Come on. Fess up. Which one of you actually believed them when told we’d pull out entirely?
America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The agreement would allow not only military trainers to stay to build up the Afghan army and police, but also American special forces soldiers and air power to remain.
The prospect of such a deal has already been met with anger among Afghanistan’s neighbours including, publicly, Iran and, privately, Pakistan. It also risks being rejected by the Taliban and derailing any attempt to coax them to the negotiating table, according to one senior member of Hamid Karzai’s peace council. A withdrawal of American troops has already begun following an agreement to hand over security for the country to Kabul by the end of 2014.
But Afghans wary of being abandoned are keen to lock America into a longer partnership after the deadline. Many analysts also believe the American military would like to retain a presence close to Pakistan, Iran and China.
who HERE understands that the USA has never left ANY of its Areas, that it has fought a War..
We still have military personnel in Germany, many of the Pacific islands, Korea, Vietnam, and EVEN CUBA..
Where’s the money coming from to pay for this?
Yes, it’s all about the Oil. Not in Afghanistan, but next door in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. China is already tapping Kazakhstan, but the US and Europe want the rest of the oil to head West. Now all they have to do is find a route through Iran … hmmm.
#3
I think it is more about having a jump off point into Pakistan, in case that country fractures and some nukes fall into the hands of fundamentalist officers.
Not with my money
They can go fuck themselves
The US has to have a presence there when the oil runs out.
This is no different than the military colonization of Europe and the S. Pacific after WWII. The military industrial complex sees Iraq and the ‘Stan as an investment and that investment needs to be protected.
I don’t want or think we should be there and I’m an active duty US Army Soldier.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qPl0leypC-M
We are not still in Vietnam. The last American armed forces exited that country April 30, 1975.
#10 – yes but you lost that one.
The troops that do leave Afghanistan will be returning to their bases in …. Germany ….
So when you win expect to stay for at least another 65years
We won’t leave until there’s a government capable of keeping al Queda-type groups from plotting attacks on America.
Remember 9/11 anyone?
Thirty degrees left. Nip the problem in the bud.
What on earth caused you to assume we would ever THINK of leaving Iraq? There you go again (he said Reaganesquely), jumping to conclusions in your premise.
I might be a bit naive but I don’t think Obama was “pro military occupation” as he took the Whitehouse. Neither am I, but I wonder what those daily briefings about area threats and geo political entanglements would do to me over time.
I would hope regardless of whatever sunshine is getting pumped up his ass that he/I/the occupant would come to even recognition that being ENERGY INDEPENDENT is a matter of national security.
For National Security, for Jobs, for cutting edge industrial development: we should be developing green energy asap. We aren’t.
We’d still have a loose nukes issue with Pakistan but having to develop a pipeline across Iran would go away. That ought to be worth a few green energy subsidy bucks in anyone’s accounting.
We aren’t. And won’t. The relevant issue has malignantly been morphed into no new taxes.
Great Empires always corrode/fall from the inside.
Same as it ever was.
It would be pretty naive to think we would ever leave completely. Given that Pakistan is a nuclear nation and potentially a source of nuclear material to terrorists we are not about to leave completely.
Air power certainly will stay.
It is also a counter to any aggression Pakistan has toward India.
Pakistan is no small, backward country as was Iraq and Afghanistan.
There are also issues of pipelines and natural resources.
It is pretty hard to imagine the military giving up on the region completely regardless of what the man/woman on the street want.
I wouldn’t pull out, assuming I could keep it up.
Eh, take that either way.
Oh, the “pull out” jokes abound, but seriously… whether you pull out or not, technically you’re still screwed. Once you go in, it’s your baby. Deny all you want, but you are expected to be the dominant power, and have your piece of assailants. You may as well pound the hell out of them because you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
There’s a few trillion $ in minerals in the ground in Afghanistan.
<bWhat makes you think we’re going to leave there?
We’re going to buy the Afghani, be they Taliban or not, and use capitalism to extract the wealth out of the ground, as surely as Nelson D. Rockefeller did in Pennsylvania. (Where Penzoil originally came from, back when there actually was any. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penzoil ])
The Afghani are either going to get with the program or they’re to find out that road-side IEDs mean nothing to a tire that’s two stories tall hauling 200 to 400 tons of ore a trip out of a mountain-side.
Religion is no barrier to commerce. All religions are fundamentally as corruptible as politics are. (What’s the first thing you hear in any religious message? Send us your cash.)
Know what Pennsylvania actually stands for?
Penn’s forests. (He wouldn’t recognize the place now because the forests got pretty much all cut down twice since he was here. There’s no old growth left except anecdotally.)
Nowadays, it stands for poor, broke-ass idiots living on top of burning coal mines. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania ]
We don’t need to leave that shithole, just end combat operations. For sheeple like Pedro, that means end the war.
That shithole is probably a far better place to protect our empire than Germany. Those nazis can protect themselves by now from the Russians.
“The Whore Are. The Whore Are.” — Col. Kurtz
Bring just a tiny fraction of the troops to Oakland. That’s where they can do some good for the country. I’m sure the ACLU and Mayor Quan would be happy to see them arrive.
Uncle Dave, do you mean that Obama lied and our troops will continue to die?
#12: “We won’t leave until there’s a government capable of keeping al Queda-type groups from plotting attacks on America.”
What I do remember was Dubya’s plan to “open a 2nd front in the War on Terror”
Or was Iraq the 2nd front?
US soil was 1st front, wasn’t it, after 9/11? [Perma-stan was 2nd and Iraq was 3rd front?]
Anyway, the purpose of troops in those places was to give the terrorists a way to attack America without them having to travel to America to do it.
As per Dubya’s famous “Bring it on!” statement.
Give them local, heavily-armed targets to attack, instead of defenseless American citizens in the US.
Its worked like a charm for 10-years and counting.
Once we pull all our troops back to the US, then the terrorists will have no choice but to come to the US to attack us – no matter what the government in Perma-stan is like..
Buzz off kids, they’re taking my photograph for DU.
#2 asked the right question and nobody answered it.
Who is going to pay for it? If you can’t cover the cost of an army it will vanish like frost in a furnace.
41% of fed gov spending is borrowed money. We got down rated by more than one organization though most of you were only aware of the member of the big three. Moody made it clear that all they are saying is that in the short term the US will pay the interest.What they didn’t say made it clear that in the long term they haven’t any confidence in the US even though it is in their best interest put the best face on things.
1/3 of the national debt has to be refinanced each year because smart money does not want to be caught holding US bonds when the Greenspan pay off plan goes into effect: print all the money needed.
No matter who claims otherwise simple math says we can’t pay for a lot of what has been promised state side and it costs a million dollars a head to support a grunt in Afghanistan. That will get worse as our money loses value.
I give it five years and our navy is in dry dock and we have no forces outside the US.
Is Joe B. still in China kissing the feet of our new overlords?
Where we have fought, we have stayed! Its that simple. Don’t let Politicians fool you into believing otherwise.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you!
Wow, none of us saw this coming.
The military has three jobs.
1. Kill people.
2. Take land.
3. Occupy the land.
Everywhere the military is, it is performing one of those roles (except the US).
And it always will.
I surmised this well over 5 years ago on this very board.
My solution at this time is to legalize weed in the United States and use our new found farmer friends to grow and export in volume fine Mountain Haze Afghani to the world. Enlighten minds, wallets, and prospects.
This is the only good that can come from a 21st Century Injun country. The only good indeed.
I encourage good.
Obama = The Abominable SHOW_MAN.
This above, is a play on the words:
Abominable SNOW_man of the Himalayas …