Somber Thoughts About Kurdish Friends

I find myself thinking a lot about Kurdistan lately. Let me explain.

This week, I took a work trip to San Diego. I was initially sort of dreading it - I strongly dislike California, which is to say, most Californians. (Being a Pacific Northwest native, I can say without contrition that we're raised from birth to dislike Californians, particularly when they aggregate, and with good reasons that I won't go into here.) A seemingly unrelated factor is that, particularly owing to the continuing war in Iraq and Syria and its impact on the Kurds, I've been thinking about some old friends lately.

I spent more than a year of my life training soldiers, and that work led to the formation of some important, though sporadic, friendships with a gaggle of Iraqi expatriates. I was probably acquainted with forty or fifty of them, mostly Kurds and Chaldeans. I worked closely with ten or fifteen of those. I stayed in sporadic contact with three of those. One of them, whom I'll call Greyhound, died in a car accident in 2008; a picture of him sitting on a AH-64 Apache is inset. A second, whom I'll call Dingo, has apparently gone back to Iraq for the time being. That leaves the third, whom I'll call Hovawart, with whom I hadn't spoken since 2012... Until Monday. More on that presently.

I wasn't - we weren't - actually in the Army, but we worked so closely with the Army, in such similar conditions as the Army, that I'd go so far as to say that working with them was akin to having served with them. Greyhound and I were once detained overnight, and spent hours competing with each other to harass and harangue the soldiers charged with guarding us. A few times, Hovawart was assigned to a task that kept him in the field for something on the order of a week, and we'd make runs to the store every couple of days and bring him chow, cigarettes, and other bits and bobs to keep him going. There are few folks with whom I've shared that kind of comraderie.

So, like I said earlier, I took a trip to San Diego for work, and I realized shortly after landing that a suburb outside San Diego is where my former colleagues live. I phoned one of them - the one with whom I've kept in the closest contact over the years, though it's still been sporadic - and we immediately made plans to meet up the following night. Since the last time I saw him, he's gotten married and become a father, so I was able to meet his wife and his young son. We remembered Greyhound together, spoke a bit about Dingo, and shared a couple of meals before I had to leave. He also called another woman we'd worked with - the one in the white coat in that group picture - and she came over to see me as well. It was fantastic to catch up with them, and I hope that I'll keep in more reliable contact with Hovawart than I've done in recent years.

Not surprisingly, Hovawart and I spent a lot of our time together talking about Kurdistan. At times, it was funny - while driving, we were between two big pickups, and he joked that "I'm stuck between two ISIS!" Mostly, we talked about how hard the Kurds are fighting, how they need and deserve help, and how they're finally starting to make progress against ISIS. Hovawart was and is frustrated with Turkey, and he's not particularly impressed with the American government's handling of the situation. He's frustrated at what he sees as an American reticence to arm the Kurds, based upon the worry that the weapons might eventually be used against Americans. Hovawart made the comparison between arming Kurdistan in 2014, and arming the Afghan militias in the 1980's, but dismissed it because, and I quote:

"That's not how the Kurds are. They never bite the hand that feeds them. It's not in their nature."

The Afghanistan comparison is imperfect - most of the weapons that America and its partners supplied to the Afghan militias who were fighting the Soviets, and that everyone was worried about in late 2001, had reached their shelf life. There's also the inconvenient matter of ISIS/DAESH's knack for reappropriating American-supplied equipment. But, ultimately, Hovawart is right: there's no foreseeable future in which the Kurds and the West would be at odds, and Kurdistan itself is much more stable and secure than Afghanistan or the Arab regions of Iraq.

I overheard in the cab that took me back to my place from the airport that the Kurds had broken the siege at Mount Sinjar, which is what finally spurred the Obama Administration into action on the Kurds' behalf a few months ago. On Friday, I saw three articles at War is Boring: I Flew to Mount Sinjar on an Iraqi Helicopter, Getting Off Mount Sinjar Is a Nightmare, and - simultaneously horrifying and awe-inspiring - Starving and Surrounded, Kurds and Yezidis Refuse to Abandon Mount Sinjar. Seeing those articles so soon after having spent time with Hovawart upset my internal equilibrium.

