BRUSSELS - