In a letter to President Donald J. Trump, New Hampshire
U. S. Senate candidate Andy Martin warns the president he cannot be reelected
unless he apologizes to the American people and reverses course in the Middle
East. Martin also warns Trump to stop promoting Corey “Looneydowski” for senator.
A Looneydowski nomination would preclude Trump from carrying New Hampshire.
ANDY MARTIN /2020
Republican for U. S. Senator
New Hampshire
www.AndyMartin2020.com
www.AndyMartin.com
www.FirstRespondersOnline.us
Headquarters:
E-mail: AndyforUSSenator@aol.com
P.O. Box 742
Manchester, NH 03105-0742
Cellphone: (347) 960-9593
Fax (866) 214-3210
Blogs:
www.AndyMartin2020.blogspot.com
www.AndyMartin2020.wordpress.com
October 22, 2019
President Donald J. Trump
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Donald:
I can still remember the day, forty years ago in 1979,
when I was sitting in my apartment at Olympic Tower Condominium and the staff
brought in a “board package” (application to rent) for a unit at Olympic Tower
at 641 Fifth Avenue in New York. The application was from you. I knew who you
were; you were already well known in New York. I was a member of the Board of
Managers of Olympic Tower and signed off on your application to move in; later
the full board ratified my action.
We were never close friends but we were civil to each
other and at some point you asked me to meet with your architects who were designing
Trump Tower. I was an expert on multi-use high rise buildings. In the 1980’s Spy
Magazine said that we were both “litigious New Yorkers.” In the 1990’s I sued
you to block the conversion of Mar-A-Lago into a club in Palm Beach. In the “naughts”
I was in the background at the church when you married Melania and now in the
current decade, I sometimes see you at services on Christmas and Easter Sunday.
I go into some detail as to our past because having known
you for forty years, I am inclined to be a supporter. Despite your relentless
exaggeration, on the whole you have had a positive impact. I want to support
you.
I supported you in 2016 and I was delighted when you were
elected. Frankly, I hoped you would become more “presidential,” (you promised some
of your excesses would be toned down). You have not.
But it was not until you slandered General Mattis a few
days ago that I felt you had gone too far. Too far for me for sure. Every day
there is a new avalanche of misinformation.
I have spent the past fifty years in and out of the
Middle East. Four generations of my family have served there in some capacity. Unlike
you, I know something about the region.
Your latest claim, “We did not promise to protect the
Kurds until Kingdom Come,” is literally correct. But then we have no such obligation
to other countries either. You are not “bringing our troops home,” and the
numbers deployed in the Middle East are increasing. How long are you committed
to Iraq? That is likely where you will get similar pressure to withdraw very
soon.
Ironically, this letter has been in preparation for ten months,
since General (SecDef) Mattis resigned and others also left because of differences
over your Syria policy. You just kept digging yourself a deeper hole over the
past ten months.
Last weekend, five (5) people were killed in Chicago,
almost as many troops as have died in Syria in four years. At Fort
Stewart, Georgia, last weekend a tragic training accident cost at least
three soldiers their lives, a third of the losses we have endured in Syria in five
years. Every time you use military casualties to excuse your surrender in
Syria I ask, “Are you going to withdraw from Chicago, which is infinitely more
dangerous?” Stop abusing and misusing the sacrifices of your troops to cover
for your own cowardice.
We didn’t have a legal obligation to defend the Kurds; we
had a moral one. We only lost a handful of soldiers in five years because the
Kurds lost over ten thousand fighters. Military people are not paid a lot of money
for the dangers they assume. But persons in uniform are bound by the morality of
our military history. Politicians are often craven and immoral; they have no scruples,
Shifty Schiff for example. But soldiers and Marines are held to a higher
standard; that was the first thing I learned as a military cadet. The moral
imprimatur of American support for those who fight and die alongside us and for
us is a sacred commitment. In more than fifty years overseas I have always depended
on local people to protect me and assist me. I would never abandon them.
By refusing to defend the ground we controlled in Syria you
casually allowed a Turkish dictator to make a fool of you. We did not go into
Syria “for 30 days,” as you repeatedly lie. People who knew realized it could
be a decades-long process to defeat ISIS and Islamist extremism.
You allowed Erdogan to tell you he planned to invade a member
of the United Nations and attempt to ethnically cleanse thousands of square miles
of territory occupied by civilians. Where do you get the authority to “negotiate”
the invasion of a member of the United Nations by an Islamist dictator? That’s
what even you admit to have done. Disgraceful.
You have dishonored our troops in the field, and you have
dishonored your supporters. Please don’t tell me people at your rallies cheer when
you say you are “bringing our troops home.” You’re not bringing them home; they
are redeploying in the Middle East and you are sending thousands more troops to
the region. As a result of your latest disaster, eventually you will have to
send more troops to stamp out Islamist extremism. They want to
destroy us. (Question: have you asked the Iraqis what they think of your appropriating
their nation as a base to fight ISIS in Syria? I am waiting for the backlash.)
