Dakota Beacon

America is disgracing itself.  Through our 250 years as a nation, America has stood tall for peace and freedom.  The wars we have fought on foreign soil have been in the name of freedom and against aggression - at least that has been the intention of the people of America.  But today that image as a foe of aggression and violence has been tarnished. It has been tarnished through the last couple of decades, first by the Bush family and their faux-fecklessness, malice disguised as ignorance, easily passed off on us by the fronting of the effort by one of our most apparently ignorant presidents, W.  

It was W. who quickly effected the speedy and under-the-radar evacuation of the Saudi family of Osama bin Laden in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the Trade Towers and Pentagon.  People were easily distracted at that point. But not W. He had his eye on the ball, quickly managing to hustle them into the only plane allowed to take off immediately after the attack. His irrelevant attack which followed on Iraq made no sense to a lot of us, but he appears now to have been working on a preset plan.

Now, nearly 20 years later, we are still at war in the Middle East, still playing an amateur game of which set of Muslim terrorists we want to support this season.  The Kurds have been steadfast allies. So President Trump’s major act with regard to policy over there has been to pull out our token support of the Kurds and make a perfect phone call to Turkey’s Erdogan to tip him off that the coast was now clear.  Erdogan now felt at liberty with no opposition from us to attack the Kurds.  The handful of Americans who had remained were basically symbolic of support for the Kurds.  It was an important symbol, as it turns out.

The result has been negative.  Turkey attacked the Kurds forthwith and that not being a great success, has now seized upon the problems Europe is dealing with internally due to the virus, unleashed by China, to attack Greece.  I said “attack Greece” and that is accurate. He has informed the E.U. that he is delivering thousands - and he says soon it will be millions - of migrants to the border. He has thus far made good.  He has armed them with missiles and cudgels, he has given them tear gas to use. He has taken them by bus to the Greek border. He has also sent police behind them to prevent them from turning back to Turkey.

Greece met them with riot police and the E.U. is sheepishly and ineffectually “backing Greece”.  Not that it’s worth much. Turkey and Greece are both members of NATO. The U.S., a member, supports NATO hugely.  In fact, so much so that this was one of Trump’s ultimatums - that the rest of the members needed to pony up their financial support.  

Why are we in NATO?  NATO was established as an organization of solidarity in preventing Soviet aggression.  What is the sense of such a pact when we have one member invading another member? And to all the world it appears as though we are on the side of the aggressor - Turkey.  Those who are in an existential struggle to preserve their national independence sure see it that way, and it is hard to argue with them. Right now, for instance, it would seem that there is no reason for Greece to participate in NATO.  If I were Prime Minister Mitsotakis I would pull my country out. Right now Greece is being invaded by a NATO “ally”, not Russia. There is far more to fear for Greeks from a Turkish invasion than a Russian one. This could well be argued for the rest of Western Europe as well.

NATO has outlived its usefulness when we are seeing this happening without resistance by that organization.  Turkey is blatantly attacking an independent country. It is making war on a peaceful, non-aggressor nation. What is the position of the U.S.?  What is Trump’s opinion of this?  Perhaps Russia is waiting for NATO to self-destruct so it can become an empire once again.  If so, and this is not beyond the imagination, our allowing Turkey to remain NATO country is playing into their hands.  We should either get out of NATO and thus remove ourselves from the Turkey team or we should move to kick Turkey out of the alliance for good.  A rogue invader has no business calling itself an ally against aggression.

The U.S. should call for a halt of this nefarious operation of Erdogan’s and call for both his and Turkey’s censure and removal from NATO.  Then we should send some assistance to Greece perhaps in the form of any equipment they might need to protect their border. It is in our interests as well to stop this kind of aggression. Does Trump think it will stop in Europe?  It is already underway right here at home. Every boatload of “refugees”, every planeload we bring in is establishing the war on our own soil.  

Maybe Trump could put down his phone and stop re-tweeting pictures of himself depicted as Nero.  Maybe someone should clue him in to the historical reference he missed on that. Maybe he should pause his game of 4-dimensional chess long enough to take note of what his perfect phone call to Erdogan has produced.  

At least there is no further reason for Americans to participate in NATO.  All we are doing is paying for the support of Muslim-dominated effete European ogligarchs and the aggression of a would-be caliph attempting to re-establish the Ottoman Empire.  Since when has that been good news? Marine LePen, reacting to the news of the Greek resistance, has issued a statement.  We should read it and we should take her comments and her common sense to heart.  

Whatever NATO hoped to accomplish is now in tatters.  It is now being used as a weapon against peace and freedom.  It is now a weapon of aggression. Let’s either redirect it or get out now.  I, for one, don’t care to support the caliph of Turkey in his war on Europe.

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