BY GARY EDMONDSON
On Sept. 6, 2019, a date that will forever stain this nation’s name, President Donald Trump pulled U.S. troops off the northern Syrian border with Turkey. After a phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, our president in his “great and unmatched wisdom” [his words] abandoned Syrian Kurds, our staunchest and most successful allies in the fight against the Islamist state.
Since every sentient person knew that this betrayal and desertion would precipitate a Turkish invasion of Syria, we must take for granted that our “very stable genius” with his “great and unmatched wisdom” deliberately sacrificed our Kurdish allies. He has told us he is “The Second Coming.” He must be omniscient, right?
Before you could say “Trump Towers Istanbul,” the Turkish army invaded its neighbor, attacked our betrayed allies and set off a mass panic of Kurds fleeing troops long-practiced in brutalizing them.
We had 1,000 troops in northern Syria. But that small U.S. commitment deterred our NATO ally from invading, not wanting to get into a shooting match with the country that sells Turkey 60% of its weaponry.
The American retreat has led to the displacement of upwards of 300,000 people, assassinations and mass atrocities – a humanitarian crisis of Donald Trump’s personal creation, which will forever brand the U.S. as untrustworthy.
And Trump’s response?
Our “very stable genius” asserted, “That has nothing to do with us… They’ve got a lot of sand over there … There’s a lot of sand they can play with.”
A lot of sand to play with?
Entire communities – uprooted men, women and children – are on the run with the barest of supplies they could grab and, “They’ve got a lot of sand to play with.”
Well, they certainly can’t afford to stay in Trump Towers Istanbul – and would likely be shot if they crossed that border.
When proclaiming his “great and unmatched wisdom,” Trump promised tough sanctions on Turkey if it invaded Syria. Yep, a 50% tariff on Turkish steel, which supplies 1% of the U.S. steel market. And that business-genius bankruptee still doesn’t realize that tariffs are paid by the buyers, not the sellers.
Meanwhile, The Daily Beast observed, “After eight years of Syrian civil war, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, and the displacement of half the Syrian population, U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s decisions have created conditions for Bashar al-Assad’s regime to re-assert control over nearly one-third of the country that had been outside its grip since 2012.
“Far from reining in U.S. adversaries, Trump’s presidency will likely be remembered as one through which Assad, this century’s greatest mass murderer, managed finally to claw his way back to a position of undisputed authority.”
And it gets better for America’s enemies everywhere:
“The news began Tuesday morning,” The Daily Beast reported, “with Russian pro-Kremlin journalist Oleg Blokhin streaming a live video from inside the recently abandoned American al-Sa’idi’a base in Syria on the western outskirts of the Manbij countryside.
“‘Good morning to everyone from Manbij,’ exclaimed Blokhin. ‘I’m at the American military base right now, where they were until yesterday morning. Already, we’re here.”
So, does Trump get Trump Tower Moscow now or if he serves only one term? Or will that naïve, narcissistic numskull be dumped by Putin as a no-longer useful pawn as soon as he leaves office?