Your refusal to stand up to the Turkish dictator Erdogan
will stain your presidency forever. You surrendered our loyalties and our national
security to an Islamist dictator. In the words of Joseph Welch, “At long last,
have you left no sense of decency?” In surrendering you gave new life to ISIS terrorists
and very possibly doomed your presidency.
As I was writing this letter, there were reports of yet
another zig-zag, that you might leave troops in Syria, though not enough to
actually enforce our national interests. Everyone, even your opponents, wants
to some day bring our troops home. But why not the troops in Japan? Tens of thousands
in Europe? Are they also being withdrawn? Instead, you have singled out 2,000
troops, almost a rounding error, to focus on removing them when the prime beneficiaries
will be the Turkish dictator, the Russian dictator, the Syrian dictator and
ISIS. Do you understand why people doubt your motives? A great nation has commitments
and alliances, something you refuse to acknowledge. You are acting like a
Brooklyn landlord, not president of the United States.
You will be “remembered for foreign policy,” all right,
as you unfortunately predicted. For allowing atrocities to take place, as when
prisoners and unarmed civilians were executed by Erdogan’s bloodthirsty stooges.
You will be reviled in American history. People around the whole world hear and
see your flatulent rhetoric, and they are disgusted. They ridicule you and despise
you. Your claim that “America has never been more respected” is delusional. Except
for Viet-Nam we have never been more reviled around the world in my lifetime or
yours. Your foreign policy has been an embarrassing failure.
People made mistakes during the Viet-Nam era, but they
were dealing with the imperfect information of that age. Kissinger betrayed the
Kurds, but then the Shah of Iran fell, and we are still paying the price for
Kissinger’s duplicity. But no president, until you, has ever cut-and-run from our
positions, to the point where Russians showed up last week and found hot coffee
on the tables and refrigerators stuffed with food. You surrendered, and thereby
dishonored yourself, our national security and the sacred honor of our military.
Your days of exploiting the military are at an end.
Your asinine claim “we were caught between two armies” is
nonsense. There were “two armies” only because you caused that mess to exist due
to your cowardice in the face of the Turk. You’re not fooling anyone who knows
anything about military history. Against dictators, you are a coward, plain and
simple.
I always thought George W. Bush and Barack Obama would
fight it out for “worst president in modern American history.” But you have now
become a “contenda” for a three-way race to the bottom. You ridicule Bush for
his self-destructive invasion in 2003 (which I opposed). I marched against the
Iraq invasion down Fifth Avenue. You were nowhere to be seen. But your Syrian surrender
is an even more egregious abandonment of national security and honor than Bush’s
and Obama’s. Americans will die in the future because of your cowardice in the
face of the Turk and the Russian.
You have accomplished one noteworthy thing: other than Senator
Rand Paul, and Tucker Carlson’s Colonel McGregor, you have united the American people
against your policy. You’ve heard the expression, “these colors don’t run.”
Well, Donald Trump’s colors do run, and he lies about it every day as women and
children are slaughtered. You were punked by an Islamist dictator. The whole
world saw you for what you are.
So, where are we?
The Trump name, the Trump brand, which you spent a
lifetime establishing, is in tatters. By the time you leave the White House, “Trump”
will be a dirty word and your business will be endangered.
You have had an administration of extraordinary accomplishments,
such as record low unemployment and record economic prosperity. But all of your
accomplishments are being drowned out by your relentless blabbering and your surrender
in Syria. You have achieved national unity by making yourself a target of
national scorn.
Impeachment. I have some good news and bad news. The case
against you is garbage. Total and complete exaggeration. But you are impeaching
yourself with your incompetent defense and irrational behavior. President Clinton
knew how to defend against impeachment, and he won. But your defense is no
defense, just a daily stream of nonsense and crazy talk. Rudy Giuliani? I faced
off against him across the table in the 1980’s. Unlike General Mattis, Giuliani
is grossly overrated.
The actual constitutional foundation for impeaching you
is nonsense. You have not committed any high crimes or misdemeanors. But the Democrats
want to wound you, and you are allowing them to bleed you, day by day. You give
energy to the impeachment by acting as though it is a given. No, it isn’t.
Good cases are lost. And bad cases are won. Every day.
You have a good case but are defeating yourself. If you don’t allow your staff to
organize a coherent impeachment defense team you will be impeached. Mulvaney laughed
when he was asked if you could be convicted and removed. He thought the question
was a joke. It is not a joke. I believe you can still avoid being impeached, and
I believe you can avoid being convicted and removed. But not with your current
approach.
