Bruce Jenket: If you're for governments killing their own, you'll hate Trump

To The Daily Sun,

When I make comparisons between Presidents Obama and Trump, I tend to stick to numbers because the data is easy to find and difficult to dispute. When it comes to foreign and domestic policy it’s more opinion than fact. In spite of that, I will site a few comparisons everyone should consider before voting in November.

I’ll start with their ISIL (previously ISIS) policies. ISIL was on the minds of all Americans in June 2016. This article from ABC news (https://abcnews.go.com/International/isis-years-jv-team-international-killers/story?id=40214844) lists stories of attacks, both foreign and domestic. This was near the peak of ISIL’s reign of terror and during the run up to the 2016 presidential election. Not wanting a good disaster go to waste the left-leaning media blamed ISIL recruitment on Donald Trump. Complete misinformation as explained in this article by Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasdelbeccaro/2017/02/16/are-the-democrats-helping-isis-recruit/#70f5c36926ff). Love him or hate him, after taking office in January 2017, President Trump appointed General Mattis to eliminate the ISIL caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Less than one year later, Iraqi forces (with U.S. support) claimed the war was won. On October 26, 2019, U.S. forces tracked down the leader of the group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and he killed himself with a suicide vest when cornered. ISIL still exists but for most in this country that reign of terror is over, due to a promise made and kept by President Trump.

Let’s move on to their Iran policies. President Obama along with Secretary Kerry brokered a deal where Iran would “delay” uranium enrichment in exchange for trade sanction relief. Here is a reasonable article by the BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33521655) if you are interested in the details. President Obama signed that deal without approval from Congress and at the time returned $1.7 billion to Iran in cash and relieved sanctions. The amount of the sanction relief ranges from $25 billion to $150 billion, according to this article in PolitiFact (https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/apr/27/donald-trump/donald-trump-iran-150-billion-and-18-billion-c/). The “expectation” was that Iran would stop supporting terrorist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and others. The support for those organizations didn’t stop. Here is a summary from Wikipedia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terrorism). In addition, according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_Iranian_protests), they killed 1,500 of their own citizens and imprisoned 7,000+ since November 2019. That was not the first time if you read the Wikipedia link.

By comparison, President Trump’s administration engaged the Iranian regime and tried to negotiate a “better” deal. After over a year, no progress was made and he got out of the deal on May 2018. Democrats and the left criticized him for that. On January 3, 2020, President Trump authorized a drone strike that killed Iranian General Soleimani following an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad three days earlier. Democrats and the left again criticized his actions.

The take away for everyone should be that if you support terrorism and governments that kill their own citizens, vote Democrat. If you don’t, re-elect President Trump and support his actions opposing terrorism and his goal of world peace.

Bruce Jenket

Moultonborough