I cannot believe the President of the United States has said this. After the pomp today of Vice President Pence announcing a “ceasefire,” which Turkey has stated is actually not a “ceasefire.” We now have Trump saying :
"...and then everybody said, wow this is tougher than we thought. When those guns start shooting, they tend to do things. But I will tell you on behalf of the United States, I want to thank Turkey. I want to thank all of the people that have gotten together and made this happen. This is an incredible outcome. So you have a 22 mile strip, and for many, many years, Turkey, in all fairness, have had a legitimate problem with it. They had terrorists. They had a lot of people in there they couldn't have. They've suffered a lot of loss of lives also. They had to have it cleaned out. But once you start that it gets to be to a point where a tremendous amount of bad things can happen. So a process started, and we started to negotiate. And I think that, obviously, the sanctions were going to be very biting. I'm glad we don't have to do it. We'll be taking them off very quickly, as soon as this is finalized. But this is an incredible outcome. This outcome is something they've been trying to get for ten years, everybody, and they couldn't get it, other administrations. And they never would have been able to get it unless you went somewhat unconventional. I guess I'm an unconventional person. I took a lot of heat from a lot of people, even some of the people in my own party, but they were there, in the end, they were there, they're all there. Look, this is about the nation, this isn't about Republicans or Democrats, this is about our nation. So, we have a five-day ceasefire, during that five-days, the Kurds and other people, they're going to be taken great care of, they're going to be moving around, moving out of a safe-zone, which is something Turkey has always wanted. The ISIS, they call the Daesh, but we call the ISIS, the ISIS fighters that we've captured, they'll be under very, very strict control....
Sanctions won't be necessary because Turkey is doing what they're doing--I didn't need Congress for sanctions because I can do sanctions that are tougher than Congress, and I was prepared to do that. I just want to thank and congratulate President Erdogan. He's a friend of mine, and I'm glad we didn't have a problem because frankly, he's a hell of a leader, he's a tough man, he's a strong man, and he did the right thing, and I really appreciate it, and I will appreciate it in the future.
Turkey has a great military power. Turkey is a friend of ours, a neighbor of ours, and a member of NATO. And what Turkey is getting now is they're not going to have to kill millions of people, and millions of people aren't going to have to kill them. I mean, this was going to be a war of lots of other groups coming in, this wasn't going to stop with Turkey against the Kurds. A lot of different groups were coming in. We might not have been involved. I don't want to be involved in that kind of a war. And by the way, we have the strongest military in the world, but we've been there for ten years. We've been in the Middle East for 19-and-a-half years. So, this was a great thing for everybody. And Turkey, I really appreciate what they've done, they did the right thing, and I have great respect for the President.
(I’ve tried to get the above transcripts accurate to the best of my typing ability.)
I cannot believe that the President of the United States essentially is approving of a form of ethnic cleansing, literally using the words “they had to have it cleaned out.” And that Trump thinks that one of the benefits to this deal is that what “Turkey is getting now is they're not going to have to kill millions of people.”
I feel shaken.