October 18, 2019

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH

Not surprisingly, Donald Trump took credit on Thursday for sending Mike Pence to “negotiate” a five-day ceasefire between the Turks and the Kurds. In usual fashion, he boasted of his prowess in temporarily halting a conflict that wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t precipitated it. In typical bombastic rhetoric Trump claimed that,

It's a great day for the United States, it's a great day for Turkey ... it's a great day for the Kurds. It's really a great day for civilization. ... I just want to thank and congratulate President Erdoğan. He's a friend of mine and I'm glad we didn't have a problem because frankly he is a hell of a leader and a tough man, a strongman.

Of course, the reality is actually far more pernicious than Trump’s self-aggrandizing grandiloquence.

Of particular concern, although it should come as no surprise from a man who has treated refugees as vermin and disposable people, Trump endorsed genocide when he told the press on Thursday of a corridor of Kurds near the Turkish border that had to be “cleaned out” by the Turks.

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It’s also hardly a great day for the Kurds, who have lost many civilians and soldiers to the Turkish onslaught, with an estimated 200,000 displaced people and counting.

Trump has previously condoned killings by Putin and even Kim Jong-un. As Trump said in a February 2017 interview on Fox News:

President Donald Trump appeared to equate US actions with the authoritarian regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin in an interview released Saturday….

Trump made [a] remark [condoning Putin’s killing of journalists and dissidents] during an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, saying he respected his Russian counterpart.

"But he's a killer," O'Reilly said to Trump.

"There are a lot of killers. You think our country's so innocent?" Trump replied.

The legitimatization of violence toward Trump’s enemies has been a key exhortation that he returns to again and again, resulting in numerous shootings and the appalling El Paso massacre, among others, which he incited through what is known as “racial priming.” Most recently, at a gathering of his supporters at Trump’s Florida Doral resort, an animation video was shown in which Trump gunned down members of the media in a church called “Fake News.” Trump has yet to personally renounce the video. Furthermore, there were speakers at the conference who urged Trump’s supporters to “go to war” on behalf of Trump, with one speaker enjoining “you’ve got to be a natural born killer.”

So, it’s no surprise that Trump would be supportive of Erdoğan “cleaning up” the Kurds in northeastern Syria.

Yes, Trump does support genocide by the Turks, despite his turgid and over-the-top claim that “It’s really a great day for civilization.”

Spencer Ackerman of The Daily Beast noted that contrary to Trump’s claims about the ceasefire, Trump allowed the Turks to achieve all their goals without any consequences for their actions — and the Kurds will be forced to relocate to an area that will be under the control of Syrian strongman Assad, who has been their enemy in the Syrian civil war. The Turks still reserve the right to resume massacring the Kurds if the ceasefire doesn’t hold.

Ackerman wrote on Thursday:

Last month, at the United Nations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan waved a map of northeastern Syria before the world’s dignitaries. His point was to demand U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters, whom Washington had relied upon to fight the so-called Islamic State, get out. His subtext was that he was ready to violently extend the Turkish border southward, seizing Syrian territory. 

In Ankara on Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence gave Erdoğan everything the Turks wanted in the long-telegraphed war Erdoğan launched following a green light from President Donald Trump during a now-infamous Oct. 6 phone call. The U.S. did not even get the status quo ante. 

The Turks did not agree to withdraw from Syrian territory. They agreed to a ceasefire, Pence announced. Over the next five days, the Kurdish forces that the U.S. abandoned are to withdraw approximately 20 miles south. In exchange, the Trump administration agreed not to implement new sanctions—Sens. Lindsey Graham and Chris Van Hollen introduced a new sanctions package as Pence briefed reporters—and, should the Turkish ceasefire hold, will lift those the administration placed on Turkey after Trump’s green light drew widespread backlash. 

In the view of Aaron Stein, the director of the Middle East program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, according to Ackerman, “it’s more like an agreement between Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

That because it more or less appears to be the case.

The photo at the top of this commentary is from a summit between Putin, Erdoğan and Iran’s President Hassan Rouhan. It was taken at a mid-September meeting that the three leaders held in Ankara.

On October 14 on BuzzFlash, I wrote a commentary that I entitled, “Trump May Have Made Horrifying Syria Decision at Request of Putin.” I noted that Trump’s seemingly impulsive and precipitous actions in withdrawing Troops from Syria and greenlighting Turkey’s invasion of Syria matched the goals of the summit as listed on Putin’s official English language website.

