In this July 17, 2017 file photo, Smoke rises from a coalition airstrike which attacked an Islamic State position, on the front line on the western side of Raqqa, northeast Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
The situation in Syria has drawn a hot divide on the right between those who want us to rush in to prevent Turkey from their incursion into Northern Syria and those who see the situation as much more complicated and volatile, possibly denoting far worse consequences. Regardless of Erdogan’s thuggery, the fact remains that Turkey is a NATO ally and the PKK, along with their YPG sub-sect, are a terrorist group. That’s left the United States trying to juggle a decision between possibly sparking a war with Turkey or expending U.S. blood to protect a group that has carried out suicide bombings. President Trump decided it was best to not make a decision at all on that front.
As someone who’s been oppositional to our policy in Syria for a very long time, including our prolonging of a deadly civil war in a vain attempt at regime change, I tend to side with the idea that it’s best we get out. There is no national interest in stranding troops in Northern Syria any longer and we have no solution to the decades long battling between Turkey and the PKK/YPG. There’s no articulated end game.
With that said, I have no issue with those who hold a different position. If one feels we should commit troops and confront Turkey, make that case. What I have zero respect are rantings like this.
This is contemptible on so many levels.
Why do I say that? Because people like S.E. Cupp were the ones cheer-leading our original policy in Syria of arming terrorist groups to try to remove Assad. That policy led to a civil war being far worse and longer than it might otherwise have been and well over 500,000 people dead. Does S.E. Cupp hold no moral responsibility for being so wrong about that? The shamelessness with which she and others like her carry themselves is just mind-blowing.
Right now, right-wing Twitter is full of people screaming about genocide (Turkey’s actions aren’t good, but there’s no genocide happening), yet almost all of those people were fully supportive of stoking a war that killed over 50,000 children that did not need to die. Assad being a dictator was not an excuse to propagate a ridiculously stupid foreign policy that cost an enormous amount of innocent lives. That stuff matters and these people don’t get to just pretend that didn’t happen while they scream shame, shame at Donald Trump. They hold absolutely no moral high ground on this issue.
Further, they do nothing to answer any of the tough questions facing us in Northern Syria. How long should we commit to protect a group designated a terrorist organization? What happens if we are forced to engage Turkish forces? How many troops should we send? By what authority will they be sent, as they obviously don’t fall under the AUMF of fighting terrorism? There’s plenty of virtue signaling but very little answers being given.
The way you know these people, including Senators like Mitt Romney, aren’t serious people is because not one of them are demanding Congress declare war and/or pass a new AUMF to even make military action legal. Screaming from the sidelines is easy. Actually going on record is much tougher.
In the meantime, the rantings of people like Cupp not only don’t add up, they are morally reprehensible on their face. They don’t get to hand wave away their foreign policy blunders that have cost hundreds of thousands of lives while chastising those that disagree with them now as morally deficient.
Even then, I’m not suggesting in a vacuum that those blunders make these people evil or possessing the “bloodlust of the neocons,” as Rand Paul hilariously quipped last week. What am I suggesting is that they garner some semblance of self-awareness before they go accusing others of lacking morality in foreign policy over what’s currently happening Syria.