Trump says it’s cool that he abandoned the Kurds to their fate because hey where were they on D-Day? Did they help save Private Ryan? Were they there next to John Wayne and Arnold Schwarzenegger? I don’t think so.
The US president told reporters that the Kurds “didn’t help us in the second world war, they didn’t help us with Normandy as an example – they mention the names of different battles, they weren’t there”, in a staggering comment following the signing of executive orders on the federal regulation at the White House on Wednesday.
“We have spent a tremendous amount of money helping the Kurds,” the president said. “They’re fighting for their land. When you say they’re fighting with the US, yes. But they’re fighting for their land.”
Kurdish forces fought alongside the US against the Islamic State for nearly five years, losing roughly 11,000 fighters.
Trump said he learned that the Kurds didn’t help in Normandy from a “very, very powerful article”, apparently referencing a column by conservative opinion writer Kurt Schlichter.
Which somebody read to him.
Daily Beast reporter Will Sommer tweets:
Trump appears to have gotten his “Kurds didn’t help us at Normandy” line from a Kurt Schlichter column. https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2019/10/08/critics-aghast-as-trump-keeps-word-about-no-more-wars-n2554328
It’s kind of as if the US is being run by people who get their intelligence briefings from tabloids they pick up at 7-Eleven along with a six pack and a bag of pork rinds.
Comments
21 responses to “They didn’t help us with Normandy as an example”
The actual article is making legitimate points (that one can disagree with, and I do), but Trump clearly doesn’t understand the points at all.
The Normandy line in the article is making the point that the Kurds didn’t come a great distance to assist us with battles that they had no stake in just because they are great allies and wanted to stand with us. Rather, they fought with us in Syria because they already had to fight that battle. I think that’s a fair enough point. I have objections to what the author thinks the implications of it are, but that’s another topic.
But Trump seems to understand it as we should not feel loyalty toward the Kurds literally because they didn’t join us at Normandy.
How stupid can he get?
Schiffs and giggles? How juvenile can you get?
Don’t ask. You don’t want to know the answer.
Odd, but none of the dictators Trump cozies up to lead nations that “helped at Normandy”.
Russia, Korea, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, China, all sat that one out. None of my history books shows Spain, Italy, Japan, Germany, Austria, Hungary, helping at Normandy.
What a fatuous argument from the moron you collectively chose as your leader.
However, in light over other goings-on, none should be surprised that a Mafia Don sees everything as contracambio.
#4 To be fair, the Soviet Union was also at war with the Axis.
#3 I don’t want to know, but I’m afraid we must know.
Colin, what the USSR was doing elsewhere is irrelevant when they didn’t help us at Normandy. (Said with a four year old’s whine).
It would arguably be an improvement if that were true. But I think its a few levels up from where they are at.
Roj
During WWII China’s navy was pretty much destroyed, so in order to rebuild it they sent a group of naval officers to Britain.
These officers took part in the battle – bombarding the coastline to provide cover for the troops actually making the landings.
It would also not surprise me in the slightest if Kurds, being largely subjects of Britain and (Free) France at the time, also participated in Normandy itself.
Colin,
My comment was in response to iknklast’s question (“How juvenile can you get?”).
Never mind all these fancy facts and map coordinates and shit – the point is the Kurds were not there at the NORMANDY movie, fighting alongside Tom Hanks and John Wayne and Matt Damon and Henry Fonda. NORMANDY. Focus, people.
Yeah, John Wayne, who fought the war from Hollywood.
And the Germans showed up at Normandy but did they help? NO!
iknklast,
Right beside his buddy Ronnie Reagan.
Will British military be withdrawing from joint British-US operations now? I mean, it’s not as though America helped England during a certain War of Independence.
Well that was the point – stars of MOVIES about D-Day. (Fonda did enlist, but I included him because he too along with Wayne starred in The Longest Day.)
Yeah, I got it. It’s just a crack at so many of my family who seem to see Wayne and Reagan as the embodiment of tough macho war hero, though neither of them ever went to war. Appropriate, since to Trump central casting is the chief determinant of qualification for a role – do they look the part?
Trump too being a classic blowhard toughguy who would have been a total warrior hero if it hadn’t been for those tragic heel-pimples.
But if Trump did go to war, he so wouldn’t get captured, like that loser, John McCain, who sat out a portion of the Vietnam War in the plush accommodations of the Hanoi Hilton (probably a Trump resort?). Only a loser would get themselves captured.
That is the odd thing about the Trump phenomenon. I can’t imagine any other person insulting someone widely seen as a war hero and riding it out so easily with his base. His base doesn’t mind insulting disabled reporters, women, black presidents, calling for the execution of innocent young men who were wrongfully convicted, or calling immigrants animals. But they do revere the veteran, the war hero, and yet Trump mocked a veteran and war hero, and they just…loved him more.
This whole country needs an immediate, in depth psychiatric evaluation.
Notice he only cites Normandy. He probably couldn’t pronounce Inchon, Khe Sanh or Kandahar, or state what wars they were part of, let alone find any of them on a map. Here’s a hint: they’re all in Asia.
Did the Kurds help us defeat the British in the War of 1812? I don’t think so!