Do you agree with the decision to remove U.S. troops from Syria?

Can’t say I know everything about there is to know about the US and Syria issue.

But from what I can remember, there are Syrians who want to get rid of a cruel leader whose only reason for still being in power is Russian support.

And now trump suddenly made the decision to pull out abandoning those who need American help. Looks suspicious to me, in light of possible existence of pee-pee tapes.

Absolute stupidity.

We should get the hell out, and should never have been there in the first place.

@notnotnotnot Agreed. It’s rare, but sometimes Trump is correct.

Once again “The Trump” is smarter than all his GENERALS.

When you’re a sixth grade graduate YOU must be smarter then anyone else in the entire world (except Prince Putin)
Oh Putin wins the chess match with a “check mate” in Syria! !

It’s great to see war-mongering liberals call for more unauthorized war because of Trump/Russia. Liberals are shit.

(If you’re interested in seeing yet another liberal/left distinction, you’ll likely find it here.)

Lindsay Graham said this was a “victory for Russia”. So it’s a proxy war with Russia then. At least he admits it.

The US blew it in Syria during the Obama admin, by not engaging when we should have. Once we lost our deterrent, thanks to Obama, we had / have a choice. See it through to the end, or bail and run. The smart thing to do would be to see it through to the end and not have America look like a bunch of wimps. There are strateegic reasons to stay (in 2019) that weren’t there 4 years ago.

The populist thing to do is the bail out. Guess which one Trump chose.

My other point is that this may be a big fakeout, to get everyone talking about Syria instead of Mueller.

I read that generals and knowledgeable people disagree with Trump, and I know who can be trusted to make a rational, informed decision.

I assume someone from Turkey or Russia got Donnie on phone, told him he was a military genius, and goaded him into “realizing” the US should withdraw.

It’s great to see war-mongering liberals call for more unauthorized war

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.“An American withdrawal at this time would be a big win for ISIS, Iran, Bashar al Assad of Syria, and Russia. I fear it will lead to devastating consequences for our nation, the region, and throughout the world.”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., called it a “I just think it’s a bad decision that eventually will lead to greater risk for the United States”

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said Trump’s declaration that ISIS has been defeated is “simply not true.”

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., “The President’s generals have no idea where this weak decision came from: They believe the high-fiving winners today are Iran, ISIS, and Hezbollah,”

Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., “We’ve made significant progress in our fight against ISIS but the fight isn’t over, & a US withdrawal will embolden bad actors,”

US troops should never have been there, in the first place. I see it as Europe’s issue, if they decide to do anything…

It is indeed a catastrophic problem. With the US and Russia involved, it could turn into WW3 quickly. I.suppose I would trade a terrible genocide, for all out world war…

Surely God will stop all the violence, and death of innocent people….

It was wrong to give the Syrians false hope in the first place. For those who haven’t managed to flee the choice was and remains Isis or Assad. Brutality, repression and torture vs. torture, brutality and repression. Syria should be viewed for what it is—Another byproduct of the catastrophic decision to invade Iraq. That invasion is “the gift that keeps on giving” Strategically, the United States withdrawal from Syria is a mistake, but more or less inevitable, since necessary commitment is politically impossible with our war weary electorate.

@Demosthenes @notnotnotnot Do you two know why the US had presence there in the first place? If you did can you tell why that reason isn’t enough to get involved?

And btw who were the warmongering liberals who called for war? When and with whom exactly @notnotnotnot?

The war against terror (and our enemies) will go on almost forever and it must so long as any bad guys remain alive. We must kill them wherever they are, whatever the price. It’s a bitch, I know, but there it is. If we don’t, our brave soldiers will have died in vain!

@stanleybmanly I agree it’s not a good thing to give Syrians false hope. Just can’t help wondering if those early efforts saved some Syrian lives or not.

Or some Syrians themselves understand the complicated position the US was in and just appreciated the attempt to help.

I think I remember now. Obama chose not to engage fully because Putin who wanted payback for whatever the US did to make Russia look weak in the eyes of the world and to project strength was baiting the US into a “war.”

Obama chose not to bite. Meanwhile, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other things the US could do to engage with Russia over Syria without going into a full-scale war.

So why the sudden pull-out that even American generals were caught unaware? This is starting to smell more and more fishy.

We know trump for some reason wants to act as if being
nice to Putin gives him leverage. Another blunder similar to Bush stupidly thinking he saw through Putin’s soul or something.

Seems to me Putin already knows trump’s days are numbered so he recently threatened to deploy more
nukes if the US backs out of a nuclear arms deal(?)

And now this sudden Syria pull-out. Giving Putin and Assad victory. This feels to me like appeasement and surrender. I hope to high heavens this is not the reality TV show host committing treason.

I am not going to opine on today’s developments, the whole thing is a mess.

This war is one of the first resulting from global climate change. Prolonged drought/crop failure in the Syrian farmlands is what destabilized Assad’s regime to begin with, and ISIS sprung up to solve the rural problems.

