Donald Trump doesn’t want American troops anywhere where he ain’t getting paid ‘protection money’…
He could care less if the abandoned area’s fall into the wrong hands…
“If one actor leaves the chain, it weakens the whole group,” Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé said.
The heads of state, whose nations border a worsening conflict, said the international community must unite against the attackers. Both expressed concern that terrorism is on the brink of spilling into their countries, which have not previously grappled with such a threat.
Withdrawing U.S. troops as Islamist violence surges would be a “mistake,” Senegalese President Macky Sall said in his first public comments on the matter.
“It would be a mistake, and it would be very misunderstood by Africans,” he said, “because instead of coming to help, you wish to remove the little help there is.”
Gnassingbé, Togo’s leader of 15 years, said militants from Iraq and Syria are slipping into the region through restive Libya, where they aim to radicalize locals and build an army.
“Those terrorists will be stronger here,” Gnassingbé said, so the United States should “fight on both ends — in the Middle East and in Africa.”
The Pentagon is considering a force drawdown in Africa to accommodate a shift in defense priorities to the Asia-Pacific region.
Some 6,000 U.S. troops are based on the continent. About a quarter are stationed in West Africa, mostly in Niger, where they provide training, drone support and intelligence….