Vilepagan wrote: Because it was.
Again, Bick; I have no problem with the troops coming home, what I have a problem with is trump's decision making. If this was planned why didn't he sit down with his advisers and say "this is what I'm going to do, so get behind it"...he didn't do that , he just announced it to them when he announced it to us.
You can't seriously be defending this as good leadership.
We're in agreement that we're not debating whether or not our troops should get out of Syria. That would actually be a good discussion though. Might seem as though I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, but my ambivalence is a result of not having a real grasp on the reasons for staying there. Clearly Gen Mattis feels pretty strongly about it.
We must have very different definitions of what constitutes a snap decision. If you told me you were going to do something 2 years ago, reiterated it 9 months ago, and then again 8 months ago, I don't see how I could argue that you made a sudden or surprise decision. Given the timing of the resignation letter, Trump may very well have told him this is what we're doing, so get behind it. Mattis pretty much told him to go pound sand.
As I mentioned earlier, this may have been more a function of a bad hire to begin with. Regardless, Mattis resigning is Trump's fault IMO, and an indictment of his inexperience in public governance. That inexperience was the primary reason I didn't think he was qualified to become POTUS in the first place, and didn't vote for him.
Now...as for Trump's leadership style, there's an awful lot I don't agree with. I've seen it before from other east coast / NY business guys. It's a brash, in your face, tough beans if you don't like it approach that doesn't play well AT ALL on the west coast. I've learned to be able to work with it, and in some cases actually appreciate it more than some of the west coast guys who've become good at telling you what you want to hear.