By SJ Otto
I rarely support US Syria , and allowing Turkey
“Loyal allies such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., blasted Trump's decision and said it "will be the biggest mistake of his presidency" if not reversed.
At least one Republican went a step further with his criticism of Trump.
Illinois Rep. John Shimkus, who is retiring from Congress, called the president's decision to leave Syrian Kurds to fend for themselves "terrible and despicable."
"In fact, I called my chief of staff in D.C. I said pull my name off the 'I support Donald Trump list.' I mean, we have just stabbed our allies in the back," he told local radio station KMOX.”
Again, I almost never agree with Republicans but this issue is a lot different. I’m also surprised at the support this issue gets from Conservative Christian Evangelicals. According to the New York Times:
“Some of the president’s most ardent supporters worry that troop withdrawal threatens religious minorities, especially Christians. They are pushing back, to a point.
One called President Trump’s decision “an egregious act of betrayal.” Another said the policy could be “the biggest mistake of his presidency.” A third said Mr. Trump “is in danger of losing the mandate of heaven.”
Conservative Christians have ardently stood by Mr. Trump at most every turn, from allegations of sexual misconduct to his policy of separating migrant families at the border and the Russia
But this week, some of Mr. Trump’s top evangelical supporters broke rank to raise alarms over his move to withdraw troops from Syria , which prompted Turkish forces to launch a ground and air assault against a Kurdish-led militia that has been a crucial ally in the American fight against ISIS .
As Turkish warplanes began to bomb Syrian towns on Wednesday, the prominent evangelist Franklin Graham called for Mr. Trump to reconsider his decision, and worried that the Kurds — and the Christian minorities in the region they have defended — could be annihilated.”
From what I am hearing on NPR today Trump made a phone call to Turkey ’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and after that he made the decision to pull all US troops out of the Kurdish part of Syria
Either way Trump is a very dangerous man. Even members of his on party have jumped in to warn him how bad his action has become.
There are several factions of Kurds. Some are Christians. But some are member of the PKK,[1] or The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or in Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê. The latter is a secular organization, which is also a semi-socialist group, with an ideology based on anarchist like ideas of Murray Bookchin. This may be one more of Trump's attacks on socialism. If so it is amazingly murderous.
Not all the Kurdish guerrillas are members of the PKK. As stated above, many Conservative Christians Evangelicals are concerned about fellow Christians.
For those of us on the left, we are concerned about the PKK, which unlike most of the other Kurdish groups as well as other Arab groups, the PKK is a sectarian organization. They are not really Marxists anymore, but they are probably one of the most left leaning groups in the Middle East , or other parts of the world for that matter.
Erdoğan is one of the most murderous leaders since Adolf Hitler. While conservatives are making accusations that anyone who supports President Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela as being un-American because he is a socialist dictator, Erdoğan has stripped their congress of power and set himself up as a dictator. And yet Conservatives have said nothing about or against him. Now he is committing ethnic genocide. Only now have conservatives come out against what Trump and Erdoğan are doing.
This is not just bad policy it is ethnic cleansing and genocide and Trump is playing a big part in this.
[1]From Wikipedia,The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK (Kurdish: Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê) is a Kurdish far-left militant and political organization based in Turkey and Iraq. Since 1984 the PKK has been involved in an armed conflict with the Turkish state (with a two-year cease-fire during 2013–2015), with the initial aim of achieving an independent Kurdish state, later changing it to a demand for equal rights and Kurdish autonomy in Turkey