Posted on 01/12/2019 10:25:59 AM PST by Navy Patriot
The American military has started withdrawing some equipment, but not yet troops, from Syria as part of President Trump’s order to wind down that battleground against the Islamic State, two Defense Department officials said on Friday amid continuing confusion over plans to disengage from one of the Middle East’s most complex conflicts.
The officials said the number of American troops might actually increase slightly in Syria, to help protect the final process of pulling out — an operation that is still expected to take at least four to six months to complete.
There are currently about 2,000 troops — mostly Army soldiers and Marines — in northeast Syria or in the Middle Euphrates River Valley to oust the remaining pockets of Islamic State fighters and secure newly-liberated areas from their return. A vaguely worded statement from the American military headquarters in Baghdad, which is overseeing the fight against the Islamic State, said the withdrawal process from Syria had begun.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Frank, you're assuming Media good intentions.
I assure you they don't have any, this was carefully thought through, and then the article was carefully written to trash President Trump as creating "chaos" where none exists.
Forget the battle. Let Russia and Iran get mired in Syria.
No, we should leave the New York Slimes reporters there.
yes we should get all the military personnel out first and go back for the equipment. It’ll be safe there for a while. /s
Nope, not at all. I searched several times with different terms like Obama chaotic withdrawal of troops from Iraq; Obama withdrawal of troops from Iraq, etc., and came up with nothing. Only found NY Times stuff like this:
Took them four writers to come up with “chaotic.”
And it is extremely unwise to make any details of withdrawal activities public. Just announce when it is done.
The Russians got out of Afghanistan in 24 hours with minimal casualties.
I guess I’m just old, but I remember a time when
any self respecting reporter would never share a byline,
and they would infiltrate a war zone to get it.
Any withdrawal is confusion exemplified, it is the mark
of a competent staff if it can be completed with a minimum
of disruption. It sounds like this is going as well as
can be expected.
> LOL- if ayatollah obama had withdrawn troops they would be held over heels <
And it wouldn’t be a “chaotic withdrawal”. It would be “an orderly and masterful redeployment of forces”.
If it takes us 6 mos to move 2000 troops then our army is in trouble.
More neocon BS in effect I see. Somewhere between 2000 and 4000 troops there. And pulling them out as Trump ordered will now require an increase in troops and 4 to 6 months to complete?
That is pure BS Generals dragging their feet.
“said on Friday amid continuing confusion over plans to disengage”
“Confusion” = Generals disagree with their orders.
Lol...what battle?
Well, stupid...if they move the troops out first, then WHO - pray tell - is going to move the damned equipment? Hummmmmm?
Well stupid, exactly how much equipment does a 2000 man unit have? And last I checked, they can drive down a highway into Iraq and Jordan.
This is nothing more than Generals and the CIA dragging their feet. They are angry that they are getting their pointless war taken away.
They aren’t “in battle”.
I think they always say stuff like that. I remember when we were asked to withdraw from The Philippines, a timetable of two years was accepted as being the soonest it could be accomplished. Mount Pinatubo erupted, and all the troops.were gone in a few weeks !
IIRC Obama left dozens (hundreds?) of strengthened Toyota trucks in one of the Middle East countries that we left swiftly. Maybe we left everything there for ISIS (the JV team) to have.
That is probably disinformation to cover the real withdrawal actions.
Withdrawals can be very dangerous. When the British withdrew from Afghanistan, their entire force of 26,000 men was slaughtered on the way out. Only three (!!!) survivors made it back.
The Russians had a much better plan for getting out of there.
We are going to get out of Syria (and Afghanistan). Accurate details and timetables of our Military operations should not be provide to the media.
Chaos is only complexity that small minds can’t grasp.
This is such bullS**t. The military has plans to move anything they put somewhere back out at the end of mission. There are planners whose sole job is to work these contingency plans.
In simple terms, the military is told to begin retrograde operations, the units do an assessment of their equipment (a culling of the herd of sorts) to determine what is worth the cost to take back. It’s then moved to a port, cleaned and shipped. Chaotic? Hardly...
Oh,and bringing in an additional force in the short term is pretty standard to provide security. These usually are drawn from units already in theater...
The NYT should know all this...it’s not new.
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