Images abound of American servicemen celebrating Christmas. From shirtless soldiers in the South Pacific, whose first summer is a December day below the equator, to troops in the rain-soaked strip between North and South Korea, whose last Christmas—at home—is a reminder of where they long to be; from these many, whose presence our allies take for granted, we grant 2,000 souls the best Christmas of 2018: an executive order to leave Syria.
To Michael R. Bloomberg, this is no gift—which means he is wrong and President Trump is right.
Bloomberg is wrong because, despite his rhetorical raid of James Mattis’s closet, he is more petulant than the president he hates. He comes across as a child—a 39 short in Army Greens—whose outfit looks like it belongs on the shelf at FAO Schwarz, rather than in a locker at Fort Bragg.
To read this armchair general, who surveys the Middle East from his high chair, who sits behind his plastic food tray with his field rations of red wine and filet mignon, the president’s order is disastrous; a betrayal, in his estimation, of an ally and an affront to a defense secretary who did no wrong; who did the right thing by resigning, as he could not wage a war the president would not let him fight.
A question about that war: What do we have to lose by letting Syria and Russia spend their own blood and treasure to protect a war criminal, who is a Shiite Muslim, against a criminal gang of Sunni Muslim terrorists?
I can think of worse things than a war of attrition between the forces of evil.
I cannot, however, think of a good reason to keep our troops in Syria for another Christmas.
Photo credit: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images