Not all of us are american, so your use of “our” & “we” is an error.
As for pulling troops out, should never have been there in the first place.

For purely selfish reasons, concerning me and some of my friends, I guess it is nice to not have to go places like Syria.

But it is a bad idea on two levels.
One, it simply gives the Russians their leased but precious warm water port in Tartus without any complications.
Two, anybody who says extremist cults like ISIS are gone, is dreaming. They are still there, waiting for their moment to come around again. Just like when US left Iraq. And that is a fact.

I am not US citizen but I thank the US for keeping the world safe despite some of its own citizen seem to be against (necessary) militaristic action. The troops should stay there to get rid of the threat to the core and to the deepest root. Unless, there’s a strategic benefit of pulling troops for resupplying and fortification.

@josie Why should we be fighting Russia? Assad is winning. The rebels don’t have a chance. Fighting ISIS is one thing, but whom are we fighting now? We can’t stay there forever simply because ISIS might come back. Once Assad takes Idlib and wins the war (which seems inevitable), what will be our role there? This is not like Iraq because “Saddam” is winning and likely to stay in power. The same kind of power vacuum that happened in Iraq and Libya will specifically be avoided if we do leave.

I understand the “you break, you bought it” attitude. But this is more like “it was already broken and we foolishly tried to glue the pieces back together”.

Trump acted against the advice of his Defence Secretary, Jim Mattis, who has now resigned. The latest in a very long list of sackings and resignations in the dysfunctional Trump administration.

I also heard that Trump may soon be announcing a withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Another war-mongering liberal has chimed in:

“Dear Mr. President…

“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues…

”...Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.” – Defense Secretary James Mattis

@kritiper “We must kill them wherever they are, whatever the price. It’s a bitch, I know, but there it is.”

So basically, you support war crimes and the insane idea that the United States military is above the law. How lovely.

According to an article I just saw, we’re pulling 7,000 troops from Afghanistan…

I guess I’ll believe it when I see it. I remember all of Obama’s pledges to get us out of Afghanistan and how well that worked…

@rockfan Nobody is perfect. Everybody wants to have their cake and eat it, too.
Sometimes, ya just gotta go with the lesser of two evils, come what may.
(I did say it was a bitch… and I meant it!)
War IS hell.

“Nobody is perfect.”

That has to be the worst defense of pro-War mongering I’ve ever seen.

The U.S’s constant interventionism and world policing makes us less safe, not stronger.

Can anyone explain why Trump needed an extra $54 billion for the military in 2018 when he is bringing all these troops back home? That isn’t pocket change even for Trump.

^I am not an expert on our defense budget, but I have read that our nuclear arsenal was in need of maintenence, and modernization. The US built a giant, and expensive stockpile of dangerous warheads, and missiles. Even if we wanted to neglect them, we couldn’t. The various systems require constant monitoring, and upgrading of technology.

That could explain some budget increases.

Additionally, it costs money to move our troops. We’ll probably leave most of our vehicles, and equipment there, to avoid the cost of transportating them.

@rockfan “That has to be the worst defense of pro-War mongering I’ve ever seen.

The U.S.‘s constant interventionism and world policing makes us less safe, not stronger.”

Check your history books. Being isolationist is what the US did in the 1930’s and the whole world got into real trouble because of it.. The US HAS to get involved. The world relies on US. WE CANNOT SIT BY AND DO NOTHING. WWII proved it.
I can only hope you can be as uninvolved as you want the US to be when some terrorist has you by the throat and is slicing your head off.

We shouldn’t have even gone into Syria in the first place, it’s an illegal war.

Also, it seems that you’ve never researched “military industrial complex.”

The world wars are the exception, not the rule, in regards to positive impacts from American intervention. They were also anomalies in history, and likely a thing of the past. Nuclear weapons were used in the last one. Those nukes were little firecrackers, compared to say Russia’s current arsenal.

America is very fortunate geographically speaking, and has few defensive reasons for involvement in foreign wars.

Hitler had just about perfected his V-2 rocket ands was working on his V-3 and V-4 variants so he could strike the Americas.
Planes and missiles don’t make for much safety in this ”...fortunate geographically speaking..” place.

^There is zero threat of a land invasion.

I really hate to assume, but it sounds like Kritiper has been swallowing bullshit talking points from Fox News about foreign policy

^It kinda does…

Does anyone really hate Lindsay Graham right now? Yeah he criticizes Trump, so what? The guy is such a hypocritical war hawk it’s unbelievable. Graham has never met a war he didn’t want the U.S. to fight. He complains that we need to fight Islamic extremists, yet previously our goal was fighting Assad, part of which involved arming Islamic extremists (inadvertently or not)! I just think he’s despicable.

Sigh….. Yes. He’s a real piece of shit. I live in SC. He’s a constant source of shame… He’s a gay man who’s religion keeps him forever closeted, and therefore forever frustrated. I think that’s what fuels his anger….

Looks like Trump is going to leave 400 troops in Syria. Pulling out completely never seems to happen, does it?