2016 Departure Date

[Rawanshenas]

^ How is that relevant to the current discussion?

[BarakzaiAbdali]

The withdrawal decision has been coordinated with Afghans and made in the light of Afghan National Army recent successes against the Islamist terrorists. Don't read much into it. And the decision can be revived should the two sides want. Obama's second term is ending in 2017, so he made the decision to leave a legacy.

After so many years and so many clear cut defeats and betrayals (I think Hamida Karzai Bibi can write a full novel about how topsy turvy his world became over a decade and a half) you are still constructing reasons d'etre to justify your minority world view.

A child, much less an educated soul could have prognosticated this slow but sure pathway to defeat that experts, including the US Generals themselves as well as your "militant" adversaries have discussed in great detail.

Obama broadcast his decision to the nation since it is a war weary public. Here at home, student loan rates are rising, home prices are fluctuating, and the disability claims are still skyrocketing. Based even on the supply line accesses and their prior issues, revision is going to be unlikely.

You were for ages preaching to me that they were going to stay in each and every base and never leave, etc etc etc. Yet what we said, and not what you said continues to come true:

http://www.latimes.com/world/afghani...ry.html#page=1

CIA Director John Brennan informed U.S. military commanders in March that his agency would start to shutter Afghan operations outside Kabul, the capital, removing CIA clandestine officers and analysts as well as National Security Agency specialists responsible for intercepting insurgents' communications, which have been a rich source of daily intelligence, the officials said.

This is because...:

The CIA footprint is entirely dependent on the military's," a senior U.S. official said Thursday.

The CIA also plans this summer to stop paying the salaries of Afghan paramilitary forces that it has armed and trained for more than a decade to help fight the Taliban-led insurgency in the country's east, near the Pakistani border. It is unclear what will happen to the militias.

Effectiveness of the Army??? Man you mock religion, yet you are inventing your own faith driven system lol.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/wo...leep.html?_r=0

This was an assessment as recent as February 2014:

The attack highlighted the vulnerability of Afghan military units, which are generally no longer accompanied by American or other NATO advisers and do not have the close air support they often enjoyed. And it raised questions about the Afghans’ ability to hold out against the insurgents on their own as the NATO mission winds down and international forces prepare to leave Afghanistan at the end of 2014.

and the kicker:

Nonetheless, fatalities among Afghan soldiers have been steadily rising. Based on the latest statistics available, through last June, Afghan army fatalities had more than doubled compared with the previous year, coinciding with a steady decrease in American and NATO forces in the country

At this point, dear friend, you are arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

I thought at some point you would mature and begin to admit that the rural sensibilities are simply not amenable to the sort of goals you personally have.... instead of makhthloonaay, pa tset aw stana thlal ke fatamand keezhe
and you generated some nonsense theory about how the US goals are to somehow strengthen the Taliban to take out the Pashtun Nationalists in some nefarious design... despite the fact the it is the nationalists that are backing the likes of team Dostum and Team Abdullah on the one side (well known Talib and Pashtun killers). So how does this theory work? Do the Taliban and the US sit together and plan out when they plan to let themselves get shot at and maimed etc etc?

Patience - Loya hawsala larra wrorraka - lol, to date all your arguments and theories have steadily folded and collapsed like sand castles - Im content with you building a few more only to watch them wash away into the sea again.

[randolph85]

You would be naive to think that Russia and US are on the same page when it comes to Afghanistan. Russia supports Ukrainian separatists, Afghanistan wants Pashtuns to rise up in Pakistan and do the same, Afghanistan also supports Ukrainian Russian separatists. Pakistan is a stooge of US and US won't let that happen, so?

Afghanistan is not Ukraine, you are trying to compare 2 completely different situations which differ based on history, economics, and geo politics. Afghanistan is held at the balls by Americas aid budget, don't be stupid to think that Karzai's childish tantrums are any indication of Afghanistan being independent whatsoever. Without American money, Karzai and the rest of his clan would be hanging from the same pole as comrade Najib.

[randolph85]

Actually the Iraqis were a more cooperative puppet than the afghan puppets. The Iraqi puppets had created some kind of stability and it was in their interests to create stability so the oil wealth can pour in their pockets much like the Saudi family has, while the afghan puppets main goal was to extract all the aid money while it is available because why create stability when there is no wealth after the aid money disappears.

