The Taliban warned on Friday that the group would start targeting foreign troops in Afghanistan if they remain in the country beyond the May 1st deadline set by the US-Taliban peace deal. The warning comes a day after President Biden said it would be “hard” to pull troops out by May 1st, signaling that he plans to stay.
The Taliban said in a statement that if foreign troops do not leave by the deadline, the group “will be compelled to defend its religion and homeland and continue its Jihad and armed struggle against foreign forces to liberate its country.”
Proponents of prolonging the almost 20-year-old war claim the Taliban has not lived up to its end of the agreement it signed with the Trump administration. But one aspect of the deal the Taliban has lived up to is its pledge not to attack US and other coalition forces. Since the deal was signed last February, no US troops have died in combat in Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) said the Biden administration is looking to cut a deal with the Taliban to extend the deadline. But it’s unlikely that the Taliban would agree to an extension.
While Biden said it would be “hard” to leave by May 1st, he did say that he wants to pull out troops soon and that he “can’t picture” that US soldiers will be in Afghanistan next year. But if Biden stays past May 1st against the will of the Taliban, it would mean an escalation of the war.
The Pentagon says it has 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, although recent reports said the number is closer to 3,500. Still, if the Taliban launches a major offensive, the Pentagon would likely request more troops.
As the deadline is approaching, there are many forces at work trying to get Biden to stay. A report from The New York Times published on Friday said US intelligence agencies told Biden that if he leaves Afghanistan without negotiating a power-sharing deal between the Taliban and the US-backed government, that the country would fall largely under the control of the Taliban within two to three years.
But according to recent numbers, the Taliban already controls most of the country. The Taliban controls 52 percent of the territory in Afghanistan, and 48 percent is under government-control. The numbers show what a failure the US’s war has been and that Washington has nothing to show for the trillions it has sunk into the effort.
Oh right, the cast of dummies in the rules-based Washington Failure, Inc. would negotiate a power-sharing deal between the increasingly powerful Taliban and the weak US-backed government, or rather the unsuccessful pretend so-called government, something that has never been done anywhere before . .I’ve got this bridge. . .
https://www.indianpunchline.com/china-resents-us-presence-in-afghanistan/
China resents US presence in Afghanistan.
Echoed by indigenous populations in Syria, Iraq, Germany, Japan and elsewhere.
Afghanistan has the appearance of veering toward balkanization. We may see a WW II Berlin-era strategic plan of troops and business interests from Russia, China, Pakistan, India, and Iran lay claim to Afghan lands. The US is resolution-incapable.
History doesn’t provide a cure, but one can recognize a disturbing rhyme and consistency.
Of course they will.
They agreed to stop attacks if we would leave. We agreed to leave. They stopped for the last year.
Now, if we don’t leave, of course they will resume the attacks that got our promise to leave.
We could never have expected anything else. Perhaps it was all in bad faith, just a tactic. The US leadership IS that dishonest, just see Iran and Palestine, Venezuela and Colombia, and so many more.
Never forget those beautiful Poppy fields. Why else do you think the US troops were there in the first place?
. A WeChat account managed by Beijing Dailypublished an article.
Article reads—
Wilkerson served in the US Pacific Command in South Korea, Japan and Hawaii. After retiring from US army service in 1997, Wilkerson served then secretary of state Colin Powell’s chief of staff in 2002-05 and helped to sell the Iraq war in 2003. He also took part in the US invasion of Afghanistan.
A recording of Wilkerson’s speech in 2018 showed him explaining the US military’s decision to fight a war in Afghanistan:
Two of the objectives for the US troops were to have a presence in Afghanistan to disrupt China’s Belt and Road Initiative
and to leap on and stabilise Pakistan’s nuclear stockpile if necessary, according to Wilkerson.
“And the third reason we are there is because there are 20 million Uygurs and they don’t like Han Chinese in Xinjiang Province in western China.
“And if the CIA has to mount an operation using those Uygurs, as [Turkish President] Erdogan has done in Turkey against Assad … Well, the CIA would want to destabilise China, and that would be the best way to do it.’’
“I’m not saying it’s going on now … but it is a possibility,” Wilkerson said in the video, adding that the US military had “decided that for these strategic reasons, which are well thought out, that we are going to be in Afghanistan for the next half-century.” https://archive.ph/lMHQy#selection-3619.0-3619.21
Trump stood up to The Military War Industrial Complex, one of the reasons, he lost. Though President but still Joe Biden will have to obey His Military Generals, War Industrial Complex etc., etc., and extend stay in Afghanistan, they are only interested in Big Profits from escalations and don’t care how many more ordinary, poor American & Allied Soldiers will be Sacrificed there.
“Trump stood up to The Military War Industrial Complex”
And I bet the 740 billion “defense” budget and the new Space Force really pissed them off.
Wilkerson has proven he don’t know s***. The US, including the Congress, had a “new silk road” strategy for decades prior to BRI. Then Hillary championed it. The goal was to take US control of former Soviet countries in Central Asia, the -Stans. The US had a significant economic presence in Kazakhstan, the largest, up at the top near Russia. USAID, Chamber of Commerce, training people, moving jobs out of the US, the whole bit. Afghanistan is the keystone to Central Asia, the entry point to the -Stans. (But these ‘deep thinkers’ seemed oblivious to the fact that Afghanistan is not on any ocean so any silk road would have to access Central Asia via either Pakistan or Iran, the first being difficult in view of China interests and the latter impossible.) The point is that it’s all about money and not stabilizing anything. Wilkerson has only a military mind.
“It’s going to be hard to meet the May 1 deadline,” Biden said at a news conference Thursday, citing the logistics of withdrawing with just a little more than a month until the deadline. “If we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way.”
Oh right, pulling out three thousand troops is a mighty chore. But Austin has his job because he pulled out 150,000 from Iraq.
The window she is broken and the rain is comin’ in
If someone doesn’t fix it I’ll be soaking to my skin
But if we wait a day or two the rain may go away
And we don’t need a window on such a sunny day
Mañana, mañana, mañana is soon enough for me