Speaking today in Kabul, US Ambassador Ryan Crocker sought to downplay the seriousness of NATO’s supposed 2014 withdrawal date from Afghanistan, saying the date was far from agreed upon and that the US would likely be staying well beyond that.
The comments weren’t just idle speculation, as Crocker had just come from the Loya Jirga meeting of Afghanistan tribal leaders, at which Afghan President Hamid Karzai is attempting to secure support for continuing the US occupation through at least 2024.
Karzai is expected to secure such support with a claim that the US will end night raids in return, though the Pentagon has already indicated that they are unlikely to actually follow through with that.
In addition to Karzai, support is likely to come out of the opposition, with former Interior Minister Mohammad Atmar saying that Afghanistan would decay into “civil war” without the US occupation, and see the government forces fighting the Taliban in a protracted battle for control over the country.
Which inevitably raises the question “how would we know the difference?” It is likely moot however, as Crocker’s comments are just the latest in a long line of US official comments, though rarely directed at the American public, that point to the war being essentially open-ended.
Two more US Army soldiers died in an IED attack in Kandahar on Wednesday, November 16, 2011. Six US soldiers have been killed in Kandahar by IED attacks in the last eight days.
Note: this post is meant to point out that the US is loosing the battle in Kandahar, the province where success in the Obama surge was to be measured. This post is not, as an angry counter post appeared to suggest earlier this week, that reporting US combat deaths promotes the soldiers and the Afghan war.
No media is reporting these numerous combat deaths. There is a near total blackout of the war in the main stream press and it is my firm belief that it is a deliberate tactic of the establishment to keep the public ignorant of the failure of US military operations in Afghanistan.
On further investigation of notes the first US soldier to be killed last Wednesday November, 9th in Kandahar died from small arms fire.
2014? What happened to 2024? Aaaaah, phuck! Who gives a crap? It's not as if the empire is going to be around on either year.
US Army soldier dies from motor fire in Khost province. The tenth combat death for US forces in /afghanistan so far in November, 2011.