“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — Sir Edmund Burke
Why are only some of us speaking up?
I find myself aligned with Republicans and conservatives and many others, including my fellow Dems, in deploring the abandonment of the Kurds in Syria.
I think of my old GV friend, Zack Moushegian, a Wayland history teacher and a history student. He was no fan of the Turks, stemming, no doubt for their ethnic cleansing/genocide of the Armenians long ago. I don’t know what he’d think about this if he were still alive. But it might be an area on which we’d agree: don’t desert your allies.
Trump said the Kurds were no help to us in WWII. He said they were “no help at all in Normandy”. Yet we have relationships with others that were no help to the U.S. during World War Two. I’m thinking of Germany. Japan.
The Kurds fought ISIS in far more recent history. They were our allies. This is very recent history; this month. Last month. For a while. Now they are fighting to avoid what seems to be an almost inevitable bloodbath. The camps holding ISIS prisoners have been guarded by Kurds. As those guards leave their posts to try to stave off the Turks, what happens to the unguarded ISIS prisoners?
Susan Rice reports that something like six dozen “high level” ISIS figures were held by Kurds. More than 1000 lower level ISIS fighters. Trump says the ISIS fighters will go to Europe. How will this play there? How many allies are we going to betray? This has been called “a catastrophe of our own making.” We’d given assurances to the Kurds that we would stand by them. But there was a phone call between Turkish President Recip Tayip Erdogan, and our president. Just after that call, Trump decided to move U.S. troops out of the way.
It seemed impulsive. One factor that may contribute to the idea of impulsivity is that no plan was undertaken to secure those ISIS fighters that had been captured. Maybe he should have thought it through, consulted with military brass, perhaps our state department diplomats. I’m sure a lot of ISIS fighters are glad he didn’t.
Does the decision make our country safer? Is it cost effective in the long run? Is it the right thing to do?
Should we challenge our president to consider the rightness of a proposed action, or allow for decisions based solely on whim and expediency? Trump said that he will punish the Turks economically if they wipe out the Kurds. Yet that didn’t seem to slow them down much. He moved the troops. The Turks moved their forces. The Kurds felt betrayed by the United States. They were.
There is a very fine restaurant in Ada, which features the cuisine of Turkey. We’ve been there a couple of times. The food is great, the people are most hospitable. The beers and wines are delicious and interesting. I know the folks are restaurateurs, doing the business of providing excellent meals and good service. We’ll go back, but right at the moment I don’t seem to have a taste for it.
Trumpy has ruined more than that. We do not have allies any more. Who could trust the USA again? But money is more important to the base. You can’t buy freedom or faith in yourself.
I miss spoke we have three Trumpy allies .North Korea Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Thanks for a very well-written, concise rendition of our most recent betrayal of an American ally. Thanks, also, for prompting me to put on my reading list a long-ago best-seller, “The Ugly American,” a novel written in 1958 by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. This book was based on facts so disturbing that the editors urged the writers to make it a piece of historical fiction rather than a work of non-fiction. It was so revealing of the failures of the US diplomatic corps in Vietnam that John Kennedy bought copies for each of his colleagues in the Senate, and the book served as the creative impetus behind the Peace Corps.
In the novel, the ugly American is a character who relates to the common people of fictional Sarkhan, who understands their everyday needs, and offers truly usable assistance to their conditions. He is considered ugly because his hands and fingernails are dirty from hard labor with the people, while the “beautiful” Americans are the distant, aloof diplomats who have little or no understanding of the indigenous citizens of Sarkhan.
Today we use the term “ugly American” to refer to those Americans who choose not to understand a native culture and its customs, yet will travel those countries waving our wealth and prosperity, and while giving little thought to the often poverty-ridden conditions in which the bulk of the population lives.
We also use the term to refer to our so-called leaders who manipulate, abuse, and cast aside our foreign “acquaintances” to our benefit. Exactly what Trump has done with the Kurds, as you so accurately point out.
So many people and humanitarian agencies work so hard to counteract this image of the ugly American. So many of us have friends in foreign countries who question us as to how we stand for such betrayal as has been on display this past week. Friends who cannot fathom why and how the likes of the amoral crook Trump stays in office.
A lot of my friends express dismay at the continuing depiction of Americans as ugly in soul and character simply because our leader is absolutely thoughtless, cruel, and selfish.
Your piece explains very well why we are the ugly Americans.
Thank you. I do travel internationally some; I was out the country a couple times this year, and have plans for more travel next year (but of course I will vote, as I have been doing since achieving the age of majority long ago). Hearing what others think of our country is very interesting. I’ve found these others often well or better informed than my fellow Americans. I find it sad that so few of us stay informed or bother to vote.
Addendum to previous post: The Ugly American has been in continuous print since its first publication. What does that tell you about the currency of its subject matter? It tells us that our government is as vile as ever it was. And before you start calling me names like commie, traitor, snowflake leftie, I acknowledge that many other nations are as vile as ours. It’s not an excuse for our continuing bad behavior.
Smarty-pants communist.
Amazing! Trump keeps troops in dangerous places, Democrats criticize every time. He takes them out of harm’s way, they criticize. The only thing they would want is Hillary as President and ongoing wars all over the globe. Hillary is an ass; can’t get over she was beaten by an amateur (again), someone smarter and more in tune with the electorate, and someone loving and respecting the military (the same military Bubba Clinton “loathed”). He’s tired of the endless war and wants to return the military home.
