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Thread: Afghanistan: U.S. Has Been Reducing Presence Over Past Year, Commander Says

  1. #1

    Thumbs up Afghanistan: U.S. Has Been Reducing Presence Over Past Year, Commander Says

    The United States has pulled out 2,000 troops from Afghanistan over the past year, leaving just over 12,000 in the country, according to the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, The Washington Post reported Oct. 21.

    More at: https://worldview.stratfor.com/situa...commander-says
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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  3. #2
    The Count and Zippy won't like to hear this...

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Warlord View Post
    The Count and Zippy won't like to hear this...
    My heart bleeds.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    The United States has pulled out 2,000 troops from Afghanistan over the past year, leaving just over 12,000 in the country, according to the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, The Washington Post reported Oct. 21.

    More at: https://worldview.stratfor.com/situa...commander-says
    Trump's Afghan surge was 4000 soldiers. Subtract 2000 and you're still +2000 from when Trump took office.

    That's also 3000 more than he said would be there. You know, the last time you celebrated his troop numbers.

    *womp womp*
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  6. #5
    This is positive development if 2000 of his 5000 surge already out of there despite MAGA abruptly cancelling peace deal couple of weeks ago.

    Hopefully Iran war driven neocons won't try to derail this again, lately surprising reports about sudden surge of ISIS and bombings violence there.
    MAGA leadership should be raising question with experts, who is the founding father of this sudden birth or rebirth of ISIS there?

    CENTCOM chief warns 'very worrisome' ISIS presence in Afghanistan
    June 14, 2019
    A senior U.S. general says that ISIS remains a "very worrisome" presence in Afghanistan, but it is unlikely to mount an attack on the U.S. homeland because it is under strong military pressure.



    ET Bureau's irresponsible reporting on US military 'promoting ISIS in Afghanistan'


    Return of ISIS: Taliban fight ‘join ISIS in droves’ - ‘US is concerned’

    ISIS is once again on the rise, with the terror group now boasting as many as 14,000 fighters in Afghanistan alone.

    By Emily Ferguson
    Tue, Sep 17, 2019

    ISIS 'developing' with new caliphate claims expert

    The Afghan branch of ISIS, known as Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K), is gaining ground as Taliban hardliners angry about peace negotiations with the US have “joined ISIS in droves”, according to experts. IS-K, formed in 2014 and known for its ruthless violence and gory propaganda videos on social media, is believed to be responsible for a surge in violence of ISIS violence this year. The attacks have raised fears of an ISIS resurgence even though the group was defeated in its Iraqi and Syrian heartlands earlier this year.

    Related articles
    ISIS fighter who claimed UK benefits while fighting in Syria is caught

    The Financial Times reported the expansion of the ISIS affiliate across Afghanistan has led to growing concern the group will create a haven for terrorists to organise violence abroad, recreating the conditions that allowed al-Qaeda to organise the 9/11 attacks on the US.

    Afghanistan is seen as an important region to recuperate and plan their next phase of operations.

    Jonathan Schroden, a military analyst at research organisation CNA, said: “The US is most concerned about IS-K as potentially the next big thing inside ISIS.”
    Another expert said the ISIS affiliate is growing steadily in size, as new recruits are joining IS-K from across the Middle East.


    ISIS is one again on the rise with as many as 14,000 fighters in Afghanistan (Image: NC)

    Antonio Giustozzi, war historian and author of The Taliban at War, said: “The ISIS caliphate is gone but it reorganised in Afghanistan after a period of disruption.

    US military allegedly promoting ISIS in Afghanistan

    There are allegations that weapons are often transferred to the territory of Afghanistan by helicopters without identifying insignia.

    ET Bureau
    Apr 22, 2019

    The US military is allegedly allowing members of the ISIS, which have suffered serious defeats in Syria and neighboring Iraq, to infiltrate Afghanistan even as US is engaged with peace talks with Taliban for sake of stability in the landlocked country.