You need to address the nation and apologize. You need to
admit to mistakes and you need to promise to do better. With a skillful
defense, you could stave off impeachment and conviction. But not with your
current calamitous behavior. Nixon saved himself in 1952 with the “Checkers”
speech. You need to save yourself with a similar appeal.
You need to stop lying to the American people. No, you
did not “capture ISIS.” It was the Kurds who spilled blood, not Trump. I am
amazed the media keep accusing you of a “quid quo pro,” when you need an
opposite number for a quid pro quo. Consulting among your own team and own government
is never a quid pro quo. But, yes, you made mistakes.
When I see you in church on Christmas and Easter, you partake
of the Confession of sin. Without a sincere confession to the American people,
and a whole new approach to speech and leadership, your presidency is doomed.
Be aware, I am representative of the broader “base.” I
supported you when you announced (I delayed my public endorsement because I was
attacking Jeb Bush and did not want Bush to use me against you.) So I have been
with you since the start. I watch the rallies. They are entertaining, but you
cannot win an election with your own base. You are losing ordinary people who
find your language and self-delusion offensive. So, cut it. You need a “Come to
Jesus” moment. Without genuine genuflection and a sincere apology, you will be
defeated and we will enter a national Dark Age of taxation and enslavement by
the Democrats. For which you will blamed into eternity.
So, yes, we still need you if you are capable of being a leader.
I still can’t figure out if your endless blathering is due to a speech problem
or some form of degenerative condition, but you need to stop exaggerating, stop
lying and come to ground on your own. People will love you for it.
Because of your many successes, you should be at 70% support
among the American people, but you’re not. I watched the 2018 election and said
to myself “Doesn’t he realize his crazy behavior is turning off voters, and if
the D’s take the House, he will endure extreme suffering?” You didn’t and you
are.
Keep your apology approach simple, direct and coherent. A
little humor is all right, but not an endless stream of consciousness. You can
still recover if you admit error and change course.
I’m also a candidate. So I am responsive to voters as
well. I will soon be facing off against your puppy, Corey Looneydowski. There
is no way New Hampshire Republicans can elect a polarizing, philandering candidate
to the U. S. Senate. Indeed, if Looneydowski runs, he will preclude you from carrying
New Hampshire. New Englanders are pretty skeptical. They don’t like
over-wrought presentations. And New England has only one GOP federal official.
How do we change that? Not by abandoning Syria and encouraging Looneydowski.
I am not writing at length to hurt you. I am writing to encourage
you to face reality. I am going to vote for you in 2020. The current crop of D’s
doesn’t offer a rational option. But voters sometimes take irrational action when
faced with a candidate they don’t like. LBJ won the greatest victory in
American history in 1964 (I worked in the 89th Congress). Four years
later, he couldn’t even run for reelection. Political fortunes can change in an
instant, or a phone call.
Please, please apologize to the American people, send our
troops back to Syria and tell the bloodthirsty Erdogan to take his war
criminals out of Syria, which is still an independent country, not subject to invasion
by Erdogan. Restore honor to our men and women who today are being pelted with
shoes and potatoes because their commander-in-chief is a delusional coward who abandoned
them to ISIS.
ISIS is still very much here/there, and if you do not reverse
course, ISIS and all the other dictators and bullies around the world will make
your life miserable in 2020. They will extract maximum humiliation just when
you are most vulnerable during your reelection campaign. Why not listen to people
who know more than you do about the Middle East and Asia, and stop pretending
you are an expert on everything? You’re not. Stop acting like you’re a confused
old man, like Joe Biden.
The IG Report (link below) is chilling. Contrary to your
claims, we are going to be in the Middle East for a very long time. Stop saying
ISIS is 7,000 miles away. That is delusional. On September 11, 2001, the Middle
East was a subway ride away from you and me, as thousands died, mainly because
of Saudi Arabian fanatics from a country you are now reinforcing with more
troops. Unless you restore order and reverse your bad decisions, Americans will
die again and this time you will be blamed. Look at pp. 3-5 of the Report: https://www.stateoig.gov/system/files/q3fy2019_leadig_oir_report.pdf
In closing, I have been hard and harsh, but you deserve
it. If you reverse course, you will be reelected. If you continue along the
current path, I think there is a strong possibility Senate Republicans will vote
to convict and remove you from office as the lesser of two evils (removing a
president and starting the 2020 campaign with a clean candidate, versus having
you as their doomed leader).
You have the challenge of a lifetime, to change your
approach to leadership and to restore integrity and rationality to the processes
of your government. Other men in history have risen to the challenge. Change is
never easy, but if you fail to change there is almost no hope for you or your
legacy.
I wish you the best.
Sincerely,
Andy
AM:sp
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