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Thread: Breaking: Trump considers withdrawal from Afghanistan

  1. #1

    Breaking: Trump considers withdrawal from Afghanistan

    Starting to wonder may be being a puppet of war profiteer lobbies is not among the many flaws of current POTUS in sharp contrast to last DGP.
    There is no military solution there, the sooner this is realized, the better for humanity.


    Trump considers withdrawal from Afghanistan

    By: Tara Copp and Shawn Snow   2 days ago

    WASHINGTON – The Pentagon is finding proposed troop increases for Afghanistan to be a much harder sell than expected for President Donald Trump.

    Instead of an additional 4,000 forces to add to America’s longest war, the Pentagon is having to prove to the White House why U.S. forces should remain there at all, U.S. and defense officials told Military Times.

    “They [the Afghans] are really scared to death that we are going to pull the plug on this [continued U.S. military presence],” a U.S. official told Military Times on the condition of anonymity.

    For weeks, Pentagon officials talked about adding 3,900 to 4,000 additional U.S. forces to Afghanistan to prevent further gains by Taliban and Islamic State forces. The additional forces would join the approximately 8,500 U.S. troops currently conducting counterterrorism missions and training Afghan security forces.

    But The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the White House is now instead considering the option of withdrawing U.S. forces completely and potentially supplanting that presence with private contractors.

    Officials confirmed the Journal’s story and said the consideration of a withdrawal is part of the reason why the administration’s plan for Afghanistan, known as the South Asia plan, has been delayed.

    “It’s a pretty shocking change of course,” said the first U.S. official who was familiar with the discussions.

    https://www.militarytimes.com/flashp...m-afghanistan/




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    Poll: Should US apologize for financing radicalization of Afghan children in 1980s?

    The 12-Year War: 73% of U.S. Casualties in Afghanistan Occured on Obama's Watch

    Iraq/Afghanistan wars disabled 624,000 US troops , Divorces up 42%, Foreclosures up 217%

    22 veterans commit suicide everyday

    Obama's Afghan war "escalation"


    http://images.huffingtonpost.com/201...-15droneC1.png

    "Every Time I Think About Those Kids It Gets Me Mad"







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  3. #2
    If it is true it is good, but I will believe it when I see it.
    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

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    If it is true it is good, but I will believe it when I see it.

    True that.
    He appears to be preparing to be "disruptor in chief" on this policy, days ahead will tell.

    Trump says he wants to listen to low-ranking soldiers instead of 'lousy' advice from generals for Afghan war strategy


    • Christopher Woody
    • Aug. 2, 2017


    President Donald Trump at the White House. AP Photo/Evan Vucci

    During a tense mid-July meeting with his national-security team, President Donald Trump dismissed the counsel of high-ranking military commanders, saying he leaned toward the advice of rank-and-file soldiers over that of his generals.
    According to an NBC News report, Trump singled out Defense Secretary James Mattis, a retired Marine general, saying he had given Mattis authority to make decisions about the war months prior but had seen little progress.
    Trump delegated authority to Mattis to set troop levels in Afghanistan in June, though the secretary would need White House permission to send more than 3,900 troops to the war-torn country.
    "We aren't winning," Trump said at the July 19 meeting, senior administration officials told NBC. "We are losing." (Mattis himself told the Senate Armed Services Committee the same in July.)
    One official told NBC that Trump's military advisers entered the meeting hoping he would agree to a strategy for the US's nearly 16-year-old war. But Trump's thinking appeared to have been influenced by another meeting he had with veterans from the war.
    "We've been there for now close to 17 years, and I want to find out why we’ve been there for 17 years, how it’s going, and what we should do in terms of additional ideas,” Trump said prior to the meeting with veterans. "I've heard plenty of ideas from a lot of people, but I want to hear it from the people on the ground."

    http://www.businessinsider.com/trump...han-war-2017-8

  5. #4
    Bring them home.

