BlueWaveNJ Statement:
A Clear and Present Danger
Outrageously, President Donald Trump, without informing Congressional leaders or his own Departments of Defense or State, has just told the Turkish autocrat Recep Erdogan that he will remove the small number U.S. forces protecting our Syrian Kurdish allies and permit Turkish tanks to enter northern Syria. At this juncture the prospect for the Kurds, who sacrificed thousands of lives to defeat ISIS terrorists, looks bleak, since the Erdogan regime has vowed to confront, and likely massacre the Kurds. In addition, there is the danger of setting loose thousands of Islamic State detainees that the American-backed Kurds have been holding in makeshift wartime prisons. The terrible message this sends to our friends and our adversaries around the world is that America can’t be relied on when it counts. New Jersey’s Bob Menendez, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has concluded that the president’s action will “invite a fresh wave of terrorism, insurgency and chaos in the Middle East, providing conditions for ISIS to regenerate and allowing Iran and Russia to further entrench themselves in Syria.”
Yet the most dramatic news is not Trump’s action, which is one of a long line of similar transgressions, such as coddling the Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, trying to please Kim Jong-un and calling him a great man, or shaking down Ukraine to find dirt on his political opponents, but that it has taken this kind of blatant betrayal of a U.S. ally to move Senate Republicans to join with their Democratic colleagues and find a voice against Trump. As we know, this wasn’t Trump’s first attempt to betray our Kurdish allies; last December Trump also abruptly announced a complete pullout from Syria, which he partly walked back after getting strong opposition from Congress. Unfortunately, the Republicans’ latest condemnation may very well be too little, too late to save Syrian Kurds.
While each member of the U.S. armed services swears to defend us “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”, their commander in chief violates this duty at every turn, conducting U.S. policy around the world for personal favors and political gain rather than our national interest.
Trump’s continuing to serve as president is now a clear and present danger to the security of our country, and to a world where democracy and the rule of law can survive.
We expect that within a relatively brief period the U.S. House of Representatives will follow the rapidly accumulating evidence and take a majority vote to bring articles of impeachment again Donald Trump. The single most important step for our country is for the Republican members of the U.S. Senate to join with Democrats and take their duty seriously to conduct an open and fair trial on the charges pointing to Trump’s impeachment, and then to remove him from office. Will you do your duty, Senators?