Trump Announces Rapid Withdrawal from Syria

He's declaring victory and bugging out.

That's not meant to be derogatory. I don't know how I feel about this. As a former hawk chastened by our recent winless record, I'm still grappling to figure out my feelings about foreign intervention.

I'm not sure why we're doing this now in particular.

Planning is underway for a "full" and "rapid" withdrawal of US troops from Syria, a US defense official told CNN Wednesday.

The decision, which would be a reversal from previously stated US policy, was made by President Donald Trump, who has long signaled his desire to get out of Syria, the official added.

On Wednesday morning, the President tweeted, "we have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency."

Even though the US will continue to maintain troops in Iraq with the capability of launching strikes into Syria, a US withdrawal of ground forces would fulfill a major goal of Syria, Iran and Russia and risks diminishing US influence in the region.

Putting troops in harm's way in order to "maintain influence" is a neocon/liberal interventionist idea whose time has gone. This is why McCain wanted our troops in very nearly literally every brushfire war in the world -- because we had to "maintain influence."

That's stupid. US troops lives should not be little weights one places on an influence scale.

Our troops should be introduced into combat to fulfill military objectives, not to serve as chips in diplomacy baccarat.

You cannot send men to be killed or have their balls blown off for such intangible, vague, stupid paper-pusher concepts as "maintain influence." They should only be put at risk for definite, well-defined goals.

The US has about 2,000 troops on the ground in the country, where they are primarily training local forces to combat ISIS. The US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have had some recent success against the terror group and are on the cusp of capturing the last major town held by ISIS east of the Euphrates.

Well, maybe we'll still be around to crush ISIS there.

They estimate that 2000 ISIS fighters remain in that last redoubt, but others put the number at 30,000 (though that's for all of Syria).

posted by Ace of Spades at 02:36 PM

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