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Trump Orders Big Troop Reduction in Afghanistan

Nap

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WASHINGTON—A day after a contested decision to pull American military forces from Syria, officials said Thursday that President Trump has ordered the start of a reduction of American forces in Afghanistan.

More than 7,000 American troops will begin to return home from Afghanistan in the coming weeks, a U.S. official said. The move will come as the first stage of a phased drawdown and the start of a conclusion to the 17-year war that officials say could take at least many months. There now are more than 14,000 U.S. troops...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-...substantial-afghan-troop-drawdown-11545341452

Wow, the hits keep coming. If he can get the rest of our boys and girls home and stop bombing people before 2020 then I couldn't care less what else he does he will have my vote. Is it possible that we are witnessing an end to these pointless endeavors in the middle east?
 
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-...substantial-afghan-troop-drawdown-11545341452

Wow, the hits keep coming. If he can get the rest of our boys and girls home and stop bombing people before 2020 then I couldn't care less what else he does he will have my vote. Is it possible that we are witnessing an end to these pointless endeavors in the middle east?

Trump is like "God damnit, I have been listening to and deferring to these nitwits for long enough, they never want to move....we are going to start doing things my way!"
 
Maybe my boy comes home early....maybe we dont send these last 2 boxes.....

I agree with Trump here, we lost here just as we did in Syria....it is time to face reality.
 
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I’m all for bringing them back, but this is going to meet resistance as well. Unlike ISIS, the Taliban has grown in strength the past few years. The Afghan government controlled over 70% of the provinces in 2015 and now only controls about 55% of the provinces.

Trump sure is dealing with a lot of contentious issues all at once.
 
I’m all for bringing them back, but this is going to meet resistance as well. Unlike ISIS, the Taliban has grown in strength the past few years. The Afghan government controlled over 70% of the provinces in 2015 and now only controls about 55% of the provinces.

Trump sure is dealing with a lot of contentious issues all at once.

This is China and Russia's problem now.

America and the West have no credibility here now.
 
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-...substantial-afghan-troop-drawdown-11545341452

Wow, the hits keep coming. If he can get the rest of our boys and girls home and stop bombing people before 2020 then I couldn't care less what else he does he will have my vote. Is it possible that we are witnessing an end to these pointless endeavors in the middle east?

Yeah I agree with Trump. We need to pull out all US troops from the ME. The whole region is a quagmire that no American life is worth sacrificing for.
 
I can't say I disagree with the US finally pulling out of Afghanistan; that was going nowhere. From the perspective of protecting our troops this makes perfect sense; as it does from scaling back in the region. The broader geo-political question then becomes who fills in the power vacuum that's left. I think in the Afghanistan it will likely be a return of the Taliban and in Syria, Assad will end up stabilizing the country after the rebels are wiped out with Russian and Iranian help. I'm just curious what Netanyahu's really feeling about all of this because a part of US presence in the ME helps Israel as well.
 
I can't say I disagree with the US finally pulling out of Afghanistan; that was going nowhere. From the perspective of protecting our troops this makes perfect sense; as it does from scaling back in the region. The broader geo-political question then becomes who fills in the power vacuum that's left. I think in the Afghanistan it will likely be a return of the Taliban and in Syria, Assad will end up stabilizing the country after the rebels are wiped out with Russian and Iranian help. I'm just curious what Netanyahu's really feeling about all of this because a part of US presence in the ME helps Israel as well.

We would be asking that same question whether we left now, 5 years from now, or 40 years from now. At some point we have to come to the realization that fixing the problems in those regions have to come from within as outside intervention will always be contentious.
 
Afghanistan is in Asia ( central/southern), but your point is taken....one can only hope we finally get out.

True, thank you for the correction. I'm just ecstatic seeing someone actually making progress in pulling back militarily, I so hope we continue to see more progress in scaling back our involvement in global interventions.
 
We would be asking that same question whether we left now, 5 years from now, or 40 years from now. At some point we have to come to the realization that fixing the problems in those regions have to come from within as outside intervention will always be contentious.

Indeed, but the US has for a long time asserted itself on the world stage to keep other powers from exerting too much influence in areas of interest. There are economic and strategic concerns tied to scaling back from that role.
 
Indeed, but the US has for a long time asserted itself on the world stage to keep other powers from exerting too much influence in areas of interest. There are economic and strategic concerns tied to scaling back from that role.

