President Trump on Monday defended his administration’s decision to pull American troops out of northern Syria, declaring that the US will fight “WHERE IT IS TO OUR BENEFIT.”
In a series of five tweets, the president said the US was supposed to be in Syria for just 30 days, but “we stayed and got deeper and deeper into battle with no aim in sight.”
“But it is time for us to get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home. WE WILL FIGHT WHERE IT IS TO OUR BENEFIT, AND ONLY FIGHT TO WIN,” he wrote in another posting.
Trump continued to say that Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds “will now have to figure the situation out, and what they want to do with the captured ISIS fighters in their ’neighborhood.'”
He also warned Islamic State fighters.
“We are 7000 miles away and will crush ISIS again if they come anywhere near us!,” Trump said.
The commander-in-chief said once he took office, the US “defeated 100% of the ISIS Caliphate” and captured thousands of Islamic State militants, who he said were mostly from Europe.
But the president said Europe refused to take the fighters back to stand trial, leaving the US having to hold them “at tremendous cost.”
The president claimed the European nations thought that the “US is always the ‘sucker,’ on NATO, on Trade, on everything.”
In a statement, the White House said Trump spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
”Turkey will soon be moving forward with its long-planned operation into Northern Syria,” it said. “The United States Armed Forces will not support or be involved in the operation, and United States forces, having defeated the ISIS territorial ’Caliphate,’ will no longer be in the immediate area.”
Kurdish forces who fought alongside US troops against the Islamic State called the move a “stab in the back” by Washington.
Erdogan announced the military operation over the weekend that aims to drive the “terrorists” out of the region.
Turkey considers the Kurdish militia a terrorist group aligned with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party that has been fighting Ankara for decades.
With Post wires