The United States Should Arm the Kurds

The abolition of the Islamic State is paramount. Not only to the well-being of the 33 million inhabitants of Iraq, but to the world as well. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights finds the death toll of ISIL related violence to be 55,047 civilian casualties, 18,802 people killed and 36,245 wounded. The violence has also caused 3,206,736 civilians to become internally displaced in Iraq. This inhibits the ability of over 1 million school age girls and boys access to housing, clean water, or education [1]. Abolition of the Islamic State would end tremendous amounts of suffering as cited above. The question then, is what is the best method in which to end the Islamic State. That option is the Kurdish people. The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East, and are comprised of around 25 to 30 million people [2]. Thus far, the Kurds have been the most effective force fighting ISIL. Time and time again, they have proven that they are able to take ground from the IS, and keep it. They have carved out a 400 km stretch of territory along the Turkish border and advanced to within 30 miles of the ISIL stronghold, Raqqa [2]. Kurds have also taken 17,000 square miles from ISIL [3] and regarded as the most effective fighting force in Iraq and Syria [4].Their problem, and what's stopping them from becoming a more effective fighting force, and thus eliminating ISIL is their lack of arms and financial support. One of the main problems is that many Kurds can only fight part-time because of how low their salaries are. As one high-ranking authority says, "If they stay on the front line for a whole month, they can"t even feed their families." [5] Providing financial aid will greatly increase the amount of soldiers in the Kurdish army, and thus increasing their strength and effectiveness. The Kurds also have few decent weapons, most are extremely old, and many soldiers don't have weapons at all [6]. Given how effective the Kurds have already been in their weak state of arms, arming them would lead to a dramatic increase in battlefield effectiveness. Kurdish officials explain that US assistance is *vital* to success against ISIL [8]. Arming the Kurds would help end ISIL, and thus prevent tremendous suffering. This plan also leads to a net cut of cost for the US. Choosing to arm the Kurds would cost significantly less than fighting ISIL ourselves. The estimated cost of fighting ISIL currently would be 40 billion dollars a year [7]. In contrast, the sufficient funds needed to "equip and enable" Kurdish troops would only be $500 million [9]. The US can obviously increase this amount, maybe even 20 times the amount to ensure that the Kurds can be the absolute most effective fighting force to ever patrol the Middle East, and it would still save the US billions of dollars. Furthermore, if the US helps arm the Kurds and they defeat ISIL, they will likely be awarded their own state, Kurdistan. The geographical orientation of this new country will ensure that they will have massive amounts of oil [10]. Thus, if the US were to be the one's to have helped the Kurds achieve this state, they will have another world partner. Leading to profitable trade agreements for the US regarding oil. That"s all I'm gonna bring up for my opening arguments. Peace and Love![1] http://tinyurl.com...[2] http://tinyurl.com...[3] http://tinyurl.com...[4] http://tinyurl.com...[5] http://tinyurl.com...[6] http://tinyurl.com...[7] http://tinyurl.com...[8] http://tinyurl.com...[9] http://tinyurl.com...[10] http://tinyurl.com...