I strongly oppose the President’s announcement about pulling all the troops out of Syria and the significantly reducing the amount of force in Afghanistan. In my opinion, our presence helps defend the country, acts as deterrence and help counter Iranian influence. We also play a significant role in teaching and mentoring the Syrian and Afghan forces. Without help from our Soldiers, they would not be successful in defending themselves.

The president was warned by his civilian advisers and generals not to pull troops out. “Even after the president’s announcement, officials said, the Pentagon and State Department continued to try to talk him out of it.” (Lander 2018) He claims that we won and defeated ISIS, however, many people within Congress disagree with that statement along with some of our allies. There are still areas within Syria that are ISIS controlled, and once our presence is gone, I think there is a very likely chance their control will expand rapidly. The President stated that American troops will be on stand by and be ready at any time to redeploy if our help is needed but if we withdraw one hundred percent of our troops now and leave them in a vulnerable position, I believe it can have crippling damages on the trust they have with us. “The coalition has liberated ISIS-held territory, but the campaign against ISIS is not over.” (TrueNews 2018) The same goes for our presence in Afghanistan. We must be there to continue to support and train their military. Ive personally been on missions before with the Afghan Special Forces, and it is a scary sight. After all the years we’ve been there they haven’t been able to grasp the basics. We need to revamp what and how we are teaching them because if we were to pull out any time soon, they would quickly get taken over.

I don’t agree with staying in a territory for an overextended period spending billions of dollars and resources; however, I think that our retreat should be more strategic and thought out. We need to make sure that they can sustain themselves without our help and that the ISIS threat is at a low enough level that they can defend themselves. The President should not be making rash decisions without considering the advice from his advisors.

References:

Landler, M. (2018). New York Times: Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, declaring “We have won against ISIS”. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/politics/trump-syria-turkey-troop-withdrawal.html

TrueNews Team (2018). Tru News: Declaring victory over ISIS. Retrieved from https://www.trunews.com/stream/declaring-victory-over-isis-trump-orders-rapid-withdrawal-from-syria

United States (2012). Army Leadership: Army Doctrine Publication 6-22, Washington DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army.