In Abandoning The Kurds Trump Has Betrayed All Of Us

Kurds fleeing Turkish attack

The decision by US President Donald Trump to withdraw US troops from Kurdistan, north-east Syria, has to be one of the biggest, and most foolish, acts of betrayal in recent history, which had immediate results, in the form of attacks from Turkey.  But the rhetoric of the President has to be called into question.

President Trump insisted that it was the US, and the US alone, who crushed ISIS in Syria.  In fact it was the Kurds who liberated tens of thousands of square miles from ISIS, costing the lives of 11,000 Kurdish men, women, and children, to create the “safe zone”.  The agreement for doing this was that US forces would patrol the area to create a buffer zone, to prevent Turkish attack and/or invasion.

Similarly, the President claimed that the US helped the Kurds by arming them.  Indeed they did.  And the Kurds surrendered those US weapons, to prevent them from falling into the hands of ISIS insurgents.

So now there is no longer a buffer zone, and the Kurds stand unprotected, and unarmed, between Turkish attacks in the north, and a resurgent ISIS in the south, as well as the anti-Kurdish forces of Syria’s President Assad.  Alongside this, the Kurds are holding approximately 11,000 ISIS militants in makeshift prisons.  That the Kurdish forces are now concentrated upon fighting the Turks on the northern border, guarding these ramshackle prisons is no longer their highest priority, and there is every likelihood that the prisoners could escape, carry out acts of terror, and gather other followers.

It does not look good for the Kurds, whom the US president has effectively condemned to potentially being wiped out completely; something that Turkey, Syria, and Iraq has always sought.  I do not think I am being alarmist when I say that there is every possibility of the ethnic cleansing of Kurds in the near future.  Saddam Hussein attempted it, and both the Syrians and the Turks see them as an ‘underclass’.  And wherever that sort of mindset is found, ethnic cleansing does not follow far behind.

But in his childlike way, the President of the United States first pretended to condemn the Turkish attacks as a “bad idea”, and then he tried to justify pulling troops out by saying “They didn’t help us in the Second World War, they didn’t help us with Normandy … but they’re there to help us with their land.”  

Indeed, I would be the first to admit that (to the best of my knowledge) there were no Kurds at the Normandy landings.  As to the rest however, it appears, not for the first time, that the (allegedly) most powerful man in the world needs a history lesson.

In 1941 there was a coup in Iraq, in which the nationalist Arab, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, overthrew the pro-British Regent 'Abd al-Ilah and his Prime Minister Nuri al-Said.  This coup, by a very pro-Nazi group known as the Golden Square, was only made possible by intelligence and military assistance from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.  The coup lasted little over a month, and was put down by local forces fighting for the British; notably the Iraq Levies, who were made up of Kurdish, Assyrian, Marsh Arab, and Baluchi forces.

The Iraq Levies were under the command of the UK’s Royal Marine Commando, and served in Palestine, Albania, Cyprus, Greece, and Italy.  By 1944 they were renamed the Royal Air Force Levies.

Therefore, while there may not have been any Kurds on the beaches at Normandy, they most certainly did serve in the Second World War, and prevented the Nazis from gaining a foothold in the Middle East.

And what were the Trump family doing at this time?  Well, Fred Trump, the father of the President, had never been conscripted, but was busy supplying US Navy dockyards with barracks, which he subsequently was investigated for profiteering from.   As to what the rest of the Drump family in Bavaria, a Nazi heartland, were likely to have been doing at the time is anyone’s guess.

It is interesting to note that Freidrich Trump, the President’s grandfather, decided to emigrate to the USA just before he reached the age of conscription into the Bavarian Army.

Donald of course was not even born at this time.  However, the President avoided being drafted into military service on no fewer than five occasions, it is allegedly claimed due to “bone spurs”; projections from bones, usually along the spine.  Bone spurs are mostly found in people over 60, although they can occur in younger adults, is a progressive condition, can be painful, and can restrict movement.  Therefore, far be it from me to question anyone’s claims of ill health, far less that of the ‘leader of the free world’, but if Donald Trump has had bone spurs since his teens, at 73 years old now, and being able to move about freely, and even visit several countries, he’s doing damned well on it.

The upshot of all this is that I do not think the Kurds, I, you, or the dog next door need any lessons on fighting for freedom not only from a draft dodger, but one to be the third generation of his family to follow in that ignominious tradition.

If the insensitivity, the inaccuracies, the dismissive manner, the false accusations, the childishness, and the sheer utter stupidity of Donald Trump attempting to justify pulling out of northern Syria were not shocking enough, then his reaction to the possibility of ISIS insurgents escaping capture from Kurdish prisons knows no bounds.  Answering a question on such at a press conference, the President replied, "Well, they're going to be escaping to Europe. That's where they want to go, they want to go back to their homes."

Indeed, some of the escapees may make their way into Europe – which in some cases they came from, but not all cases.  And as a European, I find it deeply disturbing that the President of the United States can be so crassly dismissive about the possibility of ISIS insurgents on the streets of European cities.  Of course, in his reply, Trump was meaning Germany and France. "They didn't come from our country and we did them a big favour," Trump said at the press conference. "We said to France, we said to Germany, we said to various countries in Europe, 'we'd like you to take your people.'  I said, 'we don't want them either.'  Nobody wants them. They're bad. But somebody has to watch over them.”  And some may go to France.  And some may go to Germany.  And some may go to London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast, Cardiff…  And wherever they go, they will be intent on killing as many people as possible.  But that’s okay, apparently.  We can live with a terrorist threat on our doorstep, so long as the USA doesn’t have to.

And just how would these insurgents enter Europe?  Through the nearest door possible, and that of course is – Turkey, which bridges Europe and Asia.  It is the easiest, most logical direction to go to enter Europe, and given that the Turkey’s President Erdogan, who is systematically destroying the secular country the great Kemal Ataturk built, is no slouch himself in the stakes of Islamic fundamentalism, that would make ISIS insurgents heading in that direction all the more likely.

But it is not only ISIS insurgents we have to worry about.  There are already refugees pouring out of Syria, and not a few of them are Kurds.  With the US withdrawal, that refugee problem can only become greatly exacerbated.  We can expect to see many, many more Syrians fleeing into Europe - and oh, into the USA as well - where these poor people, fleeing things you and I do not even wish to imagine, will be welcomed by some lesser educated people with fear, hate, prejudice, and violence.

And if ISIS does become resurgent, which is a distinct possibility with the withdrawal from Syria, how does the President respond to that?  "We are 7000 miles away and will crush ISIS again if they come anywhere near us!" Trump posted on Tweet.

Really, Mr President?  And with just whose help are you going to ‘crush’ a resurgent ISIS?  Who now is going to ever trust the USA again after this infamous act of betrayal?  Certainly not the Kurds.  And given the way that the President has dismissed the possibility of thousands of ISIS terrorists threatening European cities, while insulting Germany and France in the process, and having exacerbated the Syrian refugee crisis, why should European countries trust the USA either? 

The fact is that in pulling out of Syria, not only has Donald Trump thrown the Kurds under the bus, he has thrown Europe under the bus.  Hell, if escaped ISIS insurgents enter Turkey, they could easily carry out attacks there.  So he’s even thrown the Turks under the bus.  And of course, in the guise of exacerbating the Syrian / Kurdish refugee crisis, some of whom may seek refuge in the USA, and leading to a situation where US forces might not be trusted again, he has potentially even thrown his own country under the bus.

The truth is, Donald Trump has thrown us all under the bus.