U.S. arms the Kurds in Iraq — to fight U.S.-armed ISIS
Obama administration officials announced today that they are sending arms to Kurdish forces in Iraq to bolster their fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
"ISIS has obtained some heavy weaponry, and the Kurds need additional arms and we're providing those — there's nothing new here," said State Department representative Marie Harf.
But where did that heavy weaponry come from? As Vox reported, the U.S.'s bombing campaign against ISIS is destroying hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of U.S. weapons and other military equipment that had originally been given to the Iraqi military, but fell into the hands of ISIS militants as they gained control over a wide swath of the country.
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In other words, the very equipment brought to Iraq by the U.S. following the 2003 invasion is now being used by ISIS terrorists to attack the Kurds, who in turn will be armed by further shipments of American weaponry.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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