The Yazidi genocide and the imperfect fulfillment of ‘never again’

In August 2014, I was serving as a colonel at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, as part of a joint forces land component command that was the precursor to Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve. From the Third Army operations center, we coordinated humanitarian airdrops out of Qatar as Daesh forces surrounded Mount Sinjar, trapping over 40,000 Yazidi civilians on a barren mountaintop . What followed was not just another military operation. It was proof that “never again” need not remain an empty promise.

Claire Barrett’s recent Military Times article “The etymology of genocide and the myth of ‘never again’” reminds us that naming a crime is not enough. The 2014 Daesh genocide against the Yazidis in northern Iraq is a tragic example, but also a rare case where the world did respond,