So:
In Afghanistan: the longer the instability, the more money the elites make.
In Iraq: the quicker the stability comes, the elites can create a rich dynasty much like in Saudi's have.

Comparing and contrasting, Iraq's stability would be Afghanistan's darkest days in these wars. Iraq has faced a nightmare of a civil war and unfortunately there is no end in sight. Afghanistan is fortunate enough considering the circumstances to not have the horrible sectarian violence that Iraq has faced.

Despite Iraq being ruled like India was ruled by the British in the early days of the war with Paul Bremer acting as the Raj, the country never agreed to continued occupation. In Afg the aid money is already dwindling, these fat cats have already filled their pockets now its about having kaffir boots on the ground to protect their heads while they pretend to rule an independent country.

[Admin Khan]

[MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION]

Is this with or without the BSA? I thought once the BSA is signed, they are agreeing on a fixed term of US presence, or permanent bases?

[Rawanshenas]

Afghanistan is not Ukraine, you are trying to compare 2 completely different situations which differ based on history, economics, and geo politics. Afghanistan is held at the balls by Americas aid budget, don't be stupid to think that Karzai's childish tantrums are any indication of Afghanistan being independent whatsoever. Without American money, Karzai and the rest of his clan would be hanging from the same pole as comrade Najib.

Where did I say Afghanistan is independent? Where? Where did I say Afghanistan like Ukraine? where?

My first post in this thread was about how you cannot win an election in Afghanistan unless America is on your side.

Ukraine is more like Pakistan where a large section of it all of the same ethnicity as a larger section of other people on a different country.

If it wasn't for that other watanfrosh Dost Mumad Khan who lost Peshawar to sikhs and then to british, all pashtuns would be living in Afghanistan.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

[MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION]

Is this with or without the BSA? I thought once the BSA is signed, they are agreeing on a fixed term of US presence, or permanent bases?

The MSNBC program I watched when he announced it said that there were 3 options being floated previously, the current one, a more robust one, and finally the zero option by 2014's end.

The way that the newscaster discussed it, it was independent of the BSA. That is, the BSA terms (e.g immunity from prosecution) will cover any theater of war that the special ops and residual force will undertake.

ABC concurred:

The drawdown blueprint is contingent on Afghanistan's government signing a stalled bilateral security agreement. While current Afghan President Hamid Karzai has refused to sign the accord, U.S. officials say they're confident that either of the candidates running to replace him will finalize the deal

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/apnewsbreak-us-9800-troops-afghanistan-23881926

That is, should the BSA remain unsigned then it goes to the zero option as was in Iraq (where zero is not really zero but a sort of embassy and intelligence gathering small nidus in the capital) or whatever I guess the powers that be decide they want.

Interestingly enough Sadat's kinsmen were in town the other day and were gnashing their teeth over this. Suddenly the bought and paid for ivy league degrees and other sort of goodies are in dire jeapardy. I just sort of nodded my head and took in their wave of anger as a data point - for years they were claiming it would be a Korean war style situation and that they would have the level of force and governance that South Korea did. I told them repeatedly to think through what they were saying - but they told me I was wrong back in 2009.

So in summary what did Karzai accomplish with this? Well the BSA as we stated previously will not result in, as Kabul hoped, American intervention ala what America would do against North Korea in a status of war (that is America will never do a full frontal assault on Pakistan)... rather the BSA will pretty much cover some urban center security and make it so that might makes right... i.e. the Americans will set the rules over what they do and do not want to do no matter what Kabul wants them to do - and if there are problems in execution or corruption and no oversight, there will be no ability to prosecute anyone.

[Rawanshenas]

Are we saying that American forces must stay in Afghanistan to keep the Pashtun Islamo-nationalist faction in check?

Is that the issue?

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Are we saying that American forces must stay in Afghanistan to keep the Pashtun Islamo-nationalist faction in check?

Is that the issue?

Well the assertion by the one side is that the forces are required to prop up the Kabul elite (comprised of some former Islamist commanders turned democrats, secularists, former communists (think Atmar), etc etc) in order to sustain an unpopular occupation.

The assertion Toramana is making is that the US partitioning Afghanistan into a north and a south where they will sever the south and hand it over to the Islamists/Taliban where the Taliban and the US will hatch further plans to also permit Talibanization of the northwestern Pakistan thereby creating an Islamist buffer region that permits them to neutralize Pashtun nationalists and leftists...

