US Officials Send Mixed Messages on Withdrawal of Troops from Syria

Military.com ^ | 12/19/2018 | Matthew Cox

[Old Teufel Hunden]

White House and Pentagon officials sent out mixed signals Wednesday on the future of U.S. military forces in Syria.

President Donald Trump sent out a tweet at 6:29 a.m. Eastern Time saying, "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency."

The Wall Street Journal then published a story that quoted a U.S. official as saying the Pentagon has an order to "move troops out of Syria as quickly as possible."

The Pentagon, however, sent out a statement at 9:29 a.m. that indicated a withdrawal of the approximately 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria may not be imminent.

"At this time, we continue to work by, with and through our partners in the region," Army Col. Rob Manning said in a statement, using the same language the Pentagon has used throughout the mission to support Syrian Democratic Forces fighting Islamic State forces in the war-torn country.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"sent us in there with no American interests at stake"

No American interests? See my post 19 for the American interests at stake. There are a lot of other reasons such as how the whole middle east was destabilized as they established a caliphate across parts of Syria and Iraq. They were creating a nation state of pyschopaths. Once they had consolidated their power, they would have been coming for all of us next, making 9/11 look like kids stuff.

[MrEdd]

That is as braindead a statement as has ever been made about the occupation of Iraq.

You pretty much don’t have even the slightest smidgen of a clue about the dynamics of the area.

Troops in Iraq were never going to accomplish anything in Iraq that would last past the day we left because the rules of engagement and the political constrictions were not designed to accomplish that. So it was impossible to pull out too early since we weren’t doing the job required in the first place.

[mac_truck]

The important thing is all the meddlesome State Dept. personnel have been given 24 hours to get out.

Military will follow a more orderly process.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Until 2011, Syria was a stable country with no ISIS or Al Quaeda presence. As soon as interventionists started egging on the rebels, the nation imploded and became a breeding ground for the Al Nusra front and ISIS. In spite of this, there are people who look at Syria as an example of why we need more intervention and "regime change" rather than less."

I won't argue with you about how we got here. My feelings at the time were that we should have kept a larger troop presence in Iraq and not fed into any of the rebels pipe dreams. The only ones I trust and still do trust are the Kurds. We could have protected our allies and kept the crazies in Syria to blow themselves (and Assad if they wanted to) up. We could have assisted Iraq in setting up refugee camps in the Western part of Iraq to assist any fleeing refugees but stayed out of the Syrian hellhole. But it spilled over into Iraq and was looking to destabilize the whole region. We couldn't let that happen.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"You pretty much don’t have even the slightest smidgen of a clue about the dynamics of the area."

Yes, you're right. I haven't spent a large part of my military career in Iraq and many other middle eastern countries. I know nothing about the area. I'm sure you could school me as I never fought over there.

[mac_truck]

Yes, Trump should do exactly as Obama did. Pull out too early from Iraq which caused the rise of ISIS to go hacking and slashing through the middle east in the first place.

Straw man argument...is that you Marco?

[MrEdd]

I fought over there as well.

I also paid close attention to the Islamic conquest of Lebanon before I went in.

In order to accomplish anything lasting, one would have to block Islamic religious leaders from issuing fatwas and enforcing sharia law. Sharia law guides people's thinking through fear and forcible establishment of rote behavior patterns.

That would pretty much require a surveillance state with strictly enforced borders. If you can show we were willing to establish such a surveillance state, and empower the people to throw off Islam then we can debate.

If you want to babble about one alphabet Islamic front being okay and some other one being not a problem then thank you for your service but no, you didn't learn enough about the area to assess how to change it.

Iraqi occupation was a waste because we weren't willing to force changes to to power structure which would prevent orthodox Muslims from simply killing all the populace who became westernized after we left. The people who understood the area predicted that this would happen after we withdrew and it has. We weren't willing to be brutal in a situation which called for a certain amount of intractability.

[bert]

Syria and Russia and Iran are now the bad guys in Syria.

[ek_hornbeck]

So what is the alternative to Syria's current government (the same question that should have been asked before the Obama administration and your fellow neocons advocated Gaddafi's overthrow in Libya)?

