Abandoning Our Allies

The Kurds are a large ethnic group whose origins are in northwest Iran and whose historical region includes northern Iraq and Syria along with Iran.  Since the bronze age the Kurdish people have developed a distinct culture.  For centuries they have been living under the rule of others.  After World War I, when Winston Churchill and the British government carved up the old Ottoman Empire there was an attempt to develop a Kurdistan for the Kurds.  However the treaty would not be signed by some so the Kurds were left out of getting autonomy.  This had led to oppression and genocide in the course of their history in the countries that they were living.  I first learned about the Kurds in the 1990s when I ran into a Kurdish protest at the Turkish embassy in Amsterdam.  Until that time they were just another ethnic group in the tapestry of the southwest Asia.  Over the next decades the Kurds played an important role in the global war on terror and the changing face of the Middle East.  Most recently the Kurds have been US allies in Syria in the fight against ISIS.  More than 10,000 Kurds have lost their lives in efforts to contain ISIS terrorists in Syria and were on the vanguard in various battles that President Trump has over and over again taken credit for in the stories he tells the American people.  The Kurds were beginning to get a similar autonomous region in Syria much to the concern of Turkey.  The US forces in Syria have held back Turkey who wants to move into Syria and set up a security zone in northern Syria and move out the Kurds.  That was until this week.  President Trump, after what appears to be consultation with President Erdogan of Turkey has decided to move out US forces.  This morning we are seeing the results.  Turkey is bombing Kurdish areas in Syria and have amassed tanks at the border.  Russia is also on the move to help clear out the area.  This also plays into the hand of Putin in Russia. 

It appears the lack of intelligence and his fragile ego has led the President to make foreign policy decisions around the world.  We saw it in North Korea where he got played because Kim Jong Un flattered him.  We see it with Russia who appears to simply make fun of Trump there while pretending to be his friend.  We are seeing it with Turkey, who apparently has seduced Trump to allow a dictator to engage in genocide.  As Turkey begins to its attempt to eliminate the Kurds from the border every one of those deaths is on the head of President Trump.  A President who is abandoning our allies in favor of autocrats who play him like a fiddle.  It is disgusting at best and frightening at worst.  In the next few months we will see the result of Trump's lack of knowledge and concern for the United States standing in the world.  This while he is calling on foreign governments to gin up claims against his political opponent here.  He appears to want to be in the club of dictators around the world.  Is it possible that this is his hazing?  You may not think the Kurds are important.  You may not know anything about them.  But this morning they are under fire and our President is responsible, if we do nothing, so are we.