A complicated war

Scott admitted that prior to attempting to join the YPG, he didn’t fully understand its relationship with the Kurdish PKK—a Turkey-based political party the U.S. State Department considers a terrorist group.

But he said he’s gradually come to understand the region’s complicated power dynamics. “One thing I’ve noticed about Iraq and Kurdistan is all the politics involved,” Scott added.

He insisted he doesn’t want to cause any problems with any of the other groups. “We are really here just to help them,” he said.

The Western militia fighters asserted they’ve worked with several other fighting groups. Brett even claimed they’ve worked with U.S. Special Forces troops in the Assyrian village of Baqofa.

But working together with local factions can be a challenge. Few of the Westerners speak any Aramaic or Kurdish—but Brett said his knowledge of Arabic helped him get around the region and communicate. He noted he would like to learn Iraq’s minority languages after he masters Arabic.

“It’s a team effort,” Brett said. “It has to be.”

But the Kurdish Peshmerga has lately asserted that they aren’t interested in bringing Western fighters into their ranks—with the exception of members of the Kurdish diaspora—unless they’re coalition advisers.

Military officials have begun to discourage Western volunteers from traveling to Kurdistan to fight, and warned the Peshmerga may try to stop others from going to the front.

Still, the foreign fighters with the Dwekh Nawsha said they want to build a good relationship with the Pesh, and were hopeful they will get the chance to fight.

Scott said he’s eager to help the Kurds any way he can—in particular, he’d like to share his skills with software and radio communications. He suggested that in return, the Peshmerga could give the Assyrian fighters weapons and equipment they’re not using.

“That’s what I would like to see, a lot of good cooperation.”

He said he feels a responsibility to help the Kurds, and explained they’ve been stalwart allies of the West throughout the ’90s and during the Iraq War.

“I wasn’t involved in the Iraqi war, but I personally think I owe them for all the help they gave my brothers and sisters,” he said.

Brett opined that Pres. Barack Obama’s policy of trying to assist moderate Sunni Arab fighters is a failure. The militiaman asserted that any time Sunni Arab fighters face the possibility of dying in battle, they flip sides and join Islamic State. He suggested that Western aid should instead go to Christians and Kurds.

“Why aren’t we arming the people that are helping to preserve peace for all people here?” Brett asked. “As far as I’m concerned our government isn’t doing anything. They talk a lot, but most of them are too busy playing golf to do anything.”

Scott said that what’s happening in Iraq and Syria should worry Westerners. “Believe in your values,” he said. “Believe in the things that make America great, or England great, the things that make France and all of Europe great.”

“Think of that and try to help the Kurds, help the Yezidis, all of the people here under the oppression of Daesh and help them using those same values.”

“I try to defend those values because the Kurds uphold those values pretty much,” he added. “As far as I know.”

But many Iraqi Christians—who these Westerners have come to help—have already fled to Western countries, rather than live in squalid refugee camps and dangerous front-line towns.

Scott said that he’s sympathetic to those who left.

“You know, they’ve lived here more than me, they know more than me, I don’t have any right to judge them or why they left,” Scott said. “But personally I think they should come back.”

He said he understood their fear, and gets why religious leaders like White are skeptical of him and other Western foreign fighters. “They have every right to be afraid” he added. “[But] there are people out there like Dwekh Nawsha who are here to help them.”

Scott suggested that Assyrian refugees should return to join the militia and fight the militants, reclaim their homes and help rebuild both Kurdistan and Nineveh province.

The software engineer turned militiaman said he felt a sense of fulfillment being in Iraq. “It’s the best decision I think I’ve ever made in my life,” he said.