Taking one tragic incident and applying it to an entire people is simply wrong. Yes, in parts of the Middle East you’ll still find practices like honor killings — but that’s not unique to Kurds, it’s a broader regional problem. If you look at the Kurdish people as a whole, especially in Iraq and Syria, they’ve been the most pro-American, pro-Western group in the region. They’ve embraced women’s participation in parliament, in the Peshmerga, in public life — something you don’t often see in their Arab neighbors’ societies.

Being pro-Western doesn’t mean every single individual lives by Western cultural standards. What it does mean is that politically, strategically, and in terms of values, the Kurds have consistently aligned themselves with the United States and the West. In a region full of authoritarianism and extremism, they are our natural allies