I am very sad, disappointed, and afraid when people like Tony leave us. Tony died too soon, had much work to do. He looks down on the sad state of the World, surely cries.
Anthony Bourdain did a show where he visited many, many countries to talk thru everyone's thoughts of food, love, booze (way too much in Ukraine! Vodka like you would not believe! OMG!), philosophy, law, memories, history, and politics.
Tony visited Kurdistan, then Ukraine, and he left both countries when they were at peace, so he was upbeat, optimistic for both countries. Both are in wars in 2020. Turkey is trying to kill all Kurds and Russia took Crimea and want the Ukraine.
The United States of America promised to help Kurds and Ukrainians, and we did not keep our promise.
Tony was especially hopeful for the future of Kurds in his show dialogue, which was painful to watch. Tony was proud of how America was defending the Kurd's efforts to establish a country of their own, and why not have their own country, the Kurds are 20-25% of Turkey's population!
Putin and Erdogan know what they want, and you can expect each military action from Russia and Turkey to have a purpose for the long run. Tweety Trump, on the other hand, is silly, impulsive, immature, and has NO LONG TERM PLAN WHATSOEVER.
Trump abandoned the Kurds, exposing them to attack from Turkey's military. You can say Obama did not react properly to Russia's taking Crimea, but Tweety has done no better, given he withheld funding with no reasonable rationale for defensive weapons for the Ukraine.
"Trump does not have a foreign policy. He has a series of impulses."
By Fareed Zakaria - Columnist focusing on foreign affairs - Jan 9, 2020
"Three months ago, President Trump suddenly withdrew U.S. forces from northern Syria that were, in part, thwarting Iran’s efforts to dominate the country, declaring, “Going into the Middle East is one of the worst decisions ever made in the history of our country. It’s like quicksand.” Well, last week he dramatically escalated America’s military engagement in the region [In the "quicksand!"], ordering a strike on Iran’s most important military leader and deploying thousands more troops. How to make sense of this Middle East policy?
It gets more confusing. Around the same time that he was urgently withdrawing U.S. troops from what he called the “bloodstained sand” of Syria, Trump sent 3,000 additional troops to Saudi Arabia. (When asked why, he answered that the Saudis were paying good money for this deployment.) [Why would Saudi Arabia pay for our military adventurism?!] And just a few weeks after announcing the Syria withdrawal, he reversed himself and left some troops in the north “for the oil.” All clear now?
After the killing last week of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, Trump warned that were Iran to attack “any Americans, or American assets,” he would retaliate “VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.” And yet after Iran did attack two bases in Iraq hosting U.S. forces, Trump essentially did nothing, announcing that Tehran “appears to be standing down.” I’m glad Trump chose to deescalate, but that doesn’t change the fact that he reversed himself yet again."
The United States has made many, many, many mistakes in the Middle East and throughout the world, trying to replace regimes, police the bad guys, and export our version of democracy with bombs.
