“What Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal,” Jeffrey said.

" ... even as he praises the president’s support of what he describes as a successful “realpolitik” approach to the region, he acknowledges that his team routinely misled senior leaders about troop levels in Syria. 

“We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey said in an interview. The actual number of troops in northeast Syria is “a lot more than” the roughly two hundred troops Trump initially agreed to leave there in 2019.    Defense One

-------------

"We?"  Who are "We?"  

State Department people?  Well, certainly some of those were involved.

But ... IMO it would not have been possible to deceive or mislead the WH and specifically the Commander in Chief without the active cooperation of CENTCOM, the JCS and OSD.

If they had not been participating in the lying, it would have been obvious in any number of interactions with President Trump that the president's understanding of  troop numbers in Syria was not correct and that he was being deceived by "we." (whoever that was).  That revelation evidently did not happen.  The NSC staff should have detected the lack of truth in reported numbers.  That it did not tells me that at least some of the NSC staff were disloyal to Trump.  Obvious?  Yes, but that is worth re-stating. 

James Jeffrey is quite proud of his achievement in maintaining a "realpolik" stalemate in Syria, one that stymies both Russia and the Syrian government.  

IMO opinion he is revealed by his own words as a treacherous back stabber.  "Un hombre sin honor."  pl

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/

Comments

[Mike C]

JMG,

Thanks for the reply, mirrors what I was thinking, sadly.

[Eric Newhill]

JMG
Well hot damn. Good for you General.

Good to see that you do have personal opinions after all. I wasn't buying the whole, "I just humbly do as ordered" presentation.

Maybe you could wrangle up a little private funding and make like "the Man Who Would Be King" and fix the whole miserable country once for all.

[Fred]

fredw,

"He is still the president." That is the point, and he can and should fire a bunch of people regardless of pending lawsuits, recounts and future fraud.

[JM Gavin]

Eric Newhill,
Your son isn't the only person that left something behind in Afghanistan. I respect your apathy about Afghanistan. I also respect your right to completely disregard anything I think about Afghanistan. You asked a question, and I answered it.

Your son was not drafted. It is a volunteer military. Professional military personnel do what they are told (your son and daughter can enlighten you about that).

It appears you and I have nothing to discuss.

JMG