Our longest war is just about to get a bit longer……after going on 15 years and we still cannot find a way to extract our troops from this country…..
President Obama is scrapping a big goal of his presidency—to leave office with only a token force of troops in Afghanistan. Instead, in what the Wall Street Journal calls a “major reversal,” Obama has decided to scrap the current withdrawal plan. About 10,000 US troops are in the country now, and the original plan was to gradually reduce that number through 2016, until about 1,000 were left at the US Embassy in the country by early 2017. Under the new plan, no reduction will take place through most of next year, and a force of 5,500 will still be in place when Obama leaves the White House. He’s expected to formally make the announcement Thursday morning.
“Obama appears to be acknowledging that Afghan security forces are still not near ready to hold off the Taliban on their own,” observes the New York Times. Remaining troops were supposed to be stationed only in Kabul, but now they’ll be scattered elsewhere around the country as well, including in Jalalabad, Kandahar, and the Bagram Airfield. The cost will be $14.6 billion a year, about $5 billion higher than the original embassy-only plan, reports NBC News. For context, the network notes that the US had 100,000 troops in Afghanistan as recently as 2010. Administration officials say the review has been underway for months, but headlines about Taliban gains in cities such as Kunduz surely didn’t help.
Even the USSR had had enough after 10 years of the insanity of Afghanistan….they decided enough was enough and they took their troops and went home…..after that the US had no more use for the country and we took our money and weapons and went home……and because we declared victory over the Soviets the Taleban was able to move into the vacuum created by everyone’s departure and …as they say…..the rest is history…..
The problem is who is fighting who……as of this week the most fearsome fighting is in the North of the country….an area that use to be fairly safe and in the US corner….but since the days of the Northern Alliance and Massoud things have started down the toilet…….
What is the situation in the North?
Source: Who is fighting in northern Afghanistan? | Asia | DW.COM | 07.10.2015
As soon as the State Department gets it sh*t together maybe then there will be some sort of actual policy for this never ending conflict……
Source: AfPak – A New Regional Scenario | New Eastern Outlook
(A good piece that I do not thoroughly agree with in its entirety)
At what point can we say enough?
How many more Americans need to serve and possibly die in a country that cannot get its sh*t together after 15 years of trying?
When will we ever learn?