    There are allegations that weapons are often transferred to the territory of Afghanistan by helicopters without identifying insignia. With the US and NATO fully controlling the skies over Afghanistan, there is every reason to believe they had a hand in that, or at least, did not hamper these flights, sources alleged.

    USA and Brussels, however, deny any such role. USA said that the Islamic State terror group is losing its grip on parts of Afghanistan, slowly succumbing to pressure from U.S. and Afghan forces

    Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai had once told al-Jazeera television news network that the US is colluding with Daesh in Afghanistan, and allowing the Takfiris to flourish in his conflict-stricken country.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by enhanced_deficit View Post
    This is positive development if 2000 of his 5000 surge already out of there despite MAGA abruptly cancelling peace deal couple of weeks ago.
    Yeah, super great news. Like when he cuts the budget 1% after increasing it 5%.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    Trump's Afghan surge was 4000 soldiers. Subtract 2000 and you're still +2000 from when Trump took office.

    That's also 3000 more than he said would be there. You know, the last time you celebrated his troop numbers.

    *womp womp*
    I told you he had started to remove troops and you called me a liar.

    Trump had been following the advice of Mathis and others when he increased the numbers but now he has turned in the other direction and is going to bring the troops home.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    I told you he had started to remove troops and you called me a liar.
    You have been saying that he has been removing troops for quite some time.

    You said this only one month ago:

    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Trump already withdrew 7,000 so there is no connection here except that you are hoping that people won't notice that the headline is old and will think Trump is sending more troops instead of withdrawing.

    By your numbers, Trump has now withdrawn 10,000 troops from Afghanistan and yet there are still 12,000 there. Do you believe that to be the truth?
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.



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  11. #9
    If only Trump hadn't decreed in 2017 that troop levels in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria are secret and will not be reported to the American public. Not like we have any business knowing that information anyway.


    Oh well, I'm sure he did that because he's bringing the numbers way down. That makes sense, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  12. #10
    Pulled like 'Syria withdrawal' (moved from Syria to Iraq)?

    Were the fraction of his surge that came out of Afghanistan moved to Israel/Saudi mideast region as part of 14,000 troops surge in mideast in 2019 or those returned home?

    US added 14,000 troops to mideast from May-Oct 2019.



    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post

    Trump had been following the advice of Mathis and others when he increased the numbers but now he has turned in the other direction and is going to bring the troops home.
    Wasn't that the whole point of appointing Pompeo, Bolton and Mattis to follow their advice?

    Exercise caution though still in your anti-globalism optimism, Ivanka on whose advice he reportedly bombed Syria is still his senior advisor. His pro Iran bloackade/Iran war top donor, who happens to be Israeli military IDF member, is also still there. Global interventions board games are all connected.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    You have been saying that he has been removing troops for quite some time.
    And he was:

    The United States has pulled out 2,000 troops from Afghanistan over the past year
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    You said this only one month ago:




    By your numbers, Trump has now withdrawn 10,000 troops from Afghanistan and yet there are still 12,000 there. Do you believe that to be the truth?
    I was incorrect about that number because I hadn't seen the new that the 7,000 number had been changed, we now know that there are about 12,000 there.

    More will continue to leave, the tide has turned.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    I was incorrect about that number because I hadn't seen the new that the 7,000 number had been changed, we now know that there are about 12,000.
    I'm glad that you accept the current number of 12,000. That makes things a lot easier. If 2000 have left and there are 12,000 remaining, then Trump nearly doubled the number of soldiers in Afghanistan from 8,300 in 2017 up until whenever they started reducing.

    So it's not +4000 -2000, it's +6000 -2000.

    Oh, and that extra 2000 soldiers that he sent... above what he said he was going to send... he never told us about that. Huh. Funny, that... he tells us about the reductions (even the false withdrawals that never happen) but never the increases. What would you call that? Lies, maybe?



