According to a report from The Washington Post, President Biden will keep US forces in Afghanistan beyond the May 1st deadline that was set by the US-Taliban peace deal. Sources told the Post that Biden plans to complete the withdrawal by September 11th. The White House confirmed the report in comments to reporters by an unnamed administration official.
The Taliban has vowed to renew attacks on US and NATO forces if foreign troops remain in the country after May 1st, and it’s not clear if the Taliban agreed to the deadline extension. Since the US-Taliban deal was signed in February 2020, no US soldiers died in combat in Afghanistan.
A “person familiar with the deliberations” told the Post that Biden does not want to restart fighting with the Taliban. “If we break the May 1st deadline negotiated by the previous administration with no clear plan to exit, we will be back at war with the Taliban, and that was not something President Biden believed was in the national interest,” the person said, adding, “We’re going to zero troops by September.”
There are officially 2,500 US troops in Afghanistan, although some reports say the number is closer to 3,500. On top of the US presence, there are 7,000 other coalition troops in the country, mostly NATO forces.
The warring sides in Afghanistan have been reviewing new peace proposals that were put forward to jump-start negotiations as the deadline loomed. Since the US-backed Afghan government is entirely reliant on foreign aid, its collapse is expected after the US pulls out, which is used by the hawks as a justification for prolonging the war, but it serves as an example of what a failure the US intervention in Afghanistan has been.
According to the Post, the Biden administration will continue to keep providing aid to the Afghan government and its military, but it’s not clear how far that assistance will go.
If Biden does not live up to his promise, it will be an April Fool’s Joke planned months in advance.
Blinken being in the administration is not good.
will Amerikan contractor leave also?
The general rule is, when a government source says something the opposite is probably true. That’s certainly been true concerning Afghanistan for the last nineteen years, with one lying official after the other. This poor, backward mountainous country full of illiterate people on the other side of the planet has been a real moneymaker with the golden cause of fighting terror, fully financed with our money by the professional politicians who claim to be our “representatives.”
Thanks for Nothing
Benevolent invader of my land
How can I thank you for the helping hand?
Why, had you not come here with awe and shock,
Reducing my poor home to piles of rock,
I might have raised my children safe and sound,
But, thanks to you, I’ve laid them in the ground.
A wife I had, once too, but now no more.
She died one day while driving to the store.
Some nervous mercenaries that you hired
Screamed something at her once, then aimed and fired.
The bullet-riddled windshield told the tale:
That “freed” of life, our women need no veil.
Your generals have come so many times,
Yet never have to answer for their crimes.
Instead, promotion weighs them down with stars
But never, like enlisted men, the scars
Resulting from the bungling and sheer waste
Of thinking last but shooting first in haste.
On nine-eleven, two-thousand-and-one
You got a taste of what you’ve often done
To countries that had never caused you harm
Yet still, too late, you sounded the alarm
And whipped yourself into a lather thick
So you could hurt yourself with your own stick.
Three thousand on that fateful day you lost.
Six thousand more you’ve added to the cost
Since then, which only proves that there or here
You act the same: in folly, rage, and fear.
In time, you’ll go back home to where you’re from,
To fight among yourselves, the deaf and dumb.
Too bad for all the carnage that you’ve caused
Who never thought or for a minute paused
Before afflicting us with your disease:
A plague of bankrupt bullies, fascist fleas,
Who, both hands outward stretched to beg a loan,
Continue “helping” us to shrink and groan.
You talk to pat yourselves upon the back.
Your actions only scream of what you lack:
The insight and intelligence to see
How much you’ve harmed yourself as well as me.
But just the same I’ll thank you to go home
Before you earn the fate that toppled Rome.
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2009
A very, very moving and true poem. Thanks a million for publishing it.
Ditto.
Is this Biden’s idea of an inside joke based on 9/11? The US isn’t leaving and neither is the CIA and private contractors.
My assessment is the US has increased arms shipments into Afghanistan to make one final push.
https://sputniknews.com/world/202104131082621935-taliban-says-will-not-take-part-in-any-conference-until-foreign-forces-withdraw-from-afghanistan/
So far, this is an unsourced leak. Let’s be wary, as I’m sure the Taliban will be, if not enraged that the US Government is staying past their agreed date. Still, if it means the USG will soon be gone, I’m sure the Taliban would see that as a win and keep quiet until then.
9/11, really?
Is this supposed to be significant?
Make no mistake, this is a delay, and that is their goal.
Presumably the 9/11 deadline was set so that when it gets pushed back too, and the Taliban conduct some kind of attack, we can be told that it’s just like 9/11 all over again and they HATE US FOR OUR FREEDUMB.
If we are not there,then there is no America to hate. It is like the bank robber who is asked why he robs banks. The answer: that is where the money is.
Well, out troops are attacked because, they are there.
Did he cross his heart and hope to die??