SRN NEWS:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump wants combat forces reduced in Afghanistan by the next U.S. presidential election, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday, introducing a timeline to Washington’s plan for cutting troop numbers there.
Trump’s South Asia strategy, unveiled in August 2017, called for an open-ended deployment of U.S. forces with the goal of compelling the Taliban to negotiate peace with the Kabul government to end nearly 18 years of war.
“That’s my directive from the president of the United States,” Pompeo told The Economic Club of Washington when asked whether he expects Trump to reduce troops in Afghanistan before the November 2020 election.
“He’s been unambiguous: End the endless wars, draw down, reduce. It won’t just be us,” he said, referring to Trump’s directive. “We hope that overall the need for combat forces in the region is reduced.”
The disclosure of a timeline will add to speculation that Trump is prepared to strike any deal with the Taliban insurgency that will allow for at least partial U.S. withdrawal before American voters go to the polls, irrespective of concerns by the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
Reduce the number of troops to “zero” then reduce the so called “country” to a sheet of glass.
Pave it and paint it green.
I hope he realizes that any negotiation with the Taliban is useless. They’ll tell you what you want to hear, and then when the odds are in their favor, they’ll attack again.
It’s about friggin time to end this endless war and let the Taliban fight it out amongst themselves except they never will and once again some other power will have to step in and fight them again. Just like the British and the Russians and now us. Will the Chicoms or the Pakistanis or Indians be their next victims? We’ve done everything we can do it and it’s time to get out and cut our losses before we lose any more Americans in an indefensible war. Why should we continue to fight the Taliban short of a total victory and the Taliban’s total annihilation.
They were to tribal and primitive to ever be very modernized. Let the brutes fight it out among themselves.
The whole shithole wasteland isn’t worth a drop of american blood.
I’ll bet China will get in there before too long, they want the minerals. Let them get bogged down for years until they tuck tail and run.
I just wish, for once, someone would level w/ the American people & explain the real reason we are wasting blood & treasure.
(I think gin blossom hit the nail on the head w/ the minerals … heard there was a lot of uranium there)
as I don’t know, I don’t support us being there
It matters not if every last American troop comes home, the MIC will keep the gravy trains running.
Get a load of this….the IG for Afghanistan oversight alerts after we withdraw we’re sending 159 US Blackhawk choppers to replace an aging fleet of Afghan helicopters, the tune of $7 billion.
Based on the current delivery schedule, there won’t be enough Afghani pilots to fly them, nor enough crews to maintain them. The projected cost for maintenance alone will be $2.8 billion per year.
Start at 20:00
http://fullmeasure.news/news/full-episodes/full-measure-july-21-2019
I feel sorry for the Afghan people who just want to live a peaceful life and care for their families, but would be subjected to the tyranny of the Taliban after we leave.
We should have never gotten into a fight with the Taliban to make Afghanistan a nice place to live. We should have keep the goal to only eliminate the factions that protected groups wanting to attack us or our allies.
But as long as the Taliban keeps their fight within their borders that is their problem to solve, not ours.
So yes. Pull out our troops with the understanding if they harbor people who attack us, their grace period is over, and we will only return to turn the place into the Afghan Plains.