An acquaintance of mine, Michael Totten, has spent a good deal of time in Kurdistan. In his excellent 2012 book, Where the West Ends, Totten recounts an impromptu trip from western Turkey to Dohuk. In recent months, he's written a number of articles about Kurdistan: The Kurds Rise From the Ashes of Syria, Who Are the Yezidis?, Iraq's Kurdish Firewall, A Dispatch from Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan, and one that my time with Hovawart specifically reminded me of: Why the US is Bombing Iraq and Not Syria. According to Totten:

The Kurds of Iraq are our best friends in the entire Muslim world. Not even an instinctive pacifist and non-interventionist like Barack Obama can stand aside and let them get slaughtered by lunatics so extreme than even Al Qaeda disowns them. There is no alternate universe where that’s going to happen.

He's absolutely right. The Kurds were American allies when Saddam Hussein was still in power. The Kurds were American allies, a safe rear echelon, throughout the 2003-2011 Iraq War. The Kurds want nothing more than to be left to their own devices in their own territory, and they're willing to fight to defend that territory - their nation - from those who would deny them that peace. It's frustrating to feel so helpless to help these friends - my friends - after they've been so hospitable to me. I hope that the international community continues to help the Kurds, and that they're able to reestablish the peace that they had enjoyed, at last, over the last few years.

Dissecting a List About Oregon

Somebody on my Facebook feed posted an article, 23 Words That Are Interpreted Entirely Different In Oregon. Being from Oregon myself, I figured I'd share the link, and give my reaction to a few of the items.

6. Starbucks I'm not sure what they're on about. I'm fond of Starbucks, though I attribute it to having been around the world, because I like that every Starbucks is basically the same Starbucks. As for Dutch Bros., the have some good drinks, but a lot of their employees are either way too hipster and/or metrosexual for my comfort, and they don't understand how tea works. At this point, I basically just avoid Dutch Bros. altogether. So, it's popular with Oregonians, and I've enjoyed it before, but I question the whole "anti-Starbucks" thing.

8. Rogue Rogue makes some good beers. There are some other good beers, though. Widmer Bros., is great, for example. In fact, to single Rogue out of all the great breweries and, more importantly, microbreweries basically misses the point entirely.

9. Sales Tax Guilty as charged.

14. Gas Station I've lived in Oregon, and I've lived elsewhere. People who have never lived in Oregon usually phrase it as "You aren't even allowed to pump your own gas!" I correct them: "No, it's that you have to pump yours!" Full service is awesome.

16. Fruitcake I have no clue why they included this. To the best of my knowledge, this isn't a thing.

17. Timber With a few exceptions, the Portland Timbers are an entirely Portland thing. Soccermania isn't really a big thing outside of Portland.

20. Ducks "The only football team anyone in Oregon will ever root for." Um... No. I personally hate football, but my Facebook feed is proof that there are a lot of people rooting for the Oregon State University Beavers. Now, had they said "The football team with the most asinine uniforms in the NCAA"...

22. Weed Some of us aren't particularly pleased with the cannabis culture. It's not an Oregon-wide thing - mainly Portland (which has been mobbed by non-Oregonians in the last decade or so), and moreso Eugene, and maybe Bend to a lesser degree. Elsewhere, cannabis is no more or less prevalent than it is anywhere else in America.

I suspect that this list was probably written by a Portlander (or a Californian immigrant)... Who's a bit of a #16.

Feel Good Stories for a Challenging December

There's plenty of bad news in the world on any given day, and while plenty of it is relevant, much of it isn't. Beyond that, the goal of shocking people with horrific news often crowds out the good news. I had a thought the other day: the message of Jesus Christ is referred to as the "gospel" - Koine Greek for "good news". The four books of the Bible discussing the course of Christ's life are known as the "gospels". Remembering that made me wonder if Christ's message, and the message of his life, received those names because they served as such a contrast to the "bad news" of most people's lives. Good news can be a profoundly powerful thing.

I don't have anything as profound as the gospel to share, but with all of the bad news that's being thrown about at the moment, I figured I'd post three pieces of gospel - good news that have caught my eye lately.

