Trump withdrew U.S. troops from Somalia

One thing I am willing to give Donald Trump some credit for is trying to end U.S. involvement in foreign wars. He tried unsuccessfully to withdraw from Syria, and he set the Afghanistan withdrawal in motion although it later became a debacle. Add to that an actual successful withdrawal from Somalia. This is from Middle East Eye, a publication I was previously unfamiliar with.

President Donald Trump’s administration moved to withdraw all 700 American troops from Somalia in 2020, after a three-decade presence in the country.

Middle East Eye

This does not mean drone strikes on targets in Somalia ended. They continued, and they are continuing now. And the Biden administration is sending a small number of troops back to Somalia. Apparently this is legal (ish?) – the U.S. is there at the invitation of the Somali government to please by all means attack its enemies. And the domestic justification supposedly goes all the way back to Congress’s approval of the global war on terror after 9/11.

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