February 4, 2019
By Matthew S. Schwartz
Updated at 10:30 a.m. ET
An additional 3,750 troops (click here) will be sent to the Southern border to help install wire barriers and monitor crossings, officials said. The new deployment will bring the number of active-duty troops there to around 6,000.
In a tweet on Sunday, President Trump said that "STRONG Border Security" is necessary in the face of "Caravans marching through Mexico and toward our Country."
The announcement of new troops on Sunday comes just days before Trump is expected to discuss border security measures during Tuesday's State of the Union address....
The mass marches to the USA border under Trump have been more than curious. That has never occurred before in the history of the USA. I find all the mess about the USA southern border, including the largest drug haul, very odd. Record numbers of everything. Very odd.
December 20, 2018
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Mujib Mashal
Washington — The Trump administration (click here) has ordered the military to start withdrawing roughly 7,000 troops from Afghanistan in the coming months, two defense officials said Thursday, an abrupt shift in the 17-year-old war there and a decision that stunned Afghan officials, who said they had not been briefed on the plans.
President Trump made the decision to pull the troops — about half the number the United States has in Afghanistan now — at the same time he decided to pull American forces out of Syria, one official said.
The announcement came hours after Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense, said that he would resign from his position at the end of February after disagreeing with the president over his approach to policy in the Middle East....
