Remember how, just before Christmas, Donald Trump announced that he’d decided to pull our troops out of Syria without having run it by either our allies or our own military leaders? And remember how, at the time, he said that, thanks to his tremendous leadership, ISIS had been defeated in Syria, and how Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, having heard all of this bullshit, handed in his resignation? Well, at least four Americans were killed on the outskirts of Manbij, Syria today, in an attack that ISIS has claimed credit for. [A total of 19 people, including several members of the Syrian Democratic Forces, are thought to have perished in the bombing.]
Clearly Trump was wrong about ISIS having been defeated. One just wonders to what extent his decision to pull out of Syria, which, by the way, was applauded in Moscow, may have contributed to today’s attack. It was, after all, reported last week that we had already “begun the process of our deliberate withdrawal from Syria.” You can be sure, had this happened under a Democratic President, we would have multiple, Benghazi-like investigations. Will the same thing happen now? Will we ever know if Trump’s mismanagement of the Syria situation helped make today’s attack possible?
Adding insult to injury, hours after the bombing was made public, Vice President Mike Pence, for some unknown reason, decided to echo Donald Trump’s claims that we have defeated ISIS in Syria, saying “The caliphate has crumbled, and ISIS has been defeated.” I’m sure that must be a comfort to the families of these four dead Americans.
"ISIS has been defeated," Vice Pres. Mike Pence said today, hours after U.S. service members were killed in a bomb blast in Syria. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the blast. https://t.co/rFL8905vUW pic.twitter.com/C0OPy18MfJ
— ABC News (@ABC) January 16, 2019