AFGHANISTAN/CONGRESS/MILITARY/SYRIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump defended his decision to remove troops from Syria and Afghanistan in a series of tweets Friday [2-1-19] morning, a day after the Senate issued a rebuke of the president cautioning against the ‘precipitous withdrawal’ of military forces. Trump said he inherited ‘a total mess in Syria and Afghanistan,’ wars he pledged to pull out of during his campaign…The tweets come less than 24 hours after Senate Republicans and Democrats voted in favor of an amendment drafted by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) expressing strong opposition to the president’s withdrawal of troops. Trump unexpectedly announced in December that he would pull thousands of U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, a move that prompted bipartisan backlash from lawmakers and his own national security team. This week, U.S. intelligence chiefs publicly broke with Trump, who has claimed that the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has been defeated on the ground. Critics of the president’s position, while acknowledging the terrorist group’s near-total loss of land, warn that the group still lives as an insurgent force, and that withdrawing American troops will give them a vacuum to regain territory.”
–Katie Galioto, “Trump defends decision to withdraw troops from ‘mess’ in Syria, Afghanistan,” Politico, February 1, 2019 9:38 am