Just over a week after the signing of the Afghan peace deal, the first few hundreds of US troops are rotating out of the country. The rotation was planned before the deal, but in keeping with the US withdrawal, the troops will not be replaced.
This is just the first few hundred troops leaving out of an estimated 13,000 US troops present in Afghanistan. The plan is to cut troops in the near-term to about 8,600, and officials say this is the official start of a pullout. After this, the goal would be to cut troop levels to zero, ending a 19 year US occupation. The peace deal says this should happen in nine and a half months.
The Trump Administration wanted the troop cuts, deal or no deal, by the 2020 election. Going from 8,600 to zero, under the deal, however, is based on metrics. Indications are that a secret annex to the deal makes this very vague, allowing the US to withdraw from the rest of the pullout at will.
Still, with uncertainty ongoing, the fact that the US is moving forward with the pullout as planned, indications are that the US is at the very least moving to continue its existing position, and isn’t immediately rethinking things.
Ok, good. Where are they going ?
If Esper has his way:
“I would like to do that because what I want to do is reallocate forces to” the Asia-Pacific region, he said at the Ronald Reagan National Defense Forum in December. He said he wants to do the same thing in the Mideast, Africa and Europe.
“All of these places where I can free up troops where I could either bring them home to allow them to rest and refit and retrain or/and then reallocate them (to the Asia-Pacific region) to compete with the Chinese, to reassure our allies, to conduct exercises and training,” he said.
Esper isn’t the Commander-In-Chief, wars, DJT is .. So, if DJT starts withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan (which he says will all be gone in 9.5 months), they’ll be coming back home. Esper knows he can be fired, should he disobey his boss’s orders.
Remember, it happened to Mattis a short while ago, and it can happen to Esper.
For all trumps lamentations about forever wars, deployment numbers continue to rise. He “removes troops” like he shuffles his bookkeeping. That 9.5 months you mention, is during the next term. He is not taking responsibility to send anyone home, other than normal rotation. These are the facts on the ground.
Esper didn’t say DJT wasn’t going to withdraw the troops, he was talking about where they would go after they left. And I didn’t hear DJT refute anything Esper said.
I’m guessing they will be brought home to put down the food riots once the economy goes to hell and everyone loses their jobs like in the 1930s. The Fed can only keep the balloon filled for so long…
“The Fed can only keep the balloon filled for so long…”
And now Trump’s Federal Reserve is doubling down, cutting interest rates possibly into the negative range. In doing so, presumably to shore up his reelection, he is guaranteeing that when the bust is finally triggered, it could be worse than anything in the country’s history.
To the next war they will be provoking/starting/encouraging, etc.
Thank God!
If the chess pieces are simply moved on the board, there is no ultimate benefit in reducing lost treasure or lost lives. Let’s see if they actually come home.
But how many Xe employees or other taxpayer-funded mercenaries will still be left behind to cause trouble, keep our puppet in line, and protect the CIA’s opium poppy fields?? That is a truth we will NEVER be allowed to know.
Well, David S., you just about spilled the beans regarding Xe employees or other mercenaries being left behind to start trouble, keep DJT in line and protect the CIA’s opium poppy fields. Of course, the general public will never be allowed to know. That’s a given.
Wake me up after they are all gone.
Didn’t realize you needed more than a hundred years of beauty sleep.