If Assad goes, Syria's best-case scenario outcome will be "moderate" Sunni Islamism in the Muslim Brotherhood mold or (more likely) hardline Islamism along the lines of the Al Nusra front. The notion that the anti-Assad rebels are made up of western-style advocates of secular, constitutional republican government is idiocy that only people like McCain and Hillary were stupid enough to believe.

[bert]

What happens to “Syria” doesn’t matter.

What matters is the formation of the new nation along the Euphrates in former Syria and formet Iraq.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Straw man argument."

Are you denying that us pulling out of Iraq did not have a direct correlation to the rise of ISIS spilling into Iraq?

[MNDude]

Rubio, Kristol, and Levin are against it, all I need to know it’s the right thing to do.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Iraqi occupation was a waste because we weren't willing to force changes to to power structure which would prevent orthodox Muslims from simply killing all the populace who became westernized after we left."

It seems that you, not me didn't learn enough. What happened is that after we left we lost our influence with the Iraqi government. Oh, for sure there were a lot of mistakes made along the way in Iraq. However, at the time we left Iraq it was on it's way to a somewhat stable nation state.

The Shia are the majority population in Iraq, but Sadaam was a Sunni and the minority Sunni population ruled with an iron fist (through Sadaam) for a long time. After we left, Malaki and his people were no longer restrained and the sectarian violence increased against the Sunnis. Maliki was either unwilling (my guess) or complicit in this. ISIS rose in response to this and was initially supported by the Sunni population. The attitude was, hey they are psychos, but they are our psychos. The genesis of ISIS came from Sadaam's Fedayeen forces who got religious. Their spiritual leader and inspiration as Zarqawi killed in 2006 by our forces.

Iraq is back to where they were circa 2009 - 2010. A fledgling nation state with a nominally democratic government that is functioning. The violence is down, it is working and is not spawning any terrorist groups bent on destroying the Satan of the West (Us). If you think that Iraq is overly religious with lots of Mullahs running around with big followings, then you haven't been to a lot of Arab countries. They in fact are quite secular when compared to other Arab countries. You see a lot more pictures of Sadaam in a suit than you ever did in traditional Sunni dress.

"I also paid close attention to the Islamic conquest of Lebanon before I went in."

So you must have been paying close attention 35 years ago. Thats when that was starting. I should know because I was in Beirut in 1983. Again, you don't have to counsel me, I was there and do understand. Beirut was a completely different situation/time than Iraq or ISIS.

[mac_truck]

No, that was the plan all along.

ISIS is a Golum created by the West.

Now stand aside and let the Syrian government and its partners take back its own country ffs.

[ek_hornbeck]

I’d be all for an independent Kurdistan making up parts of what’s now northern Iraq, northern Syria, and southern Turkey. Kurds seem to gravitate towards a more secular and less fundamentalist interpretation of Islam than Arabs, and would be a good counterweight to Islamists in the region. However, I’m not convinced that it’s the job of our military to help carve out that independent Kurdistan for them.

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"ISIS is a Golum created by the West."

Oh, why didn't I see this all along? So ISIS was just another false flag operation because all of our war mongering generals want to continue the war so they get to keep pocketing funds from the defense contractor overlords. Al-Baghdadi is currently hanging out in Florida at South Beach drinking Mojitos while getting a nice monthly stipend from the CIA. Thanks for showing us all of your evidence and straightening us out on this.

[mac_truck]

Oh, why didn't I see this all along?

Maybe because you're not as smart as you think you are...more likely its the interventionist beer goggles you're wearing.

[mac_truck]

Thanks for showing us all of your evidence and straightening us out on this.

Here you go buddy...I'm sure you'll know what to do with this.

DIA 2012 Memo

[Old Teufel Hunden]

"Here you go buddy...I'm sure you'll know what to do with this."

Yes, I do know what to do with that. Read it. Apparently you didn't know what to do with it. No where in that document you provided did it state that ISIS was created by the west. What it did say supported what I was talking about with Mr. Ed. That is that ISIS was spawned due to sectarian violence against the Sunnis.

Our complicitness in this (as I explained to Mr. Ed) was pulling out of Iraq, losing our influence there and so not able to prevent the sectarian violence of Shia against Sunnis to start in the first place.

[Pining_4_TX]

ISIS is Islam. It will exist in some form as long as Islam exists. US trooos in Syria make a bad situation worse. Let the Muslims kill each other.