As They Danced

As They Danced the Dabka | 16″ x 20″ | Oil | CAD $470.00

As They Danced was painted after the devastating news that USA decided to pull out of Syria and leave the Kurds, who had been fighting alongside the US military, to their fate at the hands of the Turks and ISIS. I had been inspired by the stories and videos of the Kurdish female soldiers, and chose to depict them celebrating after defeating ISIS militants in Raqqa in 2017.

Here is a piece by CNN on the Women Who Helped Defeat ISIS

The New Yorker’s article on America’s Abandonment of Syria, and The Times’ ISIS Reaps Gains of US Pullout From Syria

What happened in Afghanistan was a systemic breakdown of the federal government at every level — and a stunning, stunning failure of leadership by the Biden administration. More than 1,000 American citizens and an estimated 200,000 Afghan allies and partners were left behind.

This was an abdication of the most basic duties of the United States government to protect Americans and leave no one behind.

The U.S. left behind an estimated 78,000 Afghan allies who had worked for the U.S. government and applied for special visas, according to a report last year from the Association of Wartime Allies, a nonprofit nongovernmental organization.

It was often referred to, like, ‘Schindler’s List’ — if you’re on the list, you made it out alive. If you weren’t, you didn’t.

House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Chairman Mike McCaul