It’s a risk worth taking, in part because in Iraq today, as in Southeast Asia four decades ago, we are culpable. Were it not for our war, and the anarchy it has bred, the Yazidis would likely not be facing imminent death. The reasons Americans want to turn away from Iraq are precisely the reasons we should not.

The impulse toward humanitarian intervention is dangerous. It can easily become hubristic. It can easily be exploited. Its means—which involve state violence—can often undermine its goals. But if crusades are dangerous, indifference is dangerous too. As sick as Americans are of the Middle East, as alien and hopeless as it seems today, we still have moral obligations there, less because we are Americans than because we are human beings.

“Away from all political disputes,” declared Dakhee in her speech, “we want human solidarity. I speak here in the name of humanity. Save us.” To the extent we can, we must. George McGovern would have understood why.