    But The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the White House is now instead considering the option of withdrawing U.S. forces completely and potentially supplanting that presence with private contractors.
    No. Bring them all home. Not another cent or drop of blood and treasure spent in the Graveyard of Empires.
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    It's a balance between appeasing his supporters, appeasing the deep state and reaching his own goals.
    ~Resident Badgiraffe




  6. #5
    Once military intervention ends/troops are withdrawn, it would be extremely improbable for any large scale private contractual force to stay in the conditions that would follow.
    Afghans will have to reconcile their internal differences on their own. Once Afghanistan stabilizez from deep wounds of freedom spreading of decades, perhaps US and China can do some constructive sharing of Afghan minerals with local populations in exchange for technology services.

  7. #6
    Well, now he's threatening the government's drug running income.

    He does this, and he's a dead man walking.

  8. #7
    Account Restricted. Admin to review account standing


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    As he starts to get more personnel in place, Trump is getting more and more radical each day.

  9. #8



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by sparebulb View Post
    I won't be fooled again.

    Yeah. No more talk just do it.
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    It's a balance between appeasing his supporters, appeasing the deep state and reaching his own goals.
    ~Resident Badgiraffe




  12. #10
    Is there anything Trump isn't considering?
    "The Patriarch"

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    Is there anything Trump isn't considering?
    A haircut.
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    It's a balance between appeasing his supporters, appeasing the deep state and reaching his own goals.
    ~Resident Badgiraffe




  14. #12
    Not holding my breath.

    So far Trump either flip flops or fails with any of his original plans.

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by William Tell View Post
    A haircut.
    That critter on his head needs a trim.
    "The Patriarch"

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Murray N Rothbard View Post
    Not holding my breath.

    So far Trump either flip flops or fails with any of his original plans.
    Hopefully he realizes ending wars would help his poor poll numbers.
    Quote Originally Posted by dannno View Post
    It's a balance between appeasing his supporters, appeasing the deep state and reaching his own goals.
    ~Resident Badgiraffe




  17. #15
    I hope he does it just to spite McCain. Not the best reason why, but I'll take it.

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by specsaregood View Post
    I hope he does it just to spite McCain. Not the best reason why, but I'll take it.
    Hopefully he considers spiting McCain on every decision.
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  20. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    Hopefully he considers spiting McCain on every decision.
    Spitting on McPain wouldn't be a bad idea either.
    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
    Quote Originally Posted by specsaregood View Post
    I hope he does it just to spite McCain. Not the best reason why, but I'll take it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    Hopefully he considers spiting McCain on every decision.
    There is a whole lotta hopin' goin' on.
    "The Patriarch"

  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    There is a whole lotta hopin' goin' on.
    well its kinda what brought us all here in the first place.

  23. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Origanalist View Post
    There is a whole lotta hopin' goin' on.
    Rebellions are built on hope.
    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

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by specsaregood View Post
    well its kinda what brought us all here in the first place.
    I would love to catch some of that again.
    "The Patriarch"

  25. #22
    great idea , anyone that thinks america is safer because we are there is not very smart .

  26. #23
    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump...ry?id=48022245

    From June:

    Trump gives Pentagon authority to determine troop levels in Afghanistan

    Defense Secretary James Mattis confirmed Wednesday that President Trump has granted him the authority to set troop levels in Afghanistan. The move means Mattis will decide whether to send 2,000 to 4,000 more American troops to Afghanistan as has been recommended by U.S. military commanders.

    “At noon yesterday, President Trump delegated to me the authority to manage troop numbers in Afghanistan,” Mattis told the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee in his opening statement.

    Mattis said the decision does not mean a change in troop numbers will happen right now, though he indicated he might have an idea of how many in a few weeks time.

    He indicated that additional U.S. troops could be directed towards specific tasks to help the Afghan military like more air power and more intelligence support.

    “The delegation of this authority, consistent with the authority President Trump granted me two months ago for Iraq and Syria does not, at this time, change the troop numbers for Afghanistan," Mattis told the committee.

    "Together in the interagency, we will define the way ahead and I will set the U.S. military commitment, consistent with the commander in chief strategic direction and the foreign policy as dictated by secretary of state Tillerson," said Mattis. "This ensures the department can facilitate our missions and nimbly align our commitment to the situation on the ground."

    In late April, Trump gave Mattis the authority to manage the U.S. troop levels in Iraq and Syria.

