With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls, the Democrats have declared that the decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a mortal sin.

Joe Biden called it “the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history … in terms of foreign policy.” Elizabeth Warren said Trump “has cut and run on our allies,” and “created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis.” Kamala Harris announced, “Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out.”

However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal moral imperative.

Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country has done.

Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any double-standards on this issue.

When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that “we have got to put an end to endless war.” Turning to Biden, Muir cited “concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan.” But Biden brushed them off, declaring, “We don’t need those troops there. I would bring them home.”

What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.

It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.

It's not like we would eventually have the choice of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by Turkey as an existential threat, or Turkey, a NATO member.

We keep hearing how we “betrayed our allies,” but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It’s a big jump from “Let’s both fight ISIS” to “Take that, NATO ally.” But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort of hand wave away the fact that you can’t “betray” someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable person could ever expect you to do it.

Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to “I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees. Why must we deny him of this again?

And then there is the lack of an AUMF for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and international law.

Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.

Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.

Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the 16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?

Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.

But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces do not have a combat mission."

We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself violated).

Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of war crimes.

“The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed their attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution,” it said.

“Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such attacks are conducted recklessly,” it added.

Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify this.
And yet it still gets worse.

In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign policy was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.

If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.