Trump brags he’s renting out U.S. military to Saudi Arabia: “They’re paying us for everything!”
President Trump’s two-faced insincerity reared its ugly head on Friday when it was announced that the United States would be deploying an additional 2,000 soldiers to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along with more jets and missiles in order to “defend it against Iran.” Faced with a surprisingly fierce bipartisan backlash, President Trump has spent the entire week desperately trying to justify his cowardly betrayal of America’s Kurdish allies in Syria by harping on the need to end our “endless wars.”
But it turns out that only applies to military deployments that we don’t directly profit from.
When confronted by the media about the stunning hypocrisy, Trump essentially told the nation that he was renting out our armed forces to the highest bidder. “They buy millions of dollars of merchandise from us!”
TRUMP: “Are you ready? Saudi Arabia at my request has agreed to pay us for everything we are doing. That is a first. Saudi Arabia, and other countries soon now, but Saudi Arabia has agreed to pay us for everything we are doing to help them and we appreciate that.” pic.twitter.com/rluCN6gZ9R
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 11, 2019
President Trump’s entire life has been spent in the amoral pursuit of wealth and influence, his every relationship dictated by what the other party could do for him and whether he personally can profit from it. He’s applied that cynical calculation to the foreign policy of the United States, infused with his own personal envy of authoritarian leaders and his pitiful need for their approval.
That’s why he has decided it is more important to side with a psychotic journalist-murdering and terrorist-funding despot like Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and turn our backs on the brave Kurdish men and women of the YPG/YPS.
Unfortunately for them, the fledging decentralized autonomous democracy that northern Syria’s Kurds are building in Rojava does not purchase billions of dollars of weapons from the United States and have not funneled millions of dollars into the president’s businesses as the Saudis have.
Therefore, he considers them expendable and not worthy of our protection, despite the sacrifice of 11,000 Kurdish lives in the campaign to defeat ISIS — which Trump then has the nerve to take credit for himself.
To add insult to injury, the need to deploy troops to “protect” Saudi Arabia from Iran wouldn’t have been necessary if he hadn’t been doing everything in his power to provoke conflict with Iran after tearing up President Obama’s historic nuclear peace treaty.
Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds has created a horrifying humanitarian crisis as hundreds of thousands of civilians flee the indiscriminate Turkish bombardment, which has now apparently targeted U.S. Special Forces in an effort to get them to evacuate and leave the city of Kobani open for the taking.
Coalition official tells me after Turkish bombing near US base Mashtenour hill: “They know we are there, we told them our position. There’s no other target in the area. They’re trying to drive us out. If Turkey can get us to leave so they can seige Kobane, it’s all over.”
— Josie Ensor (@Josiensor) October 11, 2019
It is equally as abhorrent to see the President treat our nation’s international relations and our armed forces as an extension of his wallet as it is to see him kowtow to murderous thugs like Turkey’s Erdogan and Saudi Arabia’s bin Salman.
Opinion columnist and former editor-in-chief of Occupy Democrats. He graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. He now focuses on advancing the cause of social justice and equality in America.