In recent days, President Trump has pulled over 1,000 of our military ground forces out of their entrenched positions in northeast Syria at the request of Turkey President Erdogan. They had been there working mostly with Kurds in overcoming the very dangerous radical Islamic group called ISIS. Turkey then began sending its forces into northeast Syria to attack and destroy the Kurds there because Turkey regards them as “terrorists.” The word “terrorist” is thrown around a lot these days.
The U.S. has been militarily allied with Syrian Kurds for years. We’ve been helping to protect them while Syria has been in a civil war since Arab Spring broke out, in 2011. These Kurds had been most instrumental in fighting ISIS alongside the approximately 2,000 U.S. forces there. In doing so, 11,000 of their Kurdish troops have been killed. ISIS is committed to not only establishing the old caliphate in the Middle East, but attacking both Europe and the U.S. homeland like Al-Qaeda did.
Even many Republican leaders of Congress, who so far have been strongly allied with President Trump, such as Senator Lindsey Graham and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, have been severely critical of him for this decision. Perhaps the main repercussion of this decision that the U.S. will suffer in the future is that it provides further evidence that the U.S. cannot be trusted by its allies. Because of such decisions by President Trump, the U.S. will be increasingly abandoned by them. Trump is moving toward isolating the U.S. from the world. Allies are important because they help each other, especially in time of war.
Trump made some really stupid remarks in defending this decision. He said Kurds never fought with U.S. troops at Normandy in WWII. How dumb! He supposedly heard that somewhere. Kurds did not exist as a nation in WWII. Kurds have never had their own nation even though they currently number about 40 million. In fact, Kurds talk about Kurdistan as if maybe it could be a nation as they have long wished. Today, Trump spoke and said Kurds were “no angels.” How derogatory, yet typical Donald Trump. The U.S. would not have been allied with Kurds in this fight if they were dishonorable.
Trump had campaigned for the presidency on the platform that if he became president, he would remove U.S. troops from “endless wars.” He is now defending this decision with this same argument. Much of Trump’s voter base replies that he is merely being faithful to this campaign commitment. But they don’t question if such a declaration–removing U.S. troops from around the world and bringing them home–was stupid or not. I think generally it was. And some retired and decorated U.S. military generals are saying so. What will Trump do about the military bases we have in other countries? Yet Trump has during this same past few days contradicted himself by sending thousands of troops to Saudi Arabia. He says they are paying for it. Typical Trump again, always being transactional. It makes our troops look like mercenaries. I wonder how this may affect our troop morale. These two decisions by Trump–letting Turkey invade Syria to destroy Kurds and sending U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia–is dividing the Middle East further.
Donald Trump is trying to make America like Donald Trump. This narcissist in the White House that turns it into a Black House doesn’t really care about others. That’s what America’s commitment to the Kurds was–trying to help the Kurds and them helping us defeat ISIS. By abandoning Kurds like this, Trump is making America like himself because he abandons his friends even after requiring loyalty to him.
Trump should change that hat that says MAGA, meaning Make America Great Again, to MALT, meaning Make America Like Trump.
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