2016 Departure Date

[khushal]

No doubt lobbying is the real benefactor.

Colonialism worked wonders, and majority of the world are still under colonialism. Since it was them who created artificial lines and installed puppet governments. Exceptions: India and China.

what did it accomplish. all it did was create animosity and tainted legacy for the colonizers. Look at Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman colonized the north and the northerners hate Pashtuns for it.

[کیش]

they tried and the regular ones were let go.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/us...anted=all&_r=0

Do you really believe the US will retreat from the middle east and south Asia after all they have done? Their presence in those areas shows other "superpowers" that America literally controls the Earth, and they'll do whatever they want. Contrary to popular anti-American views that they'll go bankrupt, I highly doubt they will, even if it looks like it.

[کیش]

what did it accomplish. all it did was create animosity and tainted legacy for the colonizers. Look at Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman colonized the north and the northerners hate Pashtuns for it.

It did create and taint opinion about the Europeans/Americans, but do they care what the colonized people think? It's the raw reality. Just 150 years ago, America would hunt, trap, and ship Africans across an ocean like a package.

We gotta be blunt about it, emotions and wishfull thinking hasn't/Isn't going to progress Islamic unity.

[Shah-i-Kot]

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

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This is because...:
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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:

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and the kicker:

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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.

Now that the US is stating there will be full withdrawal in 2016 with the BSA signed, suddenly it is stated that the US does not mean it, or that decisions can be revised or that Obama's presidency ends in 2017, and maybe US troops can be sent back to Afghanistan after being fully withdrawn in 2016.

[Shah-i-Kot]

Do you really believe the US will retreat from the middle east and south Asia after all they have done? Their presence in those areas shows other "superpowers" that America literally controls the Earth, and they'll do whatever they want. Contrary to popular anti-American views that they'll go bankrupt, I highly doubt they will, even if it looks like it.

Why are you so worked up? The US has a national debt that is in the trillions. You sound like Fox News.

[khushal]

@Kais,
The point is that the West is benefiting from trade with China more today, than they were during colonial times. They are benefitting more from India today than during colonial times and vice versa.

[کیش]

Why are you so worked up? The US has a national debt that is in the trillions. You sound like Fox News.

I'm not worked up, I can't stand delusional people like you with their only logic coming from wishful thinking.

Yea the US has debt in the trillions, but that isn't going to do anything to stop everyday life, cause riots etc. . .

I don't sound like Fox News, but if you hate America and pray for their downfall please leave.

[khushal]

It seems that Karzai refusing to sign the BSA has something to do with a guarantee that a federal system would not be introduced and have the central system stay intact.

[Shah-i-Kot]

Toramana's posts on this thread are hilarious.

[Shah-i-Kot]

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-01-280514.html

Goodbye Afghanistan, hello Asia-Pacific
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama announced Tuesday his intention to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016. In a statement from the White House Rose Garden, Obama said he expects to reduce US troops levels from the roughly 32,000 which remain there now to 9,800 by the end of this year, and to cut that number by about half by the end of 2015.

After this year, US troops deployed to Afghanistan will be used only for training and counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaeda, he said.

The withdrawal plan will depend, however, on the signing of a


pending Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) between Washington and the next president of Afghanistan, who is expected to take office by the end of the summer after presidential elections that are set to take place next month.

Without the BSA, according to senior administration officials who briefed reports, the US would resort to the so-called "zero option" - or withdrawing all of its troops at the end of the year.

President Hamid Karzai, whose relations with Washington have become increasingly rocky during Obama's tenure, has refused to sign the BSA, insisting that the decision be left to his successor. The two candidates in next month's run-off election, Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, have publicly supported the agreement.

In his statement, Obama, who was due to deliver a major foreign policy address at the US Military Academy on Wednesday, put the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in the context of what he depicted as a larger transition in Washington's global military strategy, including its ongoing struggle against radical Islamists linked to al-Qaeda.

