“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.