[Rawanshenas]

Well the assertion by the one side is that the forces are required to prop up the Kabul elite (comprised of some former Islamist commanders turned democrats, secularists, former communists (think Atmar), etc etc) in order to sustain an unpopular occupation.

The assertion Toramana is making is that the US partitioning Afghanistan into a north and a south where they will sever the south and hand it over to the Islamists/Taliban where the Taliban and the US will hatch further plans to also permit Talibanization of the northwestern Pakistan thereby creating an Islamist buffer region that permits them to neutralize Pashtun nationalists and leftists...

Do you support democracy or a islamo-nationalist state ruled by a tribal elders of pashtun ethnicity, supported by pakistani weapons and saudi money? which one?

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Do you support democracy or a islamo-nationalist state ruled by a tribal elders of pashtun ethnicity, supported by pakistani weapons and saudi money? which one?

Its not a democracy. The argument used by the "world's greatest democracy" is that an occupied nation ala Crimea cannot practice ideal democracy. Basically its a plutocracy of expats and thugs who themselves have factions that once relied on "saudi money and pakistani weapons." Democracy cannot be implanted by fiat and force like a TV microwavable ready meal. The Pashtun side may get money from wherever they get it from and the Karzai side and former Northern Alliance farsiwanaan do much the same but like most Afghans they end up doing whatever it is that they want to do.

In the words of UBL CIA unit director:

I, for all of my sins, have spent the better part of 15 years working in the Afghan [venue] at a time when there were billions of dollars available to use with the Afghans to get them to do what we wanted them to do, and not once in that period can I recall an Afghan doing anything we ever asked them to do. They'll take your money, they'll say they're going to do it, but they're extremely independent people and unwilling to have you believe that they're doing your bidding. If you wanted something done and an Afghan was going to do it in any way, and you paid him, he might do something else just so you don't think he's your operative.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/interviews/scheuer.html

with that in mind, I think the Afghans deserve that government which best represents their identity and mores and values at the present time, not that which some expats think that they should hoist by force.

I prefer an outcome where Afghans of all factions, religious, secular, urban, and rural, all ethnicities come together and devise their own innate government based on their social values and ideologies without being forced to adjust to what Hillary Clinton or Richard Holbroke or Eikenberry thinks they ought to do.

[Shah-i-Kot]

@BarakzaiAbdali

Is this with or without the BSA? I thought once the BSA is signed, they are agreeing on a fixed term of US presence, or permanent bases?

There will be a full US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2016 if the BSA is signed. This is right before Obama's second term ends, and the inaugration of the next US president. If the BSA is not signed, then the full withdrawal will before December 31st, 2014. Obama wants to be remembered as the person that ended US wars overseas (his legacy).

I think the decision for a complete US withdrawal from Afghanistan depended on several factors, one of which was the Iran-Israel tension that might lead to military conflict. I think in the next two years, there will be a US withdrawal generally from the Middle East/South Asia/ Central Asia region. Not only closing bases in Gulf states, but also pulling back aircraft carriers away from the Persian Gulf and towards the Atlantic .

[کیش]

There will be a full US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2016 if the BSA is signed. This is right before Obama's second term ends, and the inaugration of the next US president. If the BSA is not signed, then the full withdrawal will before December 31st, 2014. Obama wants to be remembered as the person that ended US wars overseas (his legacy).

I think the decision for a complete US withdrawal from Afghanistan depended on several factors, one of which was the Iran-Israel tension that might lead to military conflict. I think in the next two years, there will be a US withdrawal generally from the Middle East/South Asia/ Central Asia region. Not only closing bases in Gulf states, but also pulling back aircraft carriers away from the Persian Gulf and towards the Atlantic .

That's completely ridiculous remark. Why would/should the US withdraw from this areas when they have invested so much money there? Your wishful thinking

[BarakzaiAbdali]

That's completely ridiculous remark. Why would/should the US withdraw from this areas when they have invested so much money there? Your wishful thinking

They will probably titrate down to a residual force, but it will just be a continued hemorrhaging of money and resources.

[Shah-i-Kot]

That's completely ridiculous remark. Why would/should the US withdraw from this areas when they have invested so much money there? Your wishful thinking

thats not invested money, thats lost money, actually debt.