"The bottom line is, it's time to turn the page on more than a decade in which so much of our foreign policy was focused on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq," he said. "When I took office, we had nearly 180,000 troops in harm's way. By the end of this year, we will have less than 10,000. In addition to bringing our troops home, this new chapter in American foreign policy will allow us to redirect some of the resources saved by ending these wars to respond more nimbly to the changing threat of terrorism, while addressing a broader set of priorities around the globe."

Obama was making an implicit reference to his administration's promised "rebalancing" of US strategic assets toward the Asia-Pacific region, as well as more recent concerns about Russian intentions toward its closest neighbors.

He also suggested that Washington will not leave Afghanistan having accomplished all of the objectives for which it first sent troops under George W Bush in October 2001, in the weeks that followed the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

"I think Americans have learned that it's harder to end wars than it is to begin them," he said. "... We have to recognize that Afghanistan will not be a perfect place, and it is not America's responsibility to make it one. The future of Afghanistan must be decided by Afghans."

Obama's announcement came under immediate attack from neo-conservatives and other right-wing hawks who have long insisted that Kabul will need more trainers to protect and stabilize the country after the end of 2014, the date on which the US and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries had previously agreed would mark the transfer of all combat responsibilities to Afghan government forces.

They were particularly angry about Obama's promise to remove all US troops by the end of 2016.

"The president came into office wanting to end the wars he inherited," said Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Kelly Ayotte in a joint statement. "[He] appears to have learned nothing from the damage done by his previous withdrawal announcements in Afghanistan and his disastrous decision to withdraw all US forces from Iraq."

"Today's announcement will embolden our enemies and discourage our partners in Afghanistan and the region. And regardless of anything the president says tomorrow at West Point, his decision on Afghanistan will fuel the growing perception worldwide that America is unreliable, distracted, and unwilling to lead," the three senators insisted, in what has become a standard theme in Republican and neo-conservative attacks on Obama's foreign policy.

"Putting aside the fact that [10,000] is the lowest number military advisers estimated was necessary to maintain training and some counter-terrorism capability in country over not just one year but several, the decision to halve and then zero out those forces by 2016 [sic] is a reminder not only of how seriously unserious this president on strategic matters can be but also how cynically partisan he is," wrote Gary Schmitt, a national security analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, in the neo-conservative Weekly Standard blog.

Similar concerns were voided by General David Barno (retired), who led US and international forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and is currently a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank influential with the administration.

"While the number [of troops] for next year seems about right, the publicly announced speedy departure plan for those troops will now unquestionably sow doubt among American friends and Afghan supporters," he noted.

"But here at home, the biggest and - for the president - the most important takeaway ... will be the certainty that by the end of 2016, America's longest war will truly be over. After 13 years and thousands of US casualties, hundreds of billion dollars spent, and wholly inconclusive results, today's speech marks the end. Few Americans will mourn this war's passing," he added.

Tuesday's announcement also came on the eve of a key NATO meeting at which Washington will seek commitments from its allies to provide around 4,000 additional troops to operate alongside US troops next year and about half that number through 2016, according to administration officials.

Those officials expressed confidence that Afghanistan's own army and police were sufficiently strong to hold off any major military challenge by the Taliban, and pointed to their performance during the first round of the presidential and provincial elections in April as evidence of major progress in US and NATO training efforts to date.

Continued training of Afghan forces, combined with preventing al-Qaeda from re-establishing a presence in Afghanistan, will remain the two main foci of US troops there once full responsibility for security is transferred to Afghan forces at the end of the year, they stressed.

They also emphasized that the recent developments across the Greater Middle East and North Africa required adjustments to Washington's counter-terrorism strategy.

"[A]s we have seen the al-Qaeda core [in Afghanistan and Pakistan] pushed back and we've seen regional affiliates seek to gain a foothold in different parts of the Middle East and North Africa, what makes sense is a strategy that is not designed for the threat that existed in 2001 or 2004," one official told reporters in a conference call briefing before Obama's appearance.

