My latest. Read This: "The Kurds Gave Their Lives to Defeat the ‘Islamic State.’ Trump Just Pissed It All Away." thedailybeast.com/the-kurds-gave…
"No amount of Trumpian huffing and puffing, threatening and cajoling can change the widespread view in the Middle East—and in Congress—that almost on a whim he collapsed a fragile balance of power, then had to cut and run."
Trump "blames those he betrayed as if they were servants who failed him, and tries to claim credit for himself for the good that they did."
"The Kurds know how to fight and as I said they are not angels, they are not angels,” Trump said during a photo-op with the Italian president. “Take a look. You have to go back and take a look."
So we did.
So we did.
"When the Islamic State surged across Syria and Iraq like a tidal wave of terror in 2014, all the other armies in the region, including those in which the U.S. had invested billions, were found to be complicit or corrupt and cowardly."
"Early in the Syrian conflict, Bashar al-Assad, the tyrant in Damascus, decided to cast his fight against democracy as a fight against Islamic terror—and to that end released the many Islamic terrorists he had in his prisons."
The US spent billions on the Iraqi army, but it was deeply corrupt. "Many of the soldiers it had on its books were called 'astronauts' by the locals because they orbited very far from their units. In fact, their officers were pocketing the soldiers’ salaries." And Mosul fell.
The Kurds who stood their ground to defend Yazidis after the fall of Sinjar, Iraq, in Aug. 2014 were from Syria, members of the so-called People’s Protection Units, or YPG, affiliated with the Turkish-Kurdish PKK, designated a terrorist organization not only by Ankara but by DC.
"YPG fighters often brandish the image of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, now in a Turkish prison. But their bravery is legendary.When Yazidi refugees hit a checkpoint confiscating unauthorized weapons they sent word back down their convoy: “Give your guns to the YPG!”
In September 2014, ISIS laid siege to the town of Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border. Turkish authorities had watched as thousands extremists from flooded into Syria to join ISIS. Now the Turkish military—NATO’s 2d biggest army—simply watched as Kobani faced the ISIS onslaught.
"The question is how long the YPG can defy the odds and prolong their last stand in a battle that resonates every bit as powerfully for Kurds as the Alamo once did for Americans," @thedailybeast reported in Oct. 2014. The answer: with US close air support and arms, until victory.
Asked on Wednesday when the moment came that decided U.S. backing for the YPG, a senior State Department official in both the Obama and Trump administrations answered with one word: “Kobani.” That was where the myth of ISIS invincibility ended.
ISIS fought back with terror attacks from Paris to San Bernardino and Orlando, helping the fearmongering Trump gain the White House with a promised ban on Muslims. But the Kurds were in the ground hunting down and killing the killers of the "Caliphate."
The war to end the territorial claims of ISIS continued until March, when Trump declared victory. But the ISIS insurgency endures and now, thanks to Trump's betrayal of the Kurds, will grow.
So, let's repeat: "No amount of Trumpian huffing and puffing, threatening and cajoling can change the widespread view in the Middle East—and in Congress—that almost on a whim he collapsed a fragile balance of power, then had to cut and run." thedailybeast.com/the-kurds-gave…