  27. #24
    Today: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...off-the-table/

    Full troop withdrawal off the table as Trump, aides debate options for Afghanistan


    Despite mounting frustrations with the course of the war, President Trump has backed away from an option to pull all remaining U.S. forces from Afghanistan, days after reports claimed the administration was seriously considering the move as part of its pending plan of action for the 16-year-old war.

    White House officials reportedly had been weighing plans to withdraw all 8,400 American service members from the war-torn country, effectively ending the mission. Some voices within the White House, reportedly led by chief strategist Steve Bannon, touted the withdrawal plan while other administration officials were coalescing around a strategy calling for more than 3,900 additional U.S. forces to be sent into Afghanistan.

    But the White House has all but abandoned any notion of a partial or complete withdrawal from the central Asian nation, dubbed the “zero option” by Obama administration strategists, with many inside the Pentagon privately noting that the idea was essentially dead on arrival among senior military leaders.

    Mr. Trump’s move to take full withdrawal off the table shows the cross-currents that have marked the debate. White House officials have found themselves mired in the effort to forge a new strategy and the right level of U.S. military commitment in a conflict where the Afghan government is struggling to regain the initiative from the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

    NBC News reported Wednesday on a top-level White House strategy meeting July 19 in which Mr. Trump complained bitterly about the course of the war and even suggested replacing Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. The meeting made no progress in reaching a consensus on a new Afghanistan strategy, which Mr. Trump ordered Defense Secretary James Mattis and the Pentagon to produce.



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    More rumors, we won't KNOW until Dump does something.
    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

  30. #26
    Trump is also "considering" a troop surge to Afghanistan.

    Wake me when he actually DOES something.
    There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
    -Major General Smedley Butler, USMC,
    Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Winner
    Author of, War is a Racket!

    It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours.
    - Diogenes of Sinope

  31. #27
    This "consideration" seems to be gathering bit more mass than usual stuff under consideration:


    Trump, frustrated by Afghan war, suggests firing US commander



    • The U.S. military was allowing Washington to lose the war in Afghanistan, President Trump recently complained
    • The president's doubts over U.S. strategy could lead to the firing of Army General John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan


    17 Hours Ago
    Reuters
    President Donald Trump's doubts about the war in Afghanistan has led to a delay in completing a new U.S. strategy in South Asia, skepticism that included a suggestion that the U.S. military commander in the region be fired, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
    During a July 19 meeting in the White House Situation Room, Trump demanded that his top national security aides provide more information on what one official called "the end-state" in a country that the United States has spent 16 years fighting against the Taliban with no end in sight.
    Omar Sobhani | Reuters
    An Afghan man reacts at the site of a blast in Kabul, Afghanistan May 31, 2017.

    The meeting grew stormy when Trump said Defense Secretary James Mattis and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford, a Marine general, should consider firing Army General John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, for not winning the war. "We aren't winning," he told them, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    In addition, once the meeting concluded, Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, got into what one official called "a shouting match" with White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster over the direction of U.S. policy.
    Some officials left the meeting "stunned" by the president's vehement complaints that the military was allowing the United States to lose the war. Mattis, McMaster and other top aides are putting together answers to Trump's questions in a way to try to get him to approve the strategy, the officials said.
    Another meeting of top aides is scheduled on Thursday. Although Trump earlier this year gave Mattis the authority to deploy U.S. military forces as he sees fit, in fact the defense secretary's plans to add around 4,000 more U.S. troops to the 8,400 currently deployed in Afghanistan are being caught up in the delay surrounding the strategy, the officials said.