I understand that but at some point we have to prioritize our expenditures. We can't afford our own social welfare programs at home much less afford to be the world's police force on top of that. Some people seem to want everything at someone else's expense, it just simply isn't realistic.
 
Donald Trump has ordered the US' withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan and has proposed material cutbacks in our presence in the ROC and Germany...And yet he also authorized a massive increase in the DoD's budget, and wants even more next year. Mind you, Trump also portrays stunts such as these as catalysts to crafting a US military that "does more with less." Less what? Less coherent comprehensive cogent cogitation?

Read the content linked-to below and you'll see that what Trump is actually proposing is to do less and spend a lot more doing it.

Think about that.
... blithely treading over the Budget Control Act to the tune of ~$85 billion.​

However...


Why have I presented the above line? Because I haven't forgotten that Ronald Reagan essentially "forced" the USSR into economic ruin by "daring" it to keep up with the US' capitalism-enabled spending when the USSR's command economy simply couldn't allocate resources adequately enough to sustain its doing so. (The USIC didn't contemporarily see and glean the nature and extent, thus germanity, of the economics of the matter, but hindsight is 2020 and the professionals in the military and intel communities, if nothing else, learn from their mistakes.)
What we're witnessing now is Trump over-allocating increasing shares of the US' economy, both current earnings (tax dollars and GDP) and future ones (future GDP, tax dollars plus the interest on the debt we incur to fund budget increases), thus threatening to do to the US economy what Reagan did to the Soviet Union's.
 
Donald Trump has ordered the US' withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan and has proposed material cutbacks in our presence in the ROC and Germany...And yet he also authorized a massive increase in the DoD's budget, and wants even more next year. Mind you, Trump also portrays stunts such as these as catalysts to crafting a US military that "does more with less." Less what? Less coherent comprehensive cogent cogitation?

Read the content linked-to below and you'll see that what Trump is actually proposing is to do less and spend a lot more doing it.

Think about that.
... blithely treading over the Budget Control Act to the tune of ~$85 billion.​

However...


Why have I presented the above line? Because I haven't forgotten that Ronald Reagan essentially "forced" the USSR into economic ruin by "daring" it to keep up with the US' capitalism-enabled spending when the USSR's command economy simply couldn't allocate resources adequately enough to sustain its doing so. (The USIC didn't contemporarily see and glean the nature and extent, thus germanity, of the economics of the matter, but hindsight is 2020 and the professionals in the military and intel communities, if nothing else, learn from their mistakes.)
What we're witnessing now is Trump over-allocating increasing shares of the US' economy, both current earnings (tax dollars and GDP) and future ones (future GDP, tax dollars plus the interest on the debt we incur to fund budget increases), thus threatening to do to the US economy what Reagan did to the Soviet Union's.

Out of curiosity, do you support Trump's decision to scale back military involvement overseas? Don't get me wrong I am fully in agreement with you that it should be a combination of scaling back military actions alongside decreases in spending as it doesn't make much sense to spend more while doing less (unless that increased spending is to be diverted to helping veterans). However, I do think it is a necessity to make sure we have the latest and best equipment possible so that should we need to use military force it is in optimal condition and superior to any nation we would be fighting so purchases like F-35 and new battleships doesn't bother me.
 
I can't say I disagree with the US finally pulling out of Afghanistan; that was going nowhere. From the perspective of protecting our troops this makes perfect sense; as it does from scaling back in the region. The broader geo-political question then becomes who fills in the power vacuum that's left. I think in the Afghanistan it will likely be a return of the Taliban and in Syria, Assad will end up stabilizing the country after the rebels are wiped out with Russian and Iranian help. I'm just curious what Netanyahu's really feeling about all of this because a part of US presence in the ME helps Israel as well.

FYI, the Taliban was founded by the Paksitani intelligence forces, via the Saudis, who were in turn given lots of money by the US. So this whole war on terror is really a product of US interventionism.
 
Out of curiosity, do you support Trump's decision to scale back military involvement overseas?

Don't get me wrong I am fully in agreement with you that it should be a combination of scaling back military actions alongside decreases in spending as it doesn't make much sense to spend more while doing less (unless that increased spending is to be diverted to helping veterans). However, I do think it is a necessity to make sure we have the latest and best equipment possible so that should we need to use military force it is in optimal condition and superior to any nation we would be fighting so purchases like F-35 and new battleships doesn't bother me.