Kuwait Times: Kuwait Times: Respecting Expatriates CNN: 'I don't feel like he's dead': Son vindicated as father rescued after 12 days at sea - A fisherman named Ron Ingraham was lost at sea for twelve days aboard his fishing boat. He had basically been given up for dead by everyone but his son, but twelve days after activating his distress beacon, he was found. That's the kind of true story they make movies out of. It's good news.

BBC News: How the West is cutting teen pregnancy - This one's bittersweet, because it would be great if there were better ways to prevent teens from putting themselves in a position to get pregnant in the first place. That said, the statistics suggest that teen pregnancy rates have been declining for years, as have teen abortion rates, and both of those are good things.

Kuwait Times: Kuwait Times: Respecting Expatriates - This one may not make sense to most folks, but I spent more than a year in the Gulf, so this is pretty good news to me. It's an op-ed by a Kuwaiti guy who's recognizing the poor treatment that many domestic servants and laborers receive at the hands of their Kuwaiti employers. He goes on to suggest that such treatment is un-Islamic, runs contrary to the Quran and the Sunna (the practices of Mohammed), and that Kuwaitis should take that difference as a cue to treat expatriate workers with respect. Having spent the last few years reading occasional horror stories of just how badly domestic servants working in the Gulf are treated, and having witnessed de facto slavery with my own eyes, reading such a sentiment from a Kuwaiti is good news to me.

So, there you have it: some recent good news, compliments of yours truly.

Remembering the Christmas Truce

Had it not been for this item at Small Wars Journal, I probably would have missed this year's Christmas advertisement by UK grocer Sainsbury's.


Having the tail end of 2013 and much of 2014 writing a book about the Great War, I found the video particularly moving - though I'll admit to finding it odd that it was an advertisement for Sainsbury's. Of course, being the United Kingdom, it's already generated some controversy. I question whether the advertisement is really "trivializing war". In fact, I think it's actually a moving reminder of the power that our shared traditions have to bind us together, even across seemingly vast divides; and that gifts and sacrifices, even small ones, can have a powerful impact on both benefactor and recipient. In a world that's been cursed by war since literally the beginning of time, it's also a cogent reminder that our commonalities are, ultimately, more important than our differences; whether that reminder will accomplish much, I don't know, but that doesn't make it trivial. Of course, people (and particularly British people) will be able to find controversy in just about everything.

Regardless, I hope that you've enjoyed the video. That's what really matters, isn't it?

Great War Podcasts, Part 4: ABC Radio National

Continuing in my series of posts about podcasts pertaining to the First World War, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National did a series of ten podcasts over two days earlier this year. I've only been through a couple, but they've been really good, including discussions between several British and Australian experts on one aspect of the conflict or another. I'm really looking forward to listening to the rest of them.

The Contested Beginning

Lions and Donkeys

Sideshows

The Enemy Within

Hell and Healing

The Pen and the Sword

The View from Berlin

God and Country

Other Voices, Other Battles

Endgame

Stay tuned, because there are more podcasts to come.

Crock Pot Lasagna

I got this recipe from Big Brother Caleb, and I made it a couple of months ago. It was really good, and pretty easy, but much more involved than I was led to believe. Also, it made more than I wound up being able to eat, and I can eat. So... You've been warned! Enjoy!

Ingredients:
1 pound Ground Beef
Lasagna noodles
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 1/2 cups cottage cheese
1 1/2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:
Brown ground beef and drain. Spoon 1 C. spaghetti sauce in bottom of 4 quart crock pot. Mix remaining sauce with beef. Place 2 uncooked lasagna noodles on sauce in crock pot. Spread 1/3 meat mixture on top of noodles. Spread 3/4 C. cottage cheese over meat. Sprinkle 1/2 C. mozzarella cheese over cottage cheese. Add another layer of uncooked noodles, 1/3 meat mixture, the remaining cottage cheese and 1/2 C. mozzarella cheese. Place another layer of uncooked noodles, meat mixture, and mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over top. Cook on low for 4 hours. If cooked much longer, it gets a bit well done.