Well said. Interesting that it was printed in Newsweek
As a Viet Nam war combat vet (CIB) I too want to see an end to these endless wars. Bring our troops home.
I am not anti-war, just anti-endless wars that do not appear to resolve anything.
No criticism of the author’s content; but Newsweek apparently no longer hires editors and proofreaders.
“Endless war” has always been lefty talking point. ISIS needed killing and the number of military deaths in Syria was 6(!). It is not Vietnam.
There are more troops in Afghanistan today than when the President assumed office in 2017. We recently pulled around 50 soldiers out of Northern Syria (moved across the border to Iraq, not brought home), but we followed that up by commiting another 1,000 to protect the Syrian oil fields.
I have to agree it is time to withdraw from places like Afghanistan. As one person said, after 17 years it will be no better than it is now in another 20 years.
Isis appears to have been eradicated for now. Staying in Syria does not look necessary.
The horn of Africa is as big a mess as ever though the Somali pirates seem to have been contained.
Iraq, just good bye. Bad investment.
The Saudis need to take care of themselves.
Middle East adventures with large deployments need to come to an end and be replaced with merciless surgical strikes as necessary.
Generals will just have to find some other sand box to play in for now. It will not be nearly so much fun as putting live rounds downrange but those are the breaks. I’m sure though it will not be all that long before some other despot raises a ruckus somewhere in the world. Probably China.
I agree with ending the 9/11 wars as well. But we’re still in Afghanistan. We’re still in Syria. We’re still in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. We still have aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. And I don’t see any timeline for any of that ending.
By noon on 9/12/2001 Mecca and Medina should have been smoking, glassed over radioactive rubble. Islam would have ceased to exist.