With Il Trumpe’s utter mishandling of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict (and that’s being generous), more than a few people have asked what’s in this for Trump? That is, how does this policy benefit Trump’s personal interests? Has he been compromised by Turkey (or allies of Turkey), or does he have a financial interest in doing this?
There actually is a sort of legitimate explanation for this–mind you, I didn’t write good, just legitimate, but his motives might not be illegitimate (i.e., impeachment worthy) or illegal (we’ll return to might in a bit).
Consider that Il Douche is a bigoted ignoramus who views most Middle Easterners as savages (he probably thinks this about anyone who isn’t white European or white American; if you haven’t noticed, he’s very racist). Combine that with his campaign promise to withdraw troops from the Middle East, and then sprinkle on top of that prominent Republican senators who have his ear and also are secretly telling people who they thought were Turkish officials that Turkey should have the green light, such as erstwhile Defender of the Kurds, Lindsey Graham: it’s pretty easy to see how Trump makes the decision to withdraw from Syria in such a stupid and murderous manner.
Because he’s very dim and governs like a failson, it probably never occurred to him that, if he wanted to withdraw from Syria without ethnic cleansing occurring, there needed to be a ton of prep work and contingency planning–a letter written at a sixth grade level wasn’t going to cut it.
This isn’t an innocent explanation, but it’s not exactly a guilty one either. So there’s a ‘legitimate’, if utterly horrifying, explanation for the Orange Shitgibbon’s Amazing Syrian Adventure. But there’s also a problem with accepting this explanation.
At this point, Trump has no credibility. There is no reason to assume the best when it comes to his behavior. He lies constantly and did so even before he took office, to an extent and kind that is unparalleled–and I do remember the reign of Little Lord Pontchartrain and the Reagan era. The Ukrainian Scandal, aka Moron-Contra, along with his non-stop violations of the emolument clause, also make it clear that he is utterly incapable of distinguishing between the needs of the U.S. and his own personal needs. We would be very foolish not to assume that there is some sort of corruption involved here, given his track record. And if there isn’t, he has a lifetime of being a horrible person to thank for that assumption.
