Fast-Moving Developments in Syria Highlight US-Turkey Breakdown as NATO Allies – CBN News

It's been one week since President Trump ordered US forces out of northern Syria which critics say is effectively abandoning America's allies on the battlefield.

Thousands of people have been displaced and many Kurds have been killed.

The fast-deteriorating situation was set in motion last week when Trump ordered US troops in northern Syria to step aside. Turkey quickly stepped into the void and began attacking the Kurdish people who live there.

Mass atrocities are being committed against the Kurdish people at the hands of Turkish-backed militias, including some ex- al Qaeda fighters.

It's a move that's leaving a trail of displacement, destruction, and death.

The United Nations estimates at least 130,000 people have been displaced by the fighting and hundreds more have been killed.

Syria's Kurds say Syrian government forces have agreed to help them fend off Turkey's invasion, which marks a major shift in alliances.

The shift could lead to clashes between Turkey and Syria and raises the chances of an ISIS resurgence in the region.

With Turkey quickly advancing, Trump has ordered all remaining US forces out of northern Syria. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Sunday that Trump had directed US troops in northern Syria to begin pulling out "as safely and quickly as possible." He did not say Trump ordered troops to leave Syria, but that seemed like the next step in a combat zone growing more unstable by the hour.

Esper said the US withdrawal would be done carefully to protect the troops and to ensure that no US equipment was left behind. He declined to say how long that might take.

Many on both sides of the political aisle at home and abroad call the president's actions a betrayal of an ally.

"Leaving an ally behind is abandoning people that we frankly told we are going to be with, is disheartening, depressing and frankly it is weak," Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) told CBS's "Face The Nation" on Sunday.

US Pastor Andrew Brunson prayed for President Trump to have God's wisdom during the Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC Saturday night. Trump helped free the pastor who had been falsely imprisoned in Turkey where he was a missionary for 24 years.

"Father God, I ask now for an impartation of your Holy Spirit," Brunson prayed. "May the fullness of the spirit of Jesus rest upon President Trump that he be anointed with wisdom and understanding, with your counsel and might, with knowledge and fear of the Lord. And accordingly, may President Trump not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears or lean on his own understanding but may he recognize your prompting and move according to your guidance."

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has threatened Turkey with economic penalties for its invasion.

"Big sanctions on Turkey coming!" Trump tweeted on Monday, and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that while no final decision on sanctions had been made, the president's national security team was meeting again to consider a way ahead.

The fast-moving events of the past week have revealed an extraordinary breakdown in relations between the United States and Turkey, which have been NATO allies for decades. Turkish troops have often fought alongside American troops, including in the Korean War and in Afghanistan. Some believe Turkey is becoming, even more, friendlier to Russia and should be thrown out of NATO.

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) said the US and its NATO partners should consider expelling Turkey from the alliance. "How do you have a NATO ally who's in cahoots with the Russians, when the Russians are the adversaries of NATO?"

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Fast-Moving Developments in Syria Highlight US-Turkey Breakdown as NATO Allies - CBN News