13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

16Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 17Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:

18“A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Gospel of Matthew Chapter 2 (English Standard Version)

I plan to post a poem by T. S. Eliot “The Journey of the Magi” soon,  so my attention was turned to Matthew’s account of the Christmas story.  The Christmas story is told differently by the author of Luke’s Gospel by comparison to that of the Gospel of Matthew.  Matthew relates a genocidal slaughter of children by the local tyrant, Herod.  If one happens to be a family subject to such a policy –the rationale is immaterial.  The result is devastating; a wound of life-long-grief that can never completely heal.

In the last day or so our country is roiled by the departure of Secretary of Defense, General Jim Mattis.  This was closely preceded by the announcement that two thousand of our troops would be withdrawn from Syria.  The troop withdrawal announcement and the resignation of Mattis were cause and effect events.  My thoughts went to the thousands of Syrian Kurds, the Syrian Democratic Forces, our allies.   They did most of the fighting for us, and took the city of Raqqa, defeating ISSIS.  The Kurds are hated by the Turks, by their strongman ruler,  Erdogan who has vowed to exterminate them.  I read that near the Turkish Syrian border the Kurds have started digging tunnels, anticipating a rapid Turkish attack.

In our own Christmas story, who is to receive this Butcher’s bill for the thousands of Kurds, our former ally, who are surely to be slaughtered?

The bill belongs to Donald J. Trump.