    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    More will continue to leave, the tide has turned.
    Oh yeah, and he's solving the deficit and debt too.
    Last edited by TheCount; 10-21-2019 at 07:52 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  15. #13
    None of us are perfect, Count. However the direction of travel is encouraging.

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Warlord View Post
    None of us are perfect, Count. However the direction of travel is encouraging.
    The direction is still upward.

    I'm not giving him credit for reducing his own increase. Not for his budget and not for his troop levels.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    I'm glad that you accept the current number of 12,000. That makes things a lot easier. If 2000 have left and there are 12,000 remaining, then Trump nearly doubled the number of soldiers in Afghanistan from 8,300 in 2017 up until whenever they started reducing.

    So it's not +4000 -2000, it's +6000 -2000.

    Oh, and that extra 2000 soldiers that he sent... above what he said he was going to send... he never told us about that. Huh. Funny, that... he tells us about the reductions (even the false withdrawals that never happen) but never the increases. What would you call that? Lies, maybe?
    Where did you get 2,000 extra he sent?
    Who says you have the right number for how many were there when he took over?

    The tide has turned, we are going to bring the boys back home.





    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    Oh yeah, and he's solving the deficit and debt too.
    Congress has been in the way of that.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Where did you get 2,000 extra he sent?
    It's called math. Your computer has a built-in calculator if you require assistance with it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Who says you have the right number for how many were there when he took over?
    His own administration reported the numbers.


    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    The tide has turned, we are going to bring the boys back home.
    I guess Iraq is their home?



    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Congress has been in the way of that.
    Yet another lie.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.



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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    It's called math. Your computer has a built-in calculator if you require assistance with it.
    Math is only as good as the inputs.


    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    All of the numbers you are using come from his administration, you are picking which you want to believe and which you want to disbelieve.
    Q1 FY2017
    9,200


    Q3 FY2017
    8,300


    5000 troops slated for new Afghan surge

    8,300+5700=14,000

    It looks about right to me even if we pick the numbers you want to trust.
    Oh, that's right, you claimed it was only 4,000 to try and make Trump look bad.

    You also ignore the first 1,000 or so he took out in 2017.






    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    I guess Iraq is their home?
    It's a stop on the way.





    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    Yet another lie.
    LOL
    Who do you think passes the budget?
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  21. #18
    How many private contractor mercs are taxpayers paying for now instead?

    https://www.militarytimes.com/news/y...d-afghanistan/

    Quote Originally Posted by good article
    In 2016, one in four U.S. personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan was a private contractor. This means that the war is already being outsourced, yet scholars, the media and the general public know almost nothing about it.

    Because contractors operate in the shadows, without effective public oversight, they allow policymakers to have their cake and eat it too – by appearing to withdraw, while keeping proxy forces in theater.
    ....................
    It’s hard to get data about private military contractors, mainly because of the proprietary business secrets. Despite the fact that those companies act as proxies of the state, they are not legally obligated to share information with the public on their actions, organization or labor force.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing."-Ron Paul

    "We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorption of individuality by the symbolic unit of COLLECTIVISM. They have never yet and they never will have the sense to reflect that this hobby-horse is a manifest violation of the most important law of nature, which has established from the very creation of the world one unit unlike another and precisely for the purpose of instituting individuality."- A Quote From Some Old Book

  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Math is only as good as the inputs.
    Who's lying, then? The administration? al-Khwarizmi? You?


    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    All of the numbers you are using come from his administration, you are picking which you want to believe and which you want to disbelieve.

