Opinion...

Trump dings America's Mideast allies: They aren't great fighters

By Nolan D. McCaskill

American allies in the Middle East haven’t proven themselves to be great fighters against the Islamic State, Donald Trump said Monday.

“They have not proven — they have not proven to be great fighters. You know, if you look at some of these people, the Kurds have fought hard, but you look, a lot of the people we are supporting, they haven't been great with the fighting,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday evening.

The Republican presidential front-runner praised Jordan's King Abdullah II and added that there good things are occurring in the region, but said the United States shouldn't be sending troops to fight ISIL, also known as ISIS.

“I mean, they have to be unified. But they have to do the fighting,” Trump said. “We shouldn't be sending our troops. We’ve lost thousands of troops. We’ve lost trillions of dollars. We’ve spent, if you add it up, probably $4 trillion in the Middle East. And we have to rebuild our country.”

There comes a time, Trump continued, when the U.S. has to say “let’s get the heck out” and focus instead on rebuilding its crumbling infrastructure.

“We have to rebuild the United States. Our roads are bad, our airports are third-world airports, our transportation systems — everything we have in this country is a disaster,” he said. “We have to get back to rebuilding our country.”

Trump said that the U.S. can assist its allies in the region, but they have to fight, too.

“Somebody else over there — I mean, these are the beneficiaries more so than us. They’re gonna have to do the fighting,” Trump said. “We can help them with airstrikes and lots of other things, but we have to get people to do some fighting. But regardless, we have to take out ISIS.”