Because, very simply, the US was waiting eagerly for the town to fall. There were all sorts of reasons for this, and none make any real sense. The two biggest are: (a) The hick Islamists running Turkey tilt toward IS and hate Kurds, all Kurds, with the same insane virulence that Turks hate all their neighbors, and especially any minority that dares to identify itself as non-Turkish; (b) The YPG militia defending Kobane is linked to the PKK movement, which is nominally “Socialist,” and American apparatchiks, no matter who’s officially in charge, have never un-learned the anti-Commie nonsense they learned at Georgetown; and (c) The “brave, doomed defenders of Kobane” were worth much more dead than alive, much more in defeat than in victory. If they lost, they’d be beheaded by the vicious loons in IS, and those severed-head videos would be great US agitprop, a great little way to put more pressure on Turkey over the theatre the US really cares about—Iraq.
There's finally a fucking group over there that we're in a position to help who I think deserve our help (ha! ominous phrase, here's the big ol' US to help you! good luck!), and fucked if we won't do it because we have to save political face. What a great damn article.
Thanks! Did you dig the piece he mentioned -- inside the siege? Incredible stuff.
No novel or film has ever impressed on me the ability of an average Joe to transcend average Joeness like the nobility and courage I've seen (mostly in the Middle East) in the past few years. Old overweight guys in their loafers and white starched shirts taking to the streets to battle Egyptian security forces, Kurds standing up for the only chance they have at not being crushed by the tumult of the the times they live in and many more. The fact that they are no different from me in their hopes and aspirations, how lucky I am, how fearful I am for them, shit overwhelms me. Anyone that doesn't know the United States is an amoral demon is fooling themselves. It would have been easy to drop a cornucopia of food, ammo and medicine on these brave people but...