U.S. diplomat in Syria releases scathing memo over failure to prevent war crimes and atrocities
Source: daily kos
Friday November 08, 2019 · 10:55 AM CST
The top U.S. diplomat in Syria has written a “scathing” three thousand word memo detailing how Trump’s actions in Syria failed America’s allies and led to the commission of “war crimes and ethnic cleansing” during the Turkish invasion of territory that had been controlled by the Kurds. This is the first such formal complaint about Trump’s Syria debacle to be made public.
Ambassador William “Bill” Roebuck has been with the State Department for over three decades and currently serves as special envoy for the coalition to defeat ISIS and senior adviser for Syria after a lifetime of experience in the Middle East. So his description of the policy in Syria as “a catastrophic sideshow” that happened “because we didn’t try” to prevent the Turkish invasion, it should sting. But since in Trump-land anyone with experience is just condemned as a member of the “deep state” or a “never Trumper,” the only result of this powerful missive is likely to be Roebuck joining many other State Department officials in abrupt retirement.
Roebuck begins his memo with a summary stating that Turkey’s operation in northern Syria represents an “effort at ethnic cleansing, relying on widespread military conflict targeting part the Kurdish heartland along the border and benefiting from several widely publicized, fear-inducing atrocities these forces committed.” He also repeats that these war crimes and atrocities were committed while U.S. forces were on the ground in Syria, a circumstance that “damaged our regional and international credibility.” As a result, the United States has ”lost significant leverage” and been left in a less stable, more dangerous position.
But Roebuck’s particular concern isn’t the “damage to U.S. credibility” or the positioning of more U.S. forces to protect oil reserves than were necessary to protect human lives. His focus is on war crimes and ethnic cleansing. Roebuck believes the U.S. might have halted atrocities even after Trump gave Erdogan the green light to invade Kurdish territory. It would have been difficult, the diplomat admits, “but we won’t know because we didn’t try.”
Trump has repeatedly tried to paint his giving permission to Turkish strongman Recep Erdogan as a “win,” and insisted that the five day get-out-or-die ultimatum issued to Kurdish families after Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo paid a visit to Erdogan was a positive achievement. But graphic videos from the region have shown Kurdish families being gunned down along roadsides by ISIS-aligned militia, and Kurdish families have been forced to flee their homes and become refugees with nowhere left to run.
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Read more: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/11/8/1898064/-U-S-diplomat-in-Syria-releases-scathing-memo-over-failure-to-prevent-war-crimes-and-atrocities?utm_campaign=trending
This horrible Trump stupidity has already faded to the background.
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