'Trump Is Pleased to Watch Us Suffer' -- Scenes From the President's Kurdish Betrayal

Renas Zuber lights another cigarette as the carnage plays out on TV.

Two days after a temporary cease-fire was called on the Turkish invasion into northern Syria, civilians are under siege in the border town of Serekaniye. Cellphone footage looping onscreen shows a man writhing on the ground in a tangle of ashen bodies and limbs after a mortar strike. Chaotic scenes flash from a hospital as the wounded are rushed in, trailing blood. Another clip shows a convoy of U.S. forces pulling out of the region.

“Trump is pleased to watch us suffer like this,” Zuber, a Kurdish border officer, vents in disgust. “We expected the Americans would leave one day, but not this way.”

he Kurds have been die-hard allies to the U.S. in the fight against ISIS, clearing one-third of Syria at a cost of more than 11,000 lives. But following a late-night October 6th phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Trump ordered U.S. troops to withdraw from Kurdish-controlled territory, effectively greenlighting a Turkish invasion, code named “Operation Peace Spring.” As U.S. special forces abandoned their outposts, the world’s ninth most powerful military unleashed swift and brutal force that crushed Kurdish defenses and uprooted more than 300,000 people in a matter of days. The security vacuum is already being exploited by dormant ISIS fighters, fueling fears of a resurgence. And after years of fighting that have cost more than 1,000 lives and billions of dollars, U.S. influence is at a nadir. Russia has emerged as the chief powerbroker in Syria and as an ascendant force in the Middle East.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-syria-kurds-906419/