On Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured that even though US troops are leaving Afghanistan, the US is not “withdrawing” or “disengaging” from the country.
“But we’ve also been clear that even as our forces are drawing down and pulling out of Afghanistan, we are not withdrawing, we are not disengaging,” Blinken said at a joint press conference with UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in London.
“We intend to be very active diplomatically in terms of trying to advance negotiations and a political settlement between the Government of Afghanistan, the Taliban, and other key parties,” he said.
Blinken also said that the US will continue to support the Afghan military, something Pentagon officials have been stressing. “We intend to sustain our assistance to Afghanistan, including development, economic, humanitarian; our support for Afghanistan’s security forces as well,” Blinken said.
To continue supporting the Afghan military, the US will likely need to keep paying for contractors who maintain their equipment. Last week, the Pentagon said it was reviewing the “contractual needs” of the Afghan military.
The US is also hoping to maintain the ability to bomb Afghanistan after it pulls troops out. Pentagon officials are eyeing repositioning forces in neighboring Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, although the US currently has no basing agreements with these countries.
There’s a chance that the US tries to keep a small troops presence under the guise of protecting its diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, and there will undoubtedly be some sort of CIA presence in the country.
On Tuesday, US Central Command said the US has completed about two to six percent of the withdrawal process. President Biden set September 11th as the deadline to get troops out, but a report from Tolo News said the US is in talks with the Taliban to get out by July.
The Pentagon wanted the extra 4 months to transition to private contractors, drone warfare and other means to continue the war. Congress will continue to fund this effort. The msm will ignore this and claim Biden ended the war.
So it goes. “We are NOT withdrawing or disengaging” We intend to be very active diplomatically in terms of trying to advance negotiations and a political settlement between the Government of Afghanistan, the Taliban, and other key parties”. If I was the Taliban, on the first day the invadersI were gone, or their numbers were few, I would start to work on doing what is necessary to make aNY re-invasion VERY difficult and costly.
I’m reassured by Blinken’s “definite maybes.”
As for the JCPOA, every time Iran publicly reveals what’s been discussed and agreed to, the US side comes out with a denial.
It strikes me that Iran is being open about these discussions. The US appears disinterested in offending the Zionist lobby or Israel.
I believe Iran will end these negotiations in a few days.
I’m thinking this comment belonged elsewhere. Still correct though.
So the total savings to us taxpayers will be combat pay for 2,500 troops.
But contractors are paid more than soldiers, so the actual taxpayer bill will only increase.
I didn’t hear anything about increasing the number of contractors already there so I was only assuming the price tag for them will remain the same.
Good point, but one other “plus” to outsourcing wars to mercenaries is that things like personnel deployments and numbers are easier to keep secret.
Well, building new bases will cost. New agreements to build bases in neighboring countries will cost. Since Biden is not pushing to close the AUMF, we can assume the policy will remain, meaning, whatever the 2500 troops are doing, will have to be replaced with mercenaries. (Can we please retire “contractors”. Mercenaries is what they are.)
I stand corrected. There will be no savings. In fact, keeping them there will actually save money. At least until the real war starts up again which was going to happen eventually anyway.
As always, we will have to see what actually happens after the retreat. Words from the State Dept are just that, they don’t mean anything.
How come the Sec of State is speaking for the lead appointee for military forces, the Sec of Offense?
Or the commander in chief.
Proving again, that elected people don’t actually make policy.
We are told we are in Afghanistan to stop the bad guys from having a place to organize and plot against the USA. I always thought there was a high probability that 9/11 happened as a payback for the almost one hundred missiles Climton fired into Afghanistan during his impeachment, which I also thought was a warning to those who were impeaching him that he would start a war if they continued. Of course it’s only a theory.
And if my theory is true it means we brought 9/11 on ourselves, and all the subsequent killing is blood on our hands.
It sounds like the whole thing is a stage show…Just like Iraq… pulling troops and then come back…!!!
The US has no logistics line access to Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, or Uzbekistan.
Air operations are very demanding of logistic support. The strike planes and pilots can just fly in, but the fuel, bombs, tires, everything, and guys to do the work, must come in by land.
Drones are even more dependent on ground support.
This idea makes no practical sense.
“The strike planes and pilots can just fly in, but the fuel, bombs, tires, everything, and guys to do the work, must come in by land.”
In some alternate universe, perhaps. In this one, the US military has the C-5M Super Galaxy, the C-17 Globemaster III, and the C-130J Super Hercules.
While that is possible, it is a fantastically expensive way to do it, and even so the practical tonnage limits operations to a fairly low level.
US ambitions are for something much more than that low level, and without committing a very large fraction of its total airlift capacity to do it over a long term.
Recall the no fly zones over Iraq. That was a perfectly practical thing to do, at first, as a few fighters flying overhead. Then the size of the commitment grew from a few fighters to continuous AWACS (with only a few planes existing) and regular recon and strikes. As it stretched over a decade, it ate up the airframe life of the US force, and dominated pilot rotations.
I do recall that we did it anyway. Fools had our ANG fighters coming apart in the air, airframes breaking in the middle in flight.