When President Obama announced his massive December 2009 escalation of the Afghan War, it was sold to the American public with a pledge that it would be a short-term surge and would usher in the beginning of an exit from the country in July 2011.
The date was abandoned within hours of its announcement, though officials occasionally still referenced it now and again through the summer. The date is officially dead though, and the new, likewise largely fictional “drawdown” date for Afghanistan is 2014.
“The devastating truth is that US forces will be fighting in Afghanistan for at least four more years,” noted Council on Foreign Relations Presient Emeritus Leslie Gelb. The emphasis on this comment should be the “at least.”
Because while the US kept up the pretense of the 2011 date for longer than most, many NATO nations had already been trumpeting the 2014 date, and that date too has come under attack from a number of officials who expect the war to last well into the next decade.
But so long as officials insist on couching the drawdown date in terms of an elusive military victory, from 2011 to 2014 to 2020 these dates are little more than hopeful guesses from officials who refuse to notice that the war has already been lost. If one ties the withdrawal to the admission that the war is not successful from elected officials, it could well last forever.
Jason, America is still in Germany and Japan and the war finished in 1945. Any talk about it leaving Afghanistan or Iraq is just that: talk!
Jason, America is trying to build an Empire. It started with Vietnam and had its butt kicked. You'd have thought it would've got the message that empire-building wasn't it strong suit. But no, it continued on and blunders its way around the world killing and destroying and incurring hatred.
Hopefully it will go bankrupt soon and return to its own shores and never again raise its head above the parapet.
http://www.dangerouscreation.com
I wonder how the number of years "until withdrawal" is determined by these people? Die roll? Pick a number out of a hat? The number of quarters they get into a beer cup in a row when they grab drinks after work?
Don't even bat an eye when I see stories about some wholly arbitrary number of years "until withdrawal" in our media anymore. I think they are standard psy-op story number 4 in their bag of tricks- which is to run "withdrawal" stories from Iraq and Afghanistan (with increasing frequency by the way) always years down the road. Hell- you can find a story almost word for word as this one- written in 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005 . . . . all of them kicking the can for "withdrawal" down the road another few years.
I literally don't believe anything our government says anymore (and our media just parrots what they say completely regardless of whether it is true or not.) Unemployment figures? Lies (and that's not just me but my financial fund managing friend who says even the financial community only feigns to believe gubmint stats to stoke the market up a few points.
Sea of lies. And we all float upon it. Americans are infused with lies to the point that we are not even discussing real issus in our elections but frauds- and put-up-job non issues.
Do Americans have any clue how our national dialogue sounds to just about everywhere else on the planet? We sound like deluded pathetic narcissistic braggarts- drunkards- living on some glory past that never existed while thinking our shit don't stink. It's like watching a train wreck.
Imagine what you would think of someone in your workplace who said ROUTINELY about himself that he was the "indispensable employee" or the "exceptional employee" or that the rest of the company just couldn't get along without his special god given uniquess and "number one-ness"? You would think him DERANGED.
And that is how this country is viewed- a pathetic and dangerous deranged weirdo with severe psychological problems.
2014 the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War! Classic timing!
Another US soldier reported killed in Helmand, the sixth US soldier to die in Helmand province in the first ten days of November. The 19th US soldier reported killed in Afghanistan in the first ten days of November. You can find daily casualty reports at the DOD website under News/Casualty reports following notification of next of kin.
sure thing boss, see you then.
The only date of withdrawal from Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, and other imperialists wars that anyone can trust will be the date of the total COLLAPSE of this damn ruling-elite's global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE, which hides behind the facade of its bought, bribed, and paid for TWO-Party 'Vichy' sham of democratic government — and the collapse and death-spiral of the equally 'Vichy' corporatist media that lie and play PR rope-a-dope with the American people!
Something tells me we wouldn't be there in 2014 if President Emeritus (love the title) Leslie Gelb was there shlepping an M16 and getting shot at by the locals.
Until the people who start and advocate these futile wars are made to pay a price, the rest of us will.