The idea the Kurds are defenseless without us is preposterous. We’ve been giving them weapons for years and they are known great fighters. The Turks know they are in for the fight of a lifetime. It is doubtful their poorly trained, undisciplined military can overtake the Kurds. They might look scary goosestepping with weapons, but so did the Iraqi army before they spun on their heels once confronted in war.
Democrats haven’t lead this country in years, no commonsense or sense of purpose except to criticize the country they think they serve. They are the enemy within.
Trump loves the military so much he would have gone in during Vietnam – if his bonespurs (on one heel, or was the other heel, or was it on both heels?) hadn’t been so troublesome. Dating in New York City was kinda like Vietnam, he’s said. Trump is so smart he went bankrump multiple times, despite all of Daddy’s money. Trump is so astute that he ordered tariffs, which hasn’t worked out entirely well at all.
Tread: The idea that Trump is smart is ridiculous. The idea that Mr. Bone Spurs loves the military is even more ridiculous.
Oops, I musta hit a nerve with Mr. Basura. There were plenty of shirkers during Vietnam – at least Trump got a medical excuse, valid or not.
Bubba Clinton stated in writing he loathed the military and went to Oxford instead of serving, where he never did complete the Rhodes Scholarship because he was accused of assault/rape and was whisked back to the U.S. He started young and never changed, being the slimebag hillbilly he is. Now his paramour, Monica Lewinsky, is famous for nothing other than her willingness to please a married man in the Oval Office. But recently is trying to be a media darling but everyone knows how she got there.
If you want to compare each man for their weaseling out of serving (like many others during Vietnam), I’ll take Trump every day and twice on Sundays. You can have Bubba.
Neither man is or was particularly endearing in my book. It’s a waste of time rehashing Clinton. That’s over and done, regardless of how you personally feel about him.
Trump’s draft dodging is also over and done, so let’s let that go, too.
Otherwise, DOTM, maybe you could take a much appreciated pause in your nastiness?
Are you trying to suppress free speech? Or are you angry someone would disagree with your way of thinking?
Don’t Tread On Me: No, and no.
You might try answering your own question! Just because you have a right to free speech doesn’t mean no one else is allowed to exercise their own right to freedom of speech.
DTOM I have never met you. I am very sorry to learn that you have lost your eyesight and your hearing. This is the only reason I can figure out for your articles.
tRUMP loves the military? Then why is he so willing to take money from the Pentagon budget to build his “Beautiful” – most beautiful wall in all history. Why hasn’t he seen to it that homeless veterans and PTSD afflicted veterans are able to get the help they need. Why did he consider a POW as a loser instead of according him the respect he so rightly earned.
tRUMP is a loving person? Then why has he worked so hard to separate families. When children are taken at the border and detained even after their parent is deported; it smacks of Child Trafficking.
tRUMP is so smart? Then why was he stupid enough to use a marker to change a weather map just to appear that he knew more than NOAH.
Hopefully you eyesight and hearing returns in time to rid our country of this baseless blowhard.
Mr. or Ms. Pat,
Thank you for your kind and endearing words of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Your reference to a “baseless blowhard” must be in reference to the previous president, as he never did or accomplished anything that worked, except to screw the taxpayer by raising tax rates.
Thank you for your kind words!
To the unknowing and uncaring,
At the last count over 10,500 Kurds and 6 Americans have died fighting ISIS in Syria. So we can sleep undisturbed. The Turks have helicopters, jets, artillery, and tanks and a professional well trained military with the modern American weapons The Kurds have none of these They thought, America had their back. A fellow was telling me the other day ” A man is only as good as his word”. Like someone else we know. He stiffed me by not finishing the job, I paid him to do. Sleep well.
Well said, Fred.
I read these comments with interest, not because they are new or different. Rather, because they are a consistent and reflective part of the ongoing divide over the question of when, where and for how long the U.S. should spill the blood of its people, get their U.S. limbs blown off and their minds plagued with PTSD while spending trillions to be involved in international conflicts that have endured for centuries in many cases. The Kurds have at times and in various ways done good things the U.S. is for. Other times not. The Turks are NATO allies of the U.S. and we have military facilities on their soil. Yet, they work against U.S. interests at times. So, where is the U.S. interests most to be served? It’s a messy question. I’m no apologist for Trump, but he did say to his constituents before he was elected that he was against U.S. involvements and playing the role of policeman in age-old conflicts around the world. He said that would not continue endlessly under his watch. So he’s doing nothing inconsistent with that pre-election position. In fact, this recent move is very consistent with it, be it for good or for ill. If Turkey was coming in against the Kurds then Trump may well have thought about U.S. interests first. What would happen if he left the small contingency of U.S. military presence there and Turkey killed one or more of them when moving into Syria against the Kurds? Thousands more U.S. troops to Syria? War with Turkey? Would you want to be responsible for that outcome? Trump doesn’t. So, he did what he did, and there is no win in the situation other than taking the foreign U.S. policemen off the beat in a gang-run neighborhood. Will there be consequences? Yes, there are always consequences to any major decision. Was it the right move? Did the U.S. promise to have an endless allegiance to stand with and protect the Kurds? Are we their forever body guards? Those questions may never be settled. Ever. Just like so many others, like was the U.S. right to align with and ultimately turn over eastern Europe to Stalin? Should we have abandoned our fighting in South Viet Nam as we did? Maybe. Maybe not. There are far too many such decisions going on all the time. It’s good to have a view, but we shouldn’t be calling all of the balls and strikes quite so easily from the comfort of our couches. These are big decisions and seldom made lightly or easily. No matter who is president.