Is withdrawing US troops from Syria an impeachable offense?

The wise thing to do is not always the politically correct thing to do. No one's ever accused Trump of being politically correct.

Meanwhile, we're going to stay in Syria to protect the Syria-Russia-Iran Cartel so they can continue to monopolize the pipelines to our 'friends' in Europe --- so Iran can continue to spread violence around the Middle East. Congress just came down on the side of Iran, punishing an ally who was helping stem the influence of Iran in Syria and Yemen because they supposedly killed a member of a terrorist group who was embraced by our very own Progressive terrorists in the Democrat Party.

 

The CIA armed ISIS by arming the faction they were hoping would bring regime change in Lydia and Syria.

 

Lack of political correctness does not correlate with being correct.

Trumpery will be the reincarnation of ISIS.

 

Not much to wonder about. All it took was the help of Comey, Putin and the Electoral College. Didn't you know that?

 

I fully understand but we or the Russians have traded sides in this shithole region for 50 years to no avail. I say pull everything we have out of there and they will return to the tribes from whence they came hundreds of years ago. The difference being they can now drive there in a Toyota pickup instead of riding a camel.

 

Mueller is still looking for little Ruskies under his bed. Comey was operating on Obama's orders to clear the way for a clean Clinton win. The Electoral College has been around for a long time. Too bad you geniuses couldn't figure out how to parlay 3 million illegal immigrant votes into a win. Thought you were geniuses. Perhaps just geniuses in your own minds.

 

First of all, you nor I have any idea what Mueller does or doesn't have. Next, if you think Comey was operating on Obama's orders you just showed this board you have no idea what went on. Trump has told you people in his base a lot of things in the last two years. It's too bad none of you ever learned how to "fact check".

 

So the correct answer, the one that shows "mental capability" is to stay in Syria? What is our mission? The Caliphate is gone so I assume you've been told we should stay for some other reason.

 

You can draw a fairly straight line from the US withdrawal from Iraq and the rise of ISIS. So I'm guessing you opposed pulling out of Iraq?

 

Majorly big differences between Syria and Iraq. Syria has their leader still, who controls the army without question. Syria is also sitting there with Russia as their ally which is committed to stabilizing the country. Iraq had none of that.

 

Don't ruin this for me!

 

If you read papers back to before WWII Nothing has really changed.

 

Since Putin is there to support Assad in protecting the European market for their gas, I guess we must be there for the same reason. Qatar would very much like to sell their gas to Europe as well, but Assad won't allow their gas to be piped through Syria.

Trump is right. We have no dog in this fight to preserve the European market for Russian gas.

 

Agreed. I also subscribe to the old meme, Afganistan is where empires go to die.

 

Still waiting for anyone to show me where the congress voted to approve our troops on the ground in Syria. Or was this one of those other countries that the Nobel peace prize winner took us and our bombs into without congressional approval?

 

Thanks, I figured you were still in the1960s

 

But that is only with foresight. Everything is so obvious with foresight. Obama left Iraq when it was stable and there was no civil war, it did come with risk, but not a huge risk. Trump is leaving when it is very unstable and ISIS still exists and Syria is in the middle of a civil war. If anything Trump's pullout has a higher risk than Obama was.

My point of view is that I approve both Obama's and Trump's pullouts. That region is only going to be unstable and backwards and getting our troops into there will just waste money and lives. We can lend some air support sometimes but that is as far as I am willing to go.

 

I agree though it's a complete fabrication Iraq was any more stable than Syria. Syria has a working government, Iraq did not.

 

I don't think foresight was needed. Even Dubya accurately predicted what would happen with a premature withdrawal. In fact, the Obama administration probably knew it too. They were just rolling the dice and hoping that things held together long enough for him to leave office as the man who ended the Iraq war, instead, he had to send US troops back to Iraq.

But I'm unclear what exactly it is you are predicting with a Syrian withdrawal. Are you predicting that ISIS will be able to reform the Caliphate?

 

And it doesn't take a lot of foresight to figure out that a US pullout now is a risky move. Pulling out in the middle of a civil war with a bunch of radicals and terrorists running around may result in something bad, we just don't know. Nobody predicted ISIS with the Iraq pullout, only that extremists may fill the gap.

 

Syria has a working government but we have a civil war going on right now, while Iraq didn't when we pulled out.

 

It seems to be a bit of semantics to say that, "Nobody predicted ISIS with the Iraq pullout, only that extremists may fill the gap." If you predicted extremism, you got it right.

As for Syria, it's not in the middle of a civil war, it's near the end. Assad has effectively won, and has regained most of his territory. The US wasn't there to fight Assad or the Russians, so I'm not even sure what difference that makes. We were going to stabilize the country with 2000 special forces operators?

Syria is already a terrible place, and it will be a terrible place whether US troops are there or not. If you really think that US foreign policy should have as a goal the US using a military option to eliminate the Assad regime and kick the Russians out, prepare to run on that in 2020.

 

So are you saying that us staying was going to help end the war faster, because that is absolutely nuts. The only thing we were doing is keeping it from ending. Civil war or no civil war, it's effectively over. The rebels have all but been defeated, two of which we were supporting, one of which was ISIS.

 

Predicting future terrorism is a fools errand. What we do know is that they don't want us there, and we are only increasing support for the current terrorist cause by being there. There is no gap in this case. Syria HAS a working government.

 

It is a bit more than that.

Trump wants it both ways in Syria. He is withdrawing. When is he withdrawing? Is he withdrawing? He doesn't know, but to his fans he said, "They're all coming back and they're coming back now."

But he lost his SecDef when he said that. Republicans in Congress, our allies, and a majority of Americans all said he was wrong. So now he is saying, "We're slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time fighting Isis [Islamic State] remnants."

Our military genius doesn't seem to realize, you can't convince folks you are fighting the enemy while in the same breath telling them you want the troops to "slowly" withdraw. That statement makes no sense.

So, Trump dispatches his good friend, Senator Lindsey Graham, to try to make some sense about all this, because he sure as hell isn't.

"After discussions with the President and (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph) Dunford, I never felt better about where we are headed. I think we're slowing things down in a smart way," the South Carolina Republican told reporters at the White House. "But the goal has always been the same. To be able to leave Syria and make sure ISIS never comes back." Really? That is not what Trump said. He thinks we are fighting "remnants."

Graham added later: "I think we're in a pause situation where we are reevaluating what's the best way to achieve the President's objective of having people pay more and do more." If the goal is to destroy ISIS, that pause could last months, even years. They are up to 30,000 strong and strictly a guerilla force now, meaning they will not stand and fight and they no longer have territory to defend.

"He has not reversed his decision" to withdraw troops from Syria, Graham said. "The pause is to assess the effects of the conditions on the ground." Okay, fine.

"The President assured me he is going to make sure he gets the job done, and I assured him that nobody has done more to defeat ISIS than he has. We are inside the 10-yard line," Graham added.

Great, so for all intents and purposes, Trump has changed his mind. He is going to finish the job.

We will see. Trump is an avowed liar and he prefers to have it both ways. He says one thing, and his people say the very opposite. That is the pattern of his administration.