“honestly feel sorry for them. BUT, as some point these people have got to stand on their own, because we cant continue to pay for their protection with US taxpayer dollars forever.
Enough is enough, bring all the troops home.”
It begins with Israel. Our costly support of that nation ties us down in the region. If we were to cut ties completely with that nation, we’d have no reason to station troops and spend money in the Middle East at all
I disagree it’s ‘if only for Israel’.
Most of the nations in the area are “cooperation” allies directly with us (example Pakistan and Iraq), or vis-à-vis other Nato members’ cooperation agreements.
Turkey is a NATO ally, part of the G-20, and hosts some of our big go boom toys for us. Not to mention a strategic flightline. Turkey had already put plans in motion to go after the PKK “kurds” who have waged an insurgency against Turkey for 50 years or more, well before Trump made his announcement.
Trump is bringing the last 100 or so troops out of a danger zone and at the same time is putting full responsibility for security in the region squarely into the hands of Turkey. Just as he is putting responsibility for the Isis captives back into the hands of the countries from whence they came instead of a USA problem.
There is no ISIS left now; only the centuries-old tribal wars remain. That is, we’ve successfully returned the situation over there to old status quo. And they can have it. As for our part, we helped the kurds, PKK and non-PKK, stay alive for over a decade, including airdropping food and medicine to them when they were stuck on a mountaintop with nowhere to go. Now they have somewhere to go. IF they want to turn around and fight Turkey, that’s their business.
IF we have to come in and break things again, we can and will, but 100 dog-tired and war weary troops aren’t going to change hearts and minds that don’t understand or want change, and our guys are certainly not going to join an insurgency against Turkey. And none of this has jack to do with Israel.
How can you do that?
They OWN you.
No, it’s not only Israel. If Israel were not a factor, the military industrial complex would still have plenty of other supposed reasons to keep us involved. Securing the oil (while artificially keeping us dependent on foreign oil for years) has been a favorite. There are any number of local conflicts that can be and have been used in the past to involve us in wars that don’t serve our interests - wars that had nothing to do with Israel. Just look at the Balkans, and Somalia to name just two. The Gulf War, at least the public justification for it, was primarily about protecting Saudi Arabia and the flow of oil.
If we let Israel take care of herself, we wouldn’t have to station troops there.
But that doesn’t further the interests of anyone.