    Related

    New U.S. commander in Afghanistan apologizes for Kunduz hospital attack
    Tuesday, March 22, 2016
    The new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan traveled to Kunduz in northern Afghanistan Tuesday to apologize to the people there for the deadly attack on a charity hospital in the city last year that killed 42 people and deprived thousands of medical care.
    Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr. met with family members of victims and staff of the hospital in Kunduz on Tuesday to express his condolences.
    The now-closed hospital, run by Medecins Sans Frontieres — also known as Doctors Without Borders — was attacked by an Air Force AC-130 gunship on Oct. 3.
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...nistan-apolog/



    Aug 1 2017
    Watchdog: Pentagon Should Declassify Report on Afghan Military Sex Abuse

    The U.S. government's Afghanistan watchdog has asked the Pentagon to declassify a report about alleged sexual abuse of children by members of the Afghan security forces.
    The request is noted in the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction's latest quarterly report, which also says that violence has increased by 21 percent since March 1 and that revenues produced by the country's opium crop doubled between 2015 and 2016, topping more than $3 billion.
    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...-abuse-n788296






    Father of Afghan robotics team captain confirmed dead in mosque bombing
    By Max Bearak August 3 at 12:20 PM
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...icide-bombing/



    August 2, 2017 / 5:55 AM / a day ago
    Afghan suicide bomber kills two U.S. soldiers in NATO convoy

    U.S. troops assess the damage to an armoured vehicle of NATO-led military coalition after a suicide attack in Kandahar province.Ahmad Nadeem

    KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A suicide bomb attack killed two American troops in Afghanistan on Wednesday as they were traveling in a convoy near the airport in the southern city of Kandahar, the U.S. military said, in a strike claimed by the Taliban insurgency.

    A local security official said the attacker drove an explosives-laden vehicle into the convoy. Photos of the site showed one partially destroyed armored vehicle, with the rear of the truck particularly badly damaged.
    The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in an online post by spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. He said the explosion destroyed two vehicles and killed 15 foreign soldiers, including two "high-ranking officers".

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-a...-idUSKBN1AI14S

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Well, now he's threatening the government's drug running income.

    It would be a major change if Trump managed to curtail this fiasco also that reached its peak during Obama's last year in office.
    Trump did seem to manage to sharply curtail ISIS racket that had also had similar trajectory and boomed during Obama years. To be fair, though Trump had called him "founding father of ISIS" but he did not label controversial Obama as "founding father of drug trade".



    Aug 1 2017, 12:00 am ET
    Watchdog: Pentagon Should Declassify Report on Afghan Military Sex Abuse
    The U.S. government's Afghanistan watchdog has asked the Pentagon to declassify a report about alleged sexual abuse of children by members of the Afghan security forces.
    And while the SIGAR report says that Afghanistan's domestic revenues are down nearly 25 percent over this time last year, the local narcotics trade is booming, now producing 80 percent of the world's opium. A UN opium-cultivation report cited by SIGAR found that the estimated value of opiates produced in Afghanistan nearly doubled last year, from $1.56 billion in 2015 to $3.02 billion in 2016. Despite the U.S. investment of $8.6 billion to counter Afghanistan's illegal drug economy, the report says figures for 2017 are expected to grow even more.

    Related: 12 Ways Your Tax Dollars Were Squandered in Afghanistan

    The SIGAR report provides insight into the enormous amount of money that has been spent on all facets of the war in Afghanistan over the past 15 years. From an extra $28 million spent because the U.S. chose a proprietary camouflage pattern for the Afghan uniforms, to nearly $8.6 million granted for producing an Afghan version of "Sesame Street," the report finds that the U.S. has now spent an estimated $714 billion on both war fighting and reconstruction there.



    Related
    Trump Calls New Hampshire a 'Drug-Infested Den,' Stoking Outrage
    NBCNews.com 4h ago

  33. #29
    ... just talk.

    Don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows

  34. #30
    President Trump, searching for a reason to keep the United States in Afghanistan after 16 years of war, has latched on to a prospect that tantalized previous administrations: Afghanistan’s vast mineral wealth, which his advisers and Afghan officials have told him could be profitably extracted by Western companies.Mr. Trump has discussed the country’s mineral deposits with President Ashraf Ghani, who promoted mining as an economic opportunity in one of their first conversations. Mr. Trump, who is deeply skeptical about sending more American troops to Afghanistan, has suggested that this could be one justification for the United States to stay engaged in the country.

    In 2010, American officials estimated that Afghanistan had untapped mineral deposits worth nearly $1 trillion, an estimate that was widely disputed at the time and has certainly fallen since, given the eroding price of commodities. But the $1 trillion figure is circulating again inside the White House, according to officials, who said it had caught the attention of Mr. Trump.

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