I originally reported this story for a general interest magazine in late-2017. I’m publishing it now, for the first time, in a special Monday Long Read edition of War, U.S.A. to mark one-month of publishing. I . By the tip of Lateef Majeed's right index finger, stained a deep blue, everyone would recognize the choice he made: he voted in favor of Kurdish secession from Iraq. We sat together last September in Lateef’s cousin’s house, on the outskirts of Tuz Khurmatu, Iraq, a town off the highway connecting Kurdish Kirkuk to the north, with Baghdad to the south. It was an appropriate setting for my visit. In the months and weeks leading to the independence referendum, the Kurds had been trading increasingly hostile verbal salvos with the central government. Baghdad-backed Iraqi militias amassed along highways and outside key cities throughout the north, ready to suppress voter turnout. It was the first time in recent years that the military had shifted its focus away from its fight with the Islamic State.
Pride and treason in the shadow of America
Pride and treason in the shadow of America
Pride and treason in the shadow of America
I originally reported this story for a general interest magazine in late-2017. I’m publishing it now, for the first time, in a special Monday Long Read edition of War, U.S.A. to mark one-month of publishing. I . By the tip of Lateef Majeed's right index finger, stained a deep blue, everyone would recognize the choice he made: he voted in favor of Kurdish secession from Iraq. We sat together last September in Lateef’s cousin’s house, on the outskirts of Tuz Khurmatu, Iraq, a town off the highway connecting Kurdish Kirkuk to the north, with Baghdad to the south. It was an appropriate setting for my visit. In the months and weeks leading to the independence referendum, the Kurds had been trading increasingly hostile verbal salvos with the central government. Baghdad-backed Iraqi militias amassed along highways and outside key cities throughout the north, ready to suppress voter turnout. It was the first time in recent years that the military had shifted its focus away from its fight with the Islamic State.