Posted on 09/30/2015 8:12:55 AM PDT by Mariner
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a potential major shift in policy, U.S. military commanders want to keep at least a few thousand U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2016, citing a fragile security situation highlighted by the Taliban's capture of the northern city of Kunduz this week as well as recent militant inroads in the south.
Keeping any substantial number of troops in Afghanistan beyond next year would mark a sharp departure from President Barack Obama's existing plan, which would leave only an embassy-based security cooperation presence of about 1,000 military personnel by the end of next year. Obama has made it a centerpiece of his second-term foreign policy message that he would end the U.S. war in Afghanistan and get American troops out by the time he left office in January 2017.
About 9,800 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan. But the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John F. Campbell, has given the administration several options for gradually reducing that number over the next 15-months. The options all call for keeping a higher-than-planned troop presence based on his judgment of what it would take to sustain the Afghan army and minimize the chances of losing more ground gained over more than a decade of costly U.S. combat.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
We have no interests there.
If the training camps pop up again, send B-1b's.
Good ol’ ap. Any other time headline would read...Obama, not US military.
Drop nukes on Peshawar and Quetta then leave for good. No more supplies will be coming in to the jihadi baddies.
Keeping “allied” army bases open for the purposes of doling out paychecks and raping boys isn’t a very compelling reason for a U.S. troop deployment.
Certainly not worth a US Soldier's life and/or limbs.
Well looks like the administration can just keep ignoring the rape of young boys for a few more years...
I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that they didn’t do a military wide poll. If they did I’m sure the results would be way different!
Drop a few bunker buster bombs next to the Khyber Pass and close it up. That’ll slow the overland route from Pakistan quite a bit.
Read some of her statements before Congress in the article. This is a woman who understands Putin. Far better than the clueless CnC. Russia will continue it’s aggression because there is no one there to stop them. This bombing just after talking with Obama is a big FU to America.
Folks, they aren’t there to bomb just ISIS. The Russians will be bombing anyone and everyone who is against Assad and that includes our allies such as the Kurds and the few moderate groups that actually want liberal democracy. The Ruskies want to prop up their guy, that is all they care about. It’s bad enough to have our “allie” the Turks in there bombing not only ISIS but the Kurds, now we’ll have the Ruskies. This situation is growing more complicated and worse the farther we go along because America is not leading, it is sticking it’s head in the sand. That is probably what she saw and she could take no more.
The answer is not to take our toys and go home. The answer is for America to lead with a coherent foreign policy and to get serious about this ongoing mess that is the middle east.
We have no strategy in the Middle East. Obama is a coward and a fool, or he is a traitor. There is no military solution to the Middle East—at least not anything palatable to America. Potential is only realized through exercising will. At this point, America has no will and has made herself a complete laughingstock. And now what?
Who will stand up and say that we should initiate WWIII because of Syria or Afghanistan? Damn you neocons and Democrats both! You want to get in bed with these savages? Have at it and bring your children! There are no honest players in this entire charade, and more have died from misguided intervention than the original despotism.
We have no strategic interest in Syria. The entire escapade has been a flustercluck of unimaginable incompetence or outright malfeasance on the part of the administration. Afghanistan is the same. We have no business there, and we have no business allying ourselves to any of these Muslim devils.
Active Duty ping.
Was it being a neocon back in 2011 to say we should leave a residual force of 10,000 in Iraq? If so, lets pull out the 26,000 from South Korea, let’s pull the 20,000 from Okinawa, let’s pull the who knows how many thousands out of Europe.
If we had left a residual force of 10,000 in Iraq, there would be no rise in ISIS invading Iraq. Perhaps they rise, but they would stay in Syria. I agree that we didn’t have an interest in the Syrian civil war, but now that ISIS has been created and spilled over into Iraq, threatening our allies in Jordan, Egypt, etc.. we have an interest. Because of American ineptitude we now have interests in Syria because it is threatening to boil over and consume the whole peninsula and Northern Africa in flames.
A coherent foreign policy does not mean war. Unfortunately, this has gone so far out of control that the military option is increasingly becoming the only one. If we lead in this fight, we could have many coalition forces such as Egypt, Jordan, Turkey etc.. doing a lot of the heavy lifting but we must lead, period....
. . .The surveys verified all the major Soviet finds. Afghanistan may hold 60 million tons of copper, 2.2 billion tons of iron ore, 1.4 million tons of rare earth elements such as lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, and lodes of aluminum, gold, silver, zinc, mercury and lithium. For instance, the Khanneshin carbonatite deposit in Afghanistan's Helmand province is valued at $89 billion, full as it is with rare earth elements. . .
. . .In 2010, the USGS data attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Defense's Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO), which is entrusted with rebuilding Afghanistan. The task force valued Afghanistan's mineral resources at $908 billion, while the Afghan government's estimate is $3 trillion.
http://www.livescience.com/47682-rare-earth-minerals-found-under-afghanistan.html
No, I would have agreed to keeping troops in country, but that was then and this is now. Sending troops in today would be a neocon commitment since we have no foreign policy, much less a coherent one. The current administration and its pentagon toadies will just continue the status quo: squander lives and money to no purpose.
I have a pretty good understanding about our military’s “success” here in the Middle East. I have been in the service since the 80s, and my son is a corpsman. He ships out this week, before I get home from my current deployment. We were supposed to meet in port and share a few beers before he leaves, but I got pushed back.
In my view it comes down to this: You want to tell my son to bury more of his friends why?
I am advocating (as I’ve said in my previous posts) a coherent foreign policy and leadership on this. In the end, it will probably mean more troops, but before we commit troops, the leadership and the coherent strategy must come first. If that’s being a neocon then so be it. I’m not for endless war, but we are in this mess and we have to fix it or it will have long term consequences for our country.
I have dedicated my life to the military in service of our great nation and by your statements I know I was in the Corps before you were in the service. I’m not going to bore you with my resume because it’s not about what I’ve done or what you’ve done or what your son has done. I thank you for your and your sons service. However, there is more work to be done. Our current CnC has made a mess of things. That doesn’t absolve our country from what we need to do.
It’s not about resumes or philosophy at this point. The problem in the Middle East are a symptom of the extreme sickness in America. A coherent foreign policy would require a complete regime change in our country first—like revolutionary type of change.
I’m not calling names, but protecting our Constitution starts at home. Our armed forces were never intended to be used for social experiment or fomenting revolution to further some ambiguous social change. Our country should be ashamed of the state of affairs, but they are not.
Stupid leaders get people killed without reason. I once thought there was some purpose for our sacrifice, but I now see that sacrifice mocked and despised by those who send us into harms way. Until that changes, I cannot support any escalation.
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