Trump pulls back troops from northern Syria ahead of Turkish assault, Pentagon officials...

He later said he would "totally destroy and obliterate" Turkey's economy if the country did "anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits."

I feel like I must have just had a stroke. Is he fucking serious right now? I'm so completely beyond livid that this coward would do this.

SPC Angela Burnham Yeah... I saw that... I'm still trying to figure it how to to put it into some frame of reference where it doesn't sound like it seems like it sounds.

SPC Angela Burnham - "As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!)."

When did he destroy and obliterate the Turkish economy? Did I miss something? What does that mean?

SPC Angela Burnham - Threatening to destroy a country's economy is a call for war. He's a war monger and a stooge for Putin and the military industrial complex an. The man actually said he knows more about Isis than Generals

No one likes to walk away but it has been 18 years in the region. We have precious little to show for it. Afghanistan will collapse when we leave. Iraq is still a mess. Syria, while the caliphate is gone, is still a mess. We have no stomach for more war so why continue to bleed our selves out over this.

Cpl Jeff N. - Your points are solid, I cannot argue them. All except for bleeding ourselves out. From a national capacity standpoint, our losses in all 3 regions are tiny, nothing close to previous wars. But the human and emotional toll is real. You are also correct that all 3 are failed states and likely to remain so for the indefinite future. I would offer that there is a middle ground, where we leave a garrison, bring Turkey into mil-to-mil discussions and ensure our Kurdish friends are not overrrun.

Col Joseph Lenertz - I understand your points and agree that compared to previous wars the losses are small. My concerns is the time line we allow for the war portion of this. We are at 18 years into this area of the world. At 18 years after Pearl Harbor it was 1959. By 1959 we had defeated both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, had enacted the Marshall plan and it was largely completed by 1951.

The Marshall plan was about 12 billion in 1948 dollars (over 100 billion in todays dollars). We are trillions into the middle east and no real path forward.

I think we can pull out of Syria and still support the friendly Kurds. I don't think those things are mutually exclusive. Remember, Turkey in an ally through NATO. This whole areas is a mess. Technically, if the Kurds attacked Ankara, by treaty (NATO), we would be obliged to support Turkey against the Kurds, would we not?

Respect who?