In what will sadly come as a surprise to absolutely nobody, President Trump used his Thanksgiving address to our nation’s troops to slander his predecessor, President Barack Obama, and insinuated that he was purposefully holding our nation back.
In a rambling and self-aggrandizing address from the comfort of his Florida mansion, he took credit for all the victories that have been won against Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria – victories that have been largely won by the sacrifices and the courage of the Kurdish YPG/YPS and the Iraqi security forces – and boasted about how he was the one to “open things up.”
“Everybody is talking about the progress you’ve made in the last few months since I opened it up.
We opened it up, we said, ‘Go ahead, we’re going to fight to win. We’re not fighting anymore to just walk around, we’re fighting to win,’ and you people are really—you’ve turned it around over the last three to four months like nobody’s seen and they are talking about it.
“We’re being talked about again as an armed forces. We’re really winning. We know how to win—They weren’t letting you win before, they were letting you play even, we’re letting you win.
The fight against ISIS is coming our way,” Trump said. “It’s coming our way, big, big difference. A lot of things have happened. They say we’ve made more progress against ISIS than they did in years of the previous administration. And that’s because I’m letting you do your job.”
The only thing that President Trump “opened up” were the rules of engagement that governed where and when airstrikes and precision artillery could be used – along with giving the Pentagon free rein to do whatever it wished, since Trump has no interest in the military beyond being able to take credit for their successes.
Since Donald Trump “opened” things up, the United States and our coalition allies have killed some six thousand innocent civilians, destroying entire families and accidentally bombing refugees without any regard for their lives or the devastating injuries that the relentless bombardment leaves – and then they lie to the world about the murders the American military leaves in its wake.
That is not “winning,” and that is nothing to be thankful for. A real president and a real leader should be grateful for a predecessor like President Obama, who gifted him with a healthy economy and a low unemployment rate – but whether it’s the brave men and women of the YPG or the man who used to hold his office, Trump is only capable of taking credit for the accomplishments of better people than he will ever be.
Watch it here:
WATCH: President Trump addresses troops from his Florida home on Thanksgiving pic.twitter.com/OnfPWXUCxP
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) November 23, 2017
