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| Recep Tayyip Erdogan |
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan huddled in Sochi, Russia, on Oct. 22 for six hours to talk about carving up Syria following Donald Trump’s decision to abandon America’s Syrian Kurdish allies.
Since Syria is a very messy place, complicated by the existence of a US military attachment guarding the country’s oil fields and newly freed ISIS fighters itching to resume their terrorist ways, Putin and Erdogan will need a follow-up session to sort things out.
Why not hold the next meeting at Trump Towers in Istanbul? That’s the least they can do to pay tribute to the man who let it all happen.
The co-joined 37-story office building and 39-story residential tower have everything that today’s authoritarian leader needs.
Putin and Erdogan can expect that special Trump “white glove treatment” when they arrive and during the length of their stay, plus secure communications, high-tech security and breathtaking views of the Bosphorus and Belgrad Forest.
Erdogan is no stranger to the Trump Towers, having attended the 2012 opening of the complex in the ceremony presided over by First Daughter Ivanka Trump.
The Turkish president, though has had a fickle relationship with Trump. After the US president moved to ban Muslims from entering the US, Erdogan threatened to rip Trump’s name off the Istanbul buildings.
He then cozied up to Trump after the real estate developer supported Erdogan’s bloody crackdown after a coup attempt.
Now that Trump has given Turkey’s leader a green light to slaughter the Kurds, the very least that he can do is to schedule his next tete-a-tete with Putin at the Trump Towers Istanbul.
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Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis feels betrayed by his former communications director, Guy Snodgrass, whose tell-all book is to be published next week.
“Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon With Secretary Mattis” spills the beans about Mattis’ relationship with Trump, members of Congress and the press.
The Washington Post, which obtained an advance copy of the book, reports that Snodgrass wrote about how Mattis said he’d “rather swallow acid” than see the military parade that the president wanted to hold in Washington after he witnessed the extravagant Bastille Day festivities in Paris.
The book by Snodgrass, a former Navy fighter pilot, is promoted as “an insider’s sometimes shocking account” of inner workings at the Pentagon.
Mattis wrote his own book, “Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead” in September. That book barely scratched the surface of his time on Trump’s team. Instead, it focused on the lessons that Mattis learned during his 41-year career with the Marines.
Trump critics expressed disappointment that Mattis didn’t shed light on the chaos in the White House. Military man Mattis, however, felt honor-bound to respect the commander-in-chief.
Semper Fi.
Snodgrass apparently doesn’t share his old boss’ “always faithful” sense of duty.
When he contacted Mattis about “Hold the Line,” the Defense Secretary responded via email that Snodgrass appeared “to be violating the trust that permitted you as a member of my staff to be in private meetings in my office, where those of us carrying the responsibilities believed that all could speak freely in pre-decisional discussions.”
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