Free Republic

President Trump knows a bad deal when he sees one. He extricated the United States from President Barack Obama’s disastrous nuclear accord with Iran. He pulled us out of an arms-control agreement with Russia that Vladimir Putin repeatedly violated. But if news reports are accurate, the State Department is about to capitulate to the Taliban, al-Qaeda’s longtime ally, as U.S. forces are withdrawn from Afghanistan. The president should reject this deal.

Osama bin Laden’s son, Hamza, who was trying to lead an al-Qaida resurgence, is believed dead, according to US reports. NBC News reported the US had received intelligence that he had died, citing three American officials. The New York Times, quoting two unnamed officials, also reported Hamza bin Laden had been killed sometime over the past two years, and it had taken time to confirm the death. The report said the US had a hand in the death of the al-Qaida heir, thought to have been aged about 30. Hamza bin Laden had been seeking to stage attacks on western...

MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough tried to pin the recent tragic attack on the synagogue in California on President Donald Trump on Monday by comparing the president to ISIS and al-Qaeda. "A spate of shootings during the Trump administration, inspired white nationalists, inspired by different events, but it all seems to come back to the same theme, and that is, again, hatred for Jews, hatred for blacks, hatred for others," Scarborough said in a clip flagged by NewsBusters. "And you can go all the way back to Charlottesville." "And the Trump administration’s doing nothing about it. You look at...

The recent defeat of the ISIS caliphate by U.S.-backed forces might not have merited the cheering crowds that clogged Times Square on V-J Day -- Aug. 14, 1945 -- when America toasted victory over Japan and won World War II. But the annihilation of the vicious, barbaric Islamic State -- once the size of two New Jerseys -- deserved far more than the relative shrug with which the media greeted it. President Trump grasped this event’s significance and remarked accordingly. “I am pleased to announce that, together with our partners in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, including the Iraqi...

BAGHOUZ, Syria -- The caliphate has crumbled, and the final offensive is over. While the official announcement hasn’t yet been made – Fox News has been told that this village, the last ISIS stronghold, is liberated. It’s the first time since we’ve been here in Syria for five days that the bombs have stopped dropping and the gunfire has disappeared. We have witnessed the end of the caliphate – the brutal empire that once ruled over 8 million people – is gone. Troops here are now bringing down the black flags of ISIS. The flags no longer fly over the...

— well over 10,000 have filtered out over the past two weeks. “What we are seeing now is not the surrender of (IS) as an organization but a calculated decision to preserve the safety of their families and preservation of their capabilities,” said Gen. Joseph Votel, adding that the insurgents are going underground in remote areas, “waiting for the right time to resurge.”

Reuters is reporting that Taliban officials say they have reached a draft deal with US negotiators to withdraw all foreign forces from Afghanistan in 18 months. US special peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad would not confirm a draft deal was in place, saying only that "significant progress" had been made. While no joint statement was issued, Khalilzad tweeted later that the talks had made “significant progress” and would resume shortly, adding that he planned to travel to Afghanistan to meet government officials. “Meetings here (in Qatar) were more productive than they have been in the past. We have made significant progress...

Freshman Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) is criticizing Sen. Rand Paul, saying the Kentucky Republican gave President Trump "bad advice" when he suggested that the U.S. declare victory in Afghanistan and Syria. "There are those of us who have sacrificed for our nation, who know the importance of this terrorist threat and the need to stay vigilant," tweeted Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL, on Wednesday. "We go there so that they don’t come here. It’s that simple." Crenshaw, who wears an eyepatch due to an injury sustained in combat, was responding to a tweet from Paul in which the senator said...

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted late on Sunday that Turkey’s president Recep Erdogan told him he would work to take out remaining pockets of so-called Islamic State, appearing to give Ankara his endorsement, saying that the country “will eradicate whatever is left of IS”. This poses major concerns for the ethnic Kurds who occupy northern Syria, a group the Turkish president considers a major threat due to what he says are their connections to the internationally recognized status of the Kurdish PKK in southeast Turkey. The United States-led global coalition, who recognizes the Kurds in Syria as distinct from the...