"We need a strategy for how it exists in 2014 and 2016, and that is going to involve far more partnership and support across the entire region and less of the type of presence that the United States had in Afghanistan over the last 13 years."

Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy can be read at Lobelog.com.

[Shah-i-Kot]

It seems that Karzai refusing to sign the BSA has something to do with a guarantee that a federal system would not be introduced and have the central system stay intact.

Do you think Karzai will delay the "election" results over allegations of vote fraud? By say a few months.

[Shah-i-Kot]

Another thing to consider is the NATO presence in the country which will likely be several thousand and I haven't seen any indication that they will leave post 2016.

Sure the names might change like "combat troops" to "support troops" but its like the saying goes about putting lipstick on a pig.

NATO follows whatever the US does, and UK follows US decisions. They really aren't an independent organization. US provides majority of finance for NATO operations.

[khushal]

Do you think Karzai will delay the "election" results over allegations of vote fraud? By say a few months.

Its hard to say but the whole constitutional election set up is fraudulent since the election is in the fighting season which prevents Pashtuns from voting during that period. If he is smart, he would delay it to early winter when the fighting season halts.

[Shah-i-Kot]

I'm not worked up, I can't stand delusional people like you with their only logic coming from wishful thinking.

Yea the US has debt in the trillions, but that isn't going to do anything to stop everyday life, cause riots etc. . .

I don't sound like Fox News, but if you hate America and pray for their downfall please leave.

Technically, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan began from June 2011, and has been ongoing.

Continuously throwing around labels such as "delusional" and "wishful thinking" isn't really much to go with. Why dont you state your opinion and then back it up with sourced facts?

The President himself has just stated there will be a full US withdrawal in 2016. Aside from that my analysis has been based on reports/articles made by educated scholars, diplomats, as well as current and former US security/military officers. (Paul Brennan, Lt. Davis report, Bruce Reidel, former Secretary of Defense Gates, Pape, Hoh, and even McChrystal now). Could you explain how you arrive at your conclusions? They are saying all this- that there will be a US withdrawal. Even Reidel who has been in favor of a continued US presence has admitted that the US is on the exit route.

From Gates memoir:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/wo...erts.html?_r=0

"...At a pivotal meeting in the situation room in March 2011, called to discuss the withdrawal timetable, Mr. Obama opened with a blast of frustration — expressing doubts about Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander he had chosen, and questioning whether he could do business with the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai.
“As I sat there, I thought: The president doesn’t trust his commander, can’t stand Karzai, doesn’t believe in his own strategy and doesn’t consider the war to be his,” Mr. Gates wrote. “For him, it’s all about getting out.”


http://southasia.foreignpolicy.com/p...ent_system_ear

U.S. military concerned about CIA base closures
The Los Angeles Times' David S. Cloud reported on Thursday that the CIA is planning to close its satellite bases in Afghanistan and pull all of its personnel back to Kabul, a move that is raising concerns among U.S. military officials that they will be deprived as vital intelligence as a result (LAT). Cloud notes that CIA Director John Brennan informed military commanders in March that the agency would shutter its bases outside of Kabul, removing CIA case officers and analysts, as well as National Security Agency specialists.

You can't have it both ways. For example, when US pledged to continue a presence in 2012 with the SPA, many used this to affirm US would keep a limited presence. Now, that US has decided on a full withdrawal, the argument morphs that they dont mean it.

You stated the US does not leave anywhere.The US withdrew from Iraq (both times) and Vietnam.

[Shah-i-Kot]

Its hard to say but the whole constitutional election set up is fraudulent since the election is in the fighting season which prevents Pashtuns from voting during that period. If he is smart, he would delay it to early winter when the fighting season halts.

Karzai could delay the second round election on the grounds of high scale voter fraud, and national security intertwined with transparency of the election. I think Karzai has thrown his support behind Abdullah.