As I cited in the October 14 commentary, two of the objectives that the three leaders agreed upon were:

4. Discussed the situation in the northeast of Syria, emphasized that security and stability in this region can only be achieved on the basis of respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country and agreed to coordinate their efforts to this end.

5. Rejected in this regard all attempts to create new realities on the ground under the pretext of combating terrorism, including illegitimate self-rule initiatives, and expressed their determination to stand against separatist agendas aimed at undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria as well as threatening the national security of neighboring countries. [Bold lettering inserted by BuzzFlash]

Furthermore, Putin gave a speech at the meeting, in which he said:

Naturally, the situation in the northeast of Syria is a source of concern. Problems of security in this area and other parts of Syria should be resolved based exclusively on preserving its sovereignty and territorial integrity. We consider it unacceptable to divide Syria into spheres of influence…. [Bold lettering inserted by BuzzFlash]

Regarding the presence of the US Armed Forces, it is common knowledge that their presence on Syrian territory is illegal. And we hope that the decision to withdraw US service personnel from Syria, made by President of the United States Donald Trump will be implemented completely. [Bold lettering inserted by BuzzFlash]

Given that Erdoğan was part of the conference, it appears that he and Putin are likely coordinating the Turkish invasion to meet both their needs: Erdoğan to eradicate the Kurds from that section of Syria and Putin to consolidate his hegemony over his client state, the Assad regime.

Mitt Romney (R-UT), a critic of Trump’s Syrian fiasco (corroborated by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), yesterday asserted on the Senate floor that he believes Trump was intimidated by Erdoğan. That’s half the story, the real force behind Trump’s calamitous action is likely Putin, with an assist from the Turkish strongman.

Also, the Iranians are delighted to see US troops leave Syria, which is aligned with Iran against Israel. Iran has a proxy force in southern Syria in Hezbollah . What they got out of the deal is a diminished US influence in the Middle East. which strengthens Iran’s hand both against Israel and its enemy, Saudi Arabia, in the “other” proxy civil war in Yemen

Trump has claimed that he unleashed the bloodletting and genocide in Syria because of his distaste for US involvement in the Middle East. However, in less than a few news cycles Trump’s perennial disingenuousness emerged yet again, when it was announced that 1,800 troops were being sent to Saudi Arabia to protect their oil fields against Iran attacks. That is a net gain of troops committed to the Middle East by Trump. Furthermore, Trump continues to support Saudi Arabia in their ruinous and deadly involvement in the civil war in Yemen.

And despite his claims that ISIS prisoners “are under very strict control,” Trump is speaking after the horses have left the barn. According to Axios, “at least 1,000 ISIS prisoners and supporters have escaped prison camps since Trump's decision to move U.S. troops out of northern Syria.” France, which has experienced many horrific terrorist attacks is bracing for a surge of ISIS terrorists who escaped in the chaos Trump unleashed.

Returning to the genocide and mass killing justifications that Trump provides for authoritarian leaders, it is worth citing a recent VICE article that notes a 2017 Trump call to Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte. Trump congratulated him for “doing an unbelievable job on the drug problem,” which was referring to Duterte’s summary executions by police and paramilitary units of thousands of people even just suspected of drug use.

Yes, genocide is acceptable to Trump as a means of ethnic cleansing. That is what he is almost doing just short of murder on the Mexican border. A recent Washington Post article reported that this spring Trump had expressed a desire to have migrants shot in the legs to keep them from crossing the border and to be met with bayonets if they make it to the US side.

If Trump could get away with killing migrants, if he could move the majority of the US society that far along in the vile demonization of “the enemy of the other,” he might very well do it. It would be his assertion that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it on a massive scale.

In an October 17 article for The New York Times, William H. McRaven, a former commander of the United States Special Operations Command, states that “our republic is under attack from the president.” He describes meetings with other top military leaders who believe:

These men and women, of all political persuasions, have seen the assaults on our institutions: on the intelligence and law enforcement community, the State Department and the press. They have seen our leaders stand beside despots and strongmen, preferring their government narrative to our own. They have seen us abandon our allies and have heard the shouts of betrayal from the battlefield. As I stood on the parade field at Fort Bragg, one retired four-star general, grabbed my arm, shook me and shouted, “I don’t like the Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!”

Having a president doing the bidding of Putin, Russia’s despot and former KGB agent, and aiding and admiring dictatorial leader Erdoğan is chilling enough, without having to be appalled by his support of genocide and summary executions.

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