Posted on 12/29/2018 1:26:58 PM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
On December 19, 2018, President Trump declared correctly that “we have won against ISIS,” and announced that the remaining 2,000 American troops in Syria would be withdrawn.
The president has made the right decision. Having won the war against ISIS, he does not want to lose the peace by getting into a military conflict with the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces, or with the Iranians or the Russians, or even with the Turks for that matter.
As the father of an Army officer who is in theater right now, I think I have a right to an opinion. And in my opinion, the desert sands of Syria are not worth a single American life.
Everyone agrees that the commander in chief should bring our troops home from any overseas combat theater as soon as the mission is complete.
But what is the mission?
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
SYRIA WAS NEVER A JUST WAR
The West should fight wars based on the principles of Augustine, not Mohammed.
December 28, 2018 Jules Gomes
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272367/syria-was-never-just-war-jules-gomes
“Moral factors cannot be ignored in war . . . Moral elements are among the most important in war,” wrote Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz. “Without just cause nothing that follows can be justified, even if it can be more and less virtuous,” writes ethicist Nigel Biggar in his book In Defence of War.
Snip
Money and officer glory. The military is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies exist for their own interests, NOT the best interests of America.
“As the father of an Army officer who is in theater right now, I think I have a right to an opinion. And in my opinion, the desert sands of Syria are not worth a single American life.”
YES! And tell those in Congress and the Military who persist in their desire to stay in the ME militarily, that they should offer up their children first to go and fight.
Overthrowing the Syrian dictator has been their goal since the beginning of that country’s civil war in 2011. Two different aid programs, one run by the Pentagon and the other run by the CIA, were set up to fund and empower the Syrian rebels. Both failed to dislodge the Assad regime, and both were ended by Trump by mid-2017.
Still, establishment types managed to convince the new president to expand the scope of the Syria operation. In mid-January of this year, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the US intended to maintain an open-ended military presence in Syria to not only defeat ISIS but to oust Assad and counter Iran’s influence.
Even as late as this September, the Washington Post, citing unnamed officials in the State Department, claimed that Trump had agreed to implement a new strategy that indefinitely extended the military effort with the goal of “establishing a stable, non-threatening government acceptable to all Syrians and the international community.”
This mission creep was sold to the president as a continuation of the war on ISIS.
But when he learned that the Islamic caliphate was no more, he rightly decided it was time for America’s boys and girls to come home.
The Syrian Civil War is over. Obama failed to give the Democratic forces there the support that they needed at a time when it would have made a difference.
If we stay in Syria very much longer we will wind up fighting not ISIS, but the Syrian government forces, and perhaps the Russians as well.
It breaks my heart every time a Wounded Warrior Project commercial comes on TV. Bring the troops home NOW!
If the A-rabs want to fight and kill each other, let them, that takes the teeth away from all these “mo’s” living within the CONUS.
The tribal wars going on in Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan has been going on since the days of ALEXANDER. The Brits came and went, and now we have come, and it is time to go.
I suggest one slight difference though, from our predecessors:
Napalm the crap out of anything that we built there, and let THEM fix it themselves. Don’t forget the poppy fields, either.
Wounded Warriors are one thing the Wounded Warrior Project is another - cents on the dollar go to the wounded soldiers.
> Money and officer glory. The military is a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies exist for their own interests, NOT the best interests of America. <
Too often that is true. And Marine Corps general and Medal of Honor winner Smedley Butler would agree. Back in 1935 he wrote “War is a Racket”. Butler is a bit too isolationist for my tastes, but he does make several good points.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
Sigh. I wish more people, both on and off Free Republic, would follow Amir Tsarfati. He explained the reason for the withdrawal in his last videeo. Go take a look.
ISIS is active in Africa right now. It has no more died than the man in the moon.
It’s widely believed that we didn’t enter Syria to fight ISIS but rather armed proto-ISIS “rebels” as we did Libyan “rebels” (Al Qaeda).
My understanding of Benghazi is that’s the purpose of the CIA’s presence as well as Chris Stevens’ meeting with the Turkish rep just before the attack.
Why did Hillary and Obama need to interfere? Still unsure.
it’s shocking how frequently FR is virtually indistinguishable from DU these days.
It should not be missed that the American people definitively said “No!” to this war, and they went ahead with it anyway.
The overthrow of the Constitution is a past event not a future one.
> it’s shocking how frequently FR is virtually indistinguishable from DU these days.
That’s about as flat-out dishonest a statement as I’ve ever seen here, and you know it also.
What’s your angle?
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