US Intends to Keep 10K Troops in Afghanistan Beyond 2014

The plan runs counter to the administration's public comments on withdrawing in 2014

by John Glaser, November 26, 2012

President Barack Obama intends to keep around 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan beyond the much-advertised 2014 ‘withdrawal’ date, according to recent reports.

The Obama administration has been falsely telling the American public that the war in Afghanistan is coming to a close and the last US troops with be withdrawn in 2014. But all along, the US has been working behind the scenes with the Kabul government on an agreement that would govern the presence of up to thousands of US troops perhaps until 2024.

Citing anonymous senior US officials, The Wall Street Journal reported the plan was in line with recommendations of current top commander in Afghanistan Gen. John Allen.

But Obama’s choice for Allen’s successor, Gen. Joe Dunford, has expressed even stronger support for keeping the failed war and occupation going.

“To accomplish this objective,” Dunford told the Senate earlier this month, “the primary missions of the US military in Afghanistan should be to (1) train, advise, and assist the ANSF; (2) provide support to civilian agencies, and (3) conduct counter-terrorism operations. This mission set will include force protection for our brave young men and women and, as available, the provision of in extremis support for our Afghan forces.”

The US-led NATO command in Afghanistan found in a report last month that not only has the surge failed to dent the Taliban insurgency, but insurgent attacks have actually increased since the start of the surge.

The cornerstone of the Obama administration’s strategy in Afghanistan was to build up a government and security forces that would serve as a bulwark against Taliban rule post-2014. The Kabul government is overwhelmingly corrupt and on the brink of collapse, while the US-backed security forces can’t operate on their own and have largely been infiltrated by the Taliban.

The war is a failure by every observable metric, but Dunford is continuing the tradition of lying to Congress and the American people so as to continue a needless failure of a war.

As Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L. Davis revealed last year: “Our current military leadership is so distorting the information it releases that the deterioration of the situation and the failing nature of our efforts is shielded from the American public (and Congress), and replaced instead with explicit statements that all is going according to plan.” He said his deployments to Afghanistan revealed to him a reality that “bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.”

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