Early this morning, it was announced that many American troops stationed in Syria will be withdrawing, as Trump has declared victory over ISIS. This decision has met with some resistance, many calling it a "mistake" to withdraw the troops, referencing Obama's decision in 2011 to withdraw troops from Iraq, only to put them back in years later to combat ISIS. What do you all think of this?

Sources:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-troops-leave-syria-president-trump-declares-victory-over-n949806
https://www.whec.com/news/president-trump-declares-victory-isis-tweet/5184619/
https://kdvr.com/2018/12/19/u-s-to-withdraw-troops-in-syria-trump-declares-victory-over-isis/

(Just a few sources, didn't wanna link the entire internet haha)

I never though we should have troops to fight ISIS. We know so little about them and where they are, that troops are dangerous. Drones is the best way to defeat groups such as ISIS, so I’m glad that we withdrew troops.

ISIS is a huge problem, but for us to risk so many lives doing a job we don’t have too much information about, I don’t think it’s worth having the troops there. Also, we need to stop being involved in Syria, the place is an absolute mess, and we can’t be taking side, especially with the Russians taking the opposing side.

I know what I think of the statement. It is foolish, very much so. It is a statement that stirs up the public without being backed by any sort of reasonable evidence. Trump historically has a lot of...difficulty with his trigger finger. I think we can assume that his intent could be well-meaning here. I think he is, mostly, mentally competent. But he's a lot like me. He tends to rush into things or overthink things and posts what he thinks before realizing the implications.

ISIS is, most definitely, not defeated. Al Quida (...I hope I spelled that right) didn't die off immediately with the defeat of Bin Laden (in fact, i believe there are still some splinter groups still around). I don't keep up with all the news, but I imagine that the pattern of history goes like this: Moralistic society defeats evil group. Evil group disbands. Splinter groups campaign for followers. Splinter groups are picked up by larger evil group. Large evil group rises again.

Even if ISIS in name is destroyed, someone will be there to bring it back again. This isn't a cynical view to have as ultimately, in a moral and true sense, they will fail. But not before doing a lot of harm.

I'm not overly sad that the US is getting out of another Middle Eastern country. They don't belong there. Europe and North America have no place being in most of these countries. Many of them were fairly stable before someone in the G8 decided to interfere somehow.

Honestly, I'd rather let these groups have their run of things and not spend money fighting in and for countries that quite often don't want use there in the first place and take care of our own problems. Sending troops to these countries hasn't solved a lot of problems and likely won't solve many others. Honestly, since WW2 I can't think of many wars where sending troops actually improved the overall situation of the countries involved. I'd rather see sanctions or developmental aid used over troops where possible and encouragement of democratic governments over despotic ones.

LOL Trump.... ISIS is NOT DEFEATED, they are still doing terror attacks as we speak. Here is the latest one I can find in the news "Islamic State claims attack on Libya’s Foreign Ministry - 10 hours ago".

Plus, you cannot defeat an ideology. Millions of american's still carry on the tradition of nazi's almost 70 years after Hitler and the Nazi party were defeated. There will always be extremists who will carry out an attack in the name of ______ even if they have no direct affiliation with said group. ISIS has a worldwide following so to say they have been defeated is greatly misleading.

Well back to the drawing board for trump, he's a liar anyway so it doesn't surprise me that this news is misleading.

supernerd117 : Funnily enough, I believe ISIS was actually a schism of Al Qaeda. Much like other fringe groups, there's tons of infighting among militant radical Islam.


geeogree : I largely agree with you that we can't effectively be the world's police, nor should we be. But I think it runs deeper than that. When you think about it, there are no completely grass-roots revolutions or civil wars. During the American Revolution, we got help from the French. During the American Civil War, the Confederacy was going to get support from the French, but they said no. There are theories that the French Revolution was helped organized and funded by some underground elements. It all comes down to proxy wars between larger world powers. I would almost wager that the main reason that we're backing the Syrian Rebels is because Russia backs Assad. In one way, we're screwing things up by meddling. But on the other hand, getting involved hinders other people from meddling as much as they'd like. Consider how different things would've been had we not supported South Korea. Not saying I like it, it sucks. But I feel like stalemate is better than global conquest.


JigSaw : I feel like "millions" might be a bit of an exaggeration. I can't really refute it as I don't have much to back it up, but I would at least hope that's an overestimation...


hellno163 : It's less a lie and more of a half-truth that everyone wants to believe. One could conclude that they're technically "defeated" in the sense that they don't really overtly occupy and large expanse of land or major cities, and so they don't have any base of operations. I don't think they're organized enough to call themselves a unified force at this point, but supernerd's right; they'll be back under another name.

m0ssb3rg935 : The numbers may seem high but then again there are lots of "closet people" out there. These people may not display or show their opinions by joining cults or ranting in public about their beliefs but they do exist.

There are 325.72 million people in USA as of 2017. A few million might seem like a lot but it isn't when compared to the entire population of America. That is only like 1% of America, which is peanuts.

JigSaw : That's a little scary, when you think about it. At only a tiny fraction of the population, that's more than enough to be a potential problem. hmm..

I guess we'll have to see if this ends up being a good decision as time goes on. I don't think terror groups will ever stop showing up, even if we have actually done enough damage against ISIS to make them much less of a threat. People who are so devoted to a cause that they're willing to die for it seem to be getting more and more common as time goes on. It's definitely a mistake to say that they've been defeated, but withdrawing troops seems like it might be a good idea if the fighting force of ISIS really has been reduced enough that local troops can keep it under control.

As a veteran, I have no problem with pulling the troops out. We have to stop being the world police, and doing damn near everything for our allies.
What I do have a problem with is declaring victory over ISIS. They are terrorists, and they are not going to stop. Until a treaty is signed, or they are wiped out, it is not a victory, but more so just giving up and saying "We're tired of whooping your butt. Just stop making us have to do work."

According to ISIS (so don't believe what I'm going to say lol) they only attack countries who are messing with them over in Syria. If so it might be a good thing for the USA to withdraw their troops from there, ISIS is not as powerful anymore as in their hay days.

Trumps a idiot, ISIS is nowhere defeated, but congrates dummy withdrawing troops from a very unstable region of the world good call granted we shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place but since we are involved removing the troops will only further destabilize the region and allow/create a power vacuum which will likely cause a more extreme ISIS to rise  

Divine Aurora : ISIS is hardly a threat anymore. Sure they still exist, but they have nowhere near the power they had a few years ago. I also agree with Bara in that we shouldn't have had troops fighting ISIS in the first place. I'm not really an interventionist, I personally think the United States should stay out of foreign affairs until they begin to affect us. So I have no problem with this move by Trump at all.