Opinion: Pulling troops from Syria saves our soldiers, maintains relationship with our allies

Editor’s Note: This article does not necessarily reflect the author’s personal opinion. This is the second of two opinion articles about the United States’ foreign policy regarding Syria.

According to President Trump, “signing letters to parents of soldiers that have been killed” is his most difficult duty as president.  With that heartbreaking statement on Oct. 9, President Trump explained why he was pulling troops out of Syria. 

The President has been receiving a lot of support and criticism this past month from Republicans, Democrats, and Ministers, for making the decision on sending some of our U.S. Soldiers who were protecting the Syrian Kurds,
back home. 

Both logic and emotion validate  this important conclusion. This is not something Trump had just decided on overnight. If we look back to his campaign promises of the 2016 election, he said from the beginning he would remove our troops and finally bring our men and women home to
their families. 

American soldiers policing the border in Syria are protecting the Kurds from Turkey, but these soldiers are losing their lives. President Trump has to send letters to families explaining to them that their children have passed. He has seen these parents’ unimaginable reactions to watching the coffins, that hold their child’s body inside, with the American Flag draped over the top, be lifted out of a plane. 

The President recognizes both sides, and all that is at stake, but it is important to consider how much we have already sacrificed to see that we can no longer provide the assistance that the Kurds look for.

According to CBS News, Turkey and Syria have been in conflict for centuries. The Turks have invaded Syria and have been fighting with the Kurds. The United States became involved in securing the oil and protecting religious minorities and refugees at the safety zone, after the Kurds had supported us in helping defeat ISIS. 

There is a radical group of Kurds known as the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) who had attacked Turkey. Since then Turkey has considered all troops from Syria their enemy. The Kurds then turned to the United States seeking help, and our assistance that was supposed to last 30 days turned into 10 years. 

The President does not want to pick sides, since America is part of NATO alongside Turkey and the Kurds have helped our country fight ISIS. This puts America in a difficult situation.

 President Trump levied sanctions on Turkey until they agreed to stop fighting with Syria. Once this occurred, President Trump said that these sanctions would then be lifted. If Turkey had listened, this would have been an open door to finally sending our troops home. 

That did not happen, and America was stuck providing troops to aid the Kurds without being in an actual war.

“Congress never authorized U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war in the first place,” Judge Nap stated in an interview on Fox News regarding Trump’s decision to remove troops. “The war powers are clearly articulated in the plain language of the Constitution itself. Congress declares war. The president wages war.” 

If Congress is the one to determine if we go to war and there was never any assertion for our country to get involved, then Trump is just abiding by the Constitution. If Congress wants to declare war then they must use that power, but unless that moment comes, he can choose to pull the troops from Syria. 

As a great nation, we believe in helping others and our allies, but in this case, we have done our job to assist in a never-ending war that we cannot resolve. We have spent trillions of dollars on this war and many lives have been lost that cannot be replaced. There is only so much that we can do to help, but this is a fight that the Turks and the Kurds must end. 

How many more innocent lives must be taken before we realize we cannot be the police for every foreign war that occurs? It is time that we send our troops back home.