Red:
  • How can you you agree with me when, given the question you've asked me (black bold text in your above quoted post), you are unsure of what be my stance re: "[scaling] back military involvement overseas?"
  • The point of my essay is that Trump's articulated themes and tactics are incoherent, thus unprincipled. I didn't proffer anything that even intimates as to what be my normative stance regarding the Trump paring back US military involvement overseas.
  • Though I acknowledge that your question is a natural enough one to ask, I'm not going to answer it because the answer to it is irrelevant to the point of my remarks and because I could have chosen to express my dis-/approbation of Trump's decision and I deliberately opted not to.
    • You will note that I concluded my introductory paragraph writing: "Trump also portrays stunts such as these as catalysts to crafting a US military that "does more with less." Less what? Less coherent comprehensive cogent cogitation?"

      You are, of course, welcome to infer what may be my stance regarding "Trump's decision to scale back military involvement overseas," but be careful not to infer more than can be soundly/cogently inferred from that and my other remarks.
 
A shoutout to one courageous dude.

We should never have been in Afghanistan in the first place. (Even the Russians had to flee the place.)

Many conservatives and liberals agree on one thing: The United States should be the world's police officer.

President Trump (who is being crucified by the media, academia, the Democratic Party, and the deep state) nevertheless has the guts to do what is right, although all the "experts" are telling him that he is wrong. Some are having a mental meltdown.

If his enemies succeed in ousting him, then American troops will be again sent back to pacify and democratize Syria and Afghanistan, which is (sadly) an impossible task.
 
A shoutout to one courageous dude.

We should never have been in Afghanistan in the first place. (Even the Russians had to flee the place.)

Many conservatives and liberals agree on one thing: The United States should be the world's police officer.

President Trump (who is being crucified by the media, academia, the Democratic Party, and the deep state) nevertheless has the guts to do what is right, although all the "experts" are telling him that he is wrong. Some are having a mental meltdown.

If his enemies succeed in ousting him, then American troops will be again sent back to pacify and democratize Syria and Afghanistan, which is (sadly) an impossible task.
We shouldn’t have been in Afghanistan, where the 911 attack was hatched and bin Laden was hiding?

There is a cost when military decisions are made based upon ignorance and sheer impulsiveness. We will find that Russia gains influence, terrorist groups grow, Iran gets more control. Overall, this rash decision, without input from the Secretary of Defense or the CIA or DIA, will end up biting us in the ass.
 
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We shouldn’t have been in Afghanistan, where the 911 attack was hatched and bin Laden was hiding?

There is a cost when military decisions are made based upon ignorance and sheer impulsiveness. We will find that Russia gains influence, terrorist groups grow, Iran gets more control. Overall, this rash decision, without input from the Secretary of Defense or the CIA or DIA, will end up biting us in the ass.

What US attack was "hatched" from Iraq or Syria? The US response to Pakistan hiding Bin Laden was to go in, kill him and GTFO in one day.
 
i support ending the war in Afghanistan. however, if he's bringing home seven thousand troops, he needs to bring home all of them. Afghanistan is very dangerous, and those left behind to do the work will be in serious danger with very little support from the US government. the "oh, we're still there?" public can't be bothered to give a ****, either. bring them all home.
 
I would love to see how many people supporting Trump now also supported the foreign policy proposals of Ron Paul in 2008. He was pretty much laughed at by most of the GOP for his "isolationist" policies, and here we have Trump who is a much bigger isolationist than Paul was.

(Fyi, I was among the small minority in the GOP who supported much of Paul's foreign policy proposals. I support having less presence in these countries, and even around the world. I simply don't agree with Trump's methodology)
 
I understand that but at some point we have to prioritize our expenditures. We can't afford our own social welfare programs at home much less afford to be the world's police force on top of that. Some people seem to want everything at someone else's expense, it just simply isn't realistic.

That's fair enough, and I don't disagree with your assessment. There's the economic factor involved with foreign entanglements but also the blowback that results from it that makes it less appealing for me.
 
i support ending the war in Afghanistan. however, if he's bringing home seven thousand troops, he needs to bring home all of them. Afghanistan is very dangerous, and those left behind to do the work will be in serious danger with very little support from the US government. the "oh, we're still there?" public can't be bothered to give a ****, either. bring them all home.


Who says Trump doesn't plan on bringing all of them home? The official announcement is that approx. half of them will be returning in the coming weeks.
Maybe the other half will be used to tie up some lose ends before logistics allow them to return home.
 
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