After months of the Pentagon failing to sell a concrete plan of escalation to the White House, officials now say that the administration is considering getting back on track with a drawdown headed for a full pullout from the country after 16 years.
This is happening for the same reason the Pentagon hasn’t been able to sell the escalations, that a number of officials are unconvinced that the escalation is going to accomplish anything, and that they don’t think there’s a clear strategy for victory.
The Pentagon was more or less uniform in arguing escalations, albeit of varying sizes, and are said to be objecting to the proposed pullout as a “minority viewpoint,” warning that it does not meet the goals of the conflict.
The pullout is unlikely to be immediate, if it ultimately wins out. The plan seems to be to increase reliance on special forces and drone strikes in Afghanistan to try to make up for the largely feckless Afghan military in slowing the Taliban’s expansion across the country.
Ultimately though, few think any strategy is going to stop the Taliban expansion outright, with even many proponents of escalation arguing simply that it would slow the rate of loss, but punting the ultimate defeat down the road for someone else.
It’s unsurprising, then, that alternate strategies are being sought, and whether it’s Blackwater founder Erik Prince’s mercenary plan or those on the margins pushing for tens of thousands of more US troops re-invading Afghanistan, there are few optimistic about their chances. Withdrawing, at the very least, would be an end to the war, if not the end the military wants.
Great. Perhaps they can enjoy the holidays one more time before being shipped over to Ukraine next year.
Or Iran.
Or North Korea.
Or all three.
See all of you get it! What makes it so difficult for government to see through this crap? They do, but keep taking the money and continue being one of the most corrupt governments in the world. Welcome to the USA. Land of guns and terrorists!
A million tomorrows for one yesterday. That’s what I’d gladly pay. A Mountain of sorrows now stands in my way. A mountain I foolishly made – M Bailey
It won’t be the end of the war for the Afghans. Even after the Taliban take Kabul and re establish their government, the West will turn to their ISIS proxies to carry on the war against the poor country.
Someone show Trump’s daughter a picture of a dying Afghan child and maybe daddy will pull out!
not enough money for her to be bothered with. She can’t make any money selling her trashy line of Chinese garbage there.
Give me a break! They aren’t going to pull out of Afghanistan. The pentagon get too much welfare from the taxpayers and now Trump says there are minerals in Afghanistan that he WANTS! Do you think killing a few thousand more innocent people is going to stop this rag mop head from keeping a war going? As long as this coward doesn’t have to fight or his COWARD little BOYS like himself, he is fine to murder others around the world. DONALD TRUMP MURDERER OF INNOCENT BABIES! And the GUZZLER of VIAGRA!
That is the only way baby Huey can keep up his huffing and puffing as well as playing his nickname the snatch grabber. Won’t let insurance pay for birth control, but will let all the Bob Doles in government get their VIAGRA with insurance. Talk about HYPOCRITES! This is the men in Trumps government and even his idiot fools that call themselves women, like his low life sleaze daughter that wouldn’t know how to work a real job if it slapped her in the face. Trump has already stated he wants bases established in Afghanistan. If I were the people there I would tell him to get the hell out of my country and go F**K himself and his illegal military! Too bad the world no longer has legal courts that used to hold all accountable, like we did until Jimmy Carter SCREWED it up and allowed the ILLEGAL FISA COURTS! There have been no Presidents in the USA since Eisenhower that have been a decent human being in that office. Just do away with the monarchy already!
Never in my life have I wished a man would drop dead of his own fat, but I wish it on this man that HATES WOMEN (except the little cowards like himself that he can control, like his wife and daughter who have NO brains in their heads).
So you were cool with Obamessiah’s two terms worth of death there?
Obama was as F**KEd up as Trump, I have no problem standing both men side by side at the guillotine,and getting rid of both of them for their illegal actions. As I said no REAL president since Eisenhower. Obama was nothing but a continuation of the Bush family as well as the Clinton family. We all know how much corruption all those families have.
As far as I am concerned dig up Reagan’s sorry corpse and put it in a trash dumpster where it doesn’t corrode the graves that he helped start creating. Put Carter on trial for establishing the corrupt FISA court. No let’s be the same little foolish ATM for all these POS to keep taking advantage of. Trump is a terrorist just like Obama and should be shot for Treason. It is illegal to sell arms to a hostile country, and if killing 3000 people in the USA isn’t being hostile than nothing is. So you are fine selling Saudi Arabia weapons right? My question is how do you tell these families that lost their loved one, that their lives didn’t mean crap?
oh can’t pull out now – who would protect/ensure the continued opium production?
Unfortunately, now that we’ve gotten to know Trump, we know how this plays out: he’ll say that we’ll pull out, then he’ll say we’ll nuke them, and then he’ll do 95% of what the neocons have been asking for.
So it took 16 years to realize this?
And look at how broke we are, and what do we have to show for it? Not a GD thing!
US military is there basically to stop Iran and Russia from building oil and gas pipelines across the country to export to populous S. Asia.
But what will the CIA do for their heroin supply if they lose the poppy fields?