... The more lasting damage will derive from the shoddy, humiliating way Mr. Trump treated the secretary and his generals on such a core military issue as deployments in Syria. Jim Mattis is not some neoconservative bent on staying in Syria for years. He is less hawkish on Syria and Iran than national security adviser John Bolton or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Yet in deciding to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria, Mr. Trump acted on his own impulses with little more than cursory consultation with his military advisers. Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,...

Nothing unites our political class like the threat of ending our never-ending war So we’re withdrawing troops from the Middle East. GOOD! What’s the War on Terror death count by now, a half-million? How much have we spent, $5 trillion? Five-and-a-half? Unless Donald Trump decides to reverse his decision to begin withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, cable news for the next few weeks is going to be one long Scanners marathon of exploding heads. “Today’s decision would cheer Moscow, ISIS, and Iran!” yelped Nicole Wallace, former George W. Bush communications director. “Maybe Trump will bring Republicans and Democrats together,” said...

President Donald Trump isolated himself from top allies and advisers with his unilateral decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, triggering a backlash in Washington and around the globe unlike any he has seen during past go-it-alone moves on foreign policy. At a White House meeting Thursday, Defense Secretary James Mattis handed Trump a blunt resignation letter that pointed to the president's failure to work with long-standing U.S. partners - and his empowerment of U.S. adversaries - as reasons for his departure. A fulminating phalanx of Republican hawks, led by onetime rival and now usually loyal ally Sen. Lindsey Graham...

On 'America's Newsroom' Senator Rand Paul backed President Trump in the face of harsh criticism from Republicans over his decision to withdraw the 2,000-strong U.S. force from Syria. RAND PAUL: This is a very bold move for President Trump. It is exactly what he promised the American people -- in fact it is one of the reasons he won the election. Because he is different from so many Republicans who want us to be everywhere all the time around the world. They want us to be the world policeman, that every war on the planet we have to have our...

...Gen. Jack Keane and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., are considered the frontrunners to replace Mattis...For Trump to nominate Keane, however, he would have to swallow Keane’s hawkish stance...and his recent criticism of the move to pull out of Syria, which the retired general called a “huge strategic mistake." “Clearly, we're repeating the Obama mistake of premature withdrawal, which got us ISIS,” Keane said on Fox News’ “America's Newsroom” on Thursday. “In my judgment, we need to stick to it and finish the job,” Keane added, noting that the withdrawal of American troops will give “a victory of strategic proportions” to...

President Trump’s surprise decision to rapidly withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria is meeting with intense criticism by foreign policy experts, who denounce it as strategically stupid, reckless for national security and a blow to America’s global credibility. But inside Syria, the consequences are even more serious. For one example, 50,000 Syrian civilian refugees living under the direct protection of the U.S. military are suddenly fearing for their lives. For three years, civilians living in the Rukban refugee camp in the southeastern Syrian desert have survived because of the protection of U.S. forces encamped 10 miles away on a base...

About half of the 14,000 U.S. forces will return home in the coming weeks, the start of a total pullout that could take at least many months 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...

The Trump administration is withdrawing roughly 7,000 troops from Afghanistan in the coming months, two defense officials said Thursday, around half of what the American military has there now. Mr. Trump made the decision at the same time he decided he was pulling American forces out of Syria, one official said. The move is likely one of the first steps to end the United States’ involvement in the 17-year-old war. The 14,000 American troops currently in Afghanistan are divided between training and advising Afghan forces and a counterterror mission against groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. The reduction,...

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.

White House and Pentagon officials sent out mixed signals Wednesday on the future of U.S. military forces in Syria. President Donald Trump sent out a tweet at 6:29 a.m. Eastern Time saying, "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency." The Wall Street Journal then published a story that quoted a U.S. official as saying the Pentagon has an order to "move troops out of Syria as quickly as possible." The Pentagon, however, sent out a statement at 9:29 a.m. that indicated a withdrawal of the approximately 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria...

The US is planning a total withdrawal of its military forces from Syria... “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” the president tweeted Wednesday morning.