    It looks about right to me even if we pick the numbers you want to trust.
    Oh, that's right, you claimed it was only 4,000 to try and make Trump look bad.
    That would be because 4,000 is the number that the American people were told.

    it will be about 4,000 more than the 8,500 U.S. service members currently in the region.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...9f5_story.html

    The Pentagon will send almost 4,000 additional American forces to Afghanistan
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...administration

    Trump is expected to deploy about 4,000 more troops to Afghanistan and try to tighten expectations on its government and that of neighboring Pakistan, senior U.S. officials told NPR ahead of the speech.
    https://www.npr.org/2017/08/21/54504...to-afghanistan

    Trump to send 4,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan
    https://www.chicagotribune.com/natio...615-story.html


    Even if you were right, 5700 is not a number encompassed by "up to 5000"

    Who's lying? You or the administration?


    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    You also ignore the first 1,000 or so he took out in 2017.
    That's not exactly great for your argument, given that he immediately replaced them at 5x the quantity.

    Why would he do such a thing if he wanted to get out and if, in his mind, we don't care about it and it has nothing to do with us?


    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    It's a stop on the way.
    So is Turkey.


    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    LOL
    Who do you think passes the budget?
    LOL yourself.

    If it's Congress's fault, why are the White House budgets higher and higher each year even before they go to Congress?


    If it's Congress's fault, why does your Orange God reliably sign them each year, despite your very loudest squealing?
    Last edited by TheCount; 10-22-2019 at 05:31 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Pinochet is the model
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Liberty preserving authoritarianism.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Enforced internal open borders was one of the worst elements of the Constitution.

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    May 8, 2017
    Trump sinking America deeper into Afghan quagmire
    By Ed Straker
    President Trump is planning to send up to 5,000 additional American soldiers into Afghanistan to complement the 10,000 already there.
    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog..._quagmire.html
    Did Trump send more or less than 4,000?
    Nobody seems to agree about the numbers at all.
    Is 14,000 accurate for the beginning of this year before Trump started to withdraw? Or did they round up to get that?

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    Even if you were right, 5700 is not a number encompassed by "up to 5000"

    Who's lying? You or the administration?
    You are quibbling about rounding errors related to uncertain numbers.



    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    That's not exactly great for your argument, given that he immediately replaced them at 5x the quantity.

    Why would he do such a thing if he wanted to get out and if, in his mind, we don't care about it and it has nothing to do with us?
    It reduces the amount he increased the total since taking office which is bad for your argument.
    He took advice from his advisors and made deals with political allies to stay in power but now he is rejecting the advice and starting to bring the troops home, no amount of spin from you can change that.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    So is Turkey.
    Turkey is uncooperative lately.
    And Trump was probably counting on this:

    U.S. forces that crossed into Iraq as part of a pull-out from Syria do not have permission to stay and can only be there in transit, the Iraqi military said on Tuesday.

    U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said, however, that Washington aimed eventually to bring the troops withdrawing from Syria back to the United States.

    “The aim isn’t to stay in Iraq interminably, the aim is to pull our soldiers out and eventually get them back home,” Esper said at the Prince Sultan Air Base near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
    Esper said the details had not yet been worked out on how long the U.S. troops would stay in Iraq and he would be having discussions with his Iraqi counterpart on Wednesday.

    More at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-s...-idUSKBN1X10RE

    Turkey might have let them stay but Iraq has been making noises about telling us to leave for a long time and Trump knew that.
    They will now be coming home much faster than if they went to Turkey. (if Turkey let them in, Turkey would have either blocked them or let them stay)


    Quote Originally Posted by TheCount View Post
    LOL yourself.

    If it's Congress's fault, why are the White House budgets higher and higher each year even before they go to Congress?


    If it's Congress's fault, why does your Orange God reliably sign them each year, despite your very loudest squealing?
    Trump knows what has to be in them to pass, he doesn't just take a wild guess.
    And he needs them to pass so that he has money to enact his agenda and not be crucified in the media and by the RINOs for failing to govern functionaly, he did do the longest shutdown in history for awhile though.

    You can quibble about his tactics if you want but if he did send a budget with drastic cuts and then veto what Congress sent back then Congress would pass their own budget over his veto without any of his agenda included and the deficit would still skyrocket.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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