asked Iraq’s various ethnic and religious groups to work together to create a new nation, the Kurds armed themselves and held referendums to split away from Iraq. When the U.S. asked those same groups to share the economic resources of Iraq, the Kurds extracted and sold oil from the Kirkuk and Mosul fields to Turkey and kept the earnings for themselves. When the KRG was told to be more democratic and recognize other minorities’ rights, they jailed most of the leading Yazidi and Christian activists and set up a lobby group in DC to push for a larger Kurdistan. What’s more, KRG President Masoud Barzani was working to suppress internal opposition within the KRG even as American soldiers were fighting–and, in one notable case, dying–on behalf of the Kurds.

That “notable case” was Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, a decorated and experienced Delta Force operator who was killed in a raid on an ISIS prison compound where Kurdish fighters were supposedly being held. But no Kurds were found in the compound: ISIS had moved them to another location prior to the raid, a fact known in advance to the Kurds but not revealed to the Delta operators for reasons that remain both unclear, and wholly suspicious.

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/helmet-cam-video-shows-raid-on-isis-prison-where-u-s-d-1738558922

http://nec-se.webbar312.net/2016/03/21/the-kurds-will-take-dod-monies-and-support-but-their-hearth-belongs-to-their-first-love-the-russians/

On 28 MAR 16 NEC-SE posted:  With friends like these, Assyrians don’t need enemies.

In the posting we stated:  In an interview with K24, the Secretary-General of the Assyrian Bet al-Nahrain Democratic Party, Romyo Hakkari on Tuesday, 22 MAR 16, stated that Christians are with an independent Kurdistan Region that protects the right of all ethnic and religious groups in the Region, a democratic Kurdistan that defends minorities before Kurds.

He noted that post-Islamic State (IS), Christians who have been displaced would return to their own areas, in Nineveh Province in northern Iraq. “Christians have their own official Peshmerga military unit now, which is under the authority of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Ministry of Peshmerga. The unit will participate in the future liberation of Nineveh Province from IS insurgents,” he added.

Mr. Romyo Hakkari identifies himself as an ethnic Assyrian of the Chaldean Church – a Roman Catholic oriental rite denomination.

NEC-SE also prepared a few questions for Mr. Hakkari to ask the Muslim Sunni Kurdish leadership.

If One of the Beth Nahrain Democratic Party (BNDP) goals is to create an autonomous Assyrian Administrative Region within Iraq how can they accomplish this goal if they are not autonomous and are operationally controlled and administratively controlled by others?
Who abandoned the battlefield and left the Assyrians to defend themselves with no weapons when ISIS attacked?
Who did not in writing request the Assyrian genocide to be recognized in DC while they demanded the language of the recognition of Kurdish genocide and why?
When the 10,000 Assyrians serving in the Peshmerga asked to join the only Assyrian Christian force which is command and controlled by the Assyrians to fight along side with them and secure Assyria Nineveh Plain they were told no by the Peshmerga Commander and the KRG, why?

We add another question to Mr. Hakkari’s list which he can now pose to the KRG leadership.  Who do you expect the Assyrians to fight when the Peshmerga is directed to fight the Shia of Iraq over ISIS or after ISIS?

http://nec-se.webbar312.net/2016/03/28/with-friends-like-these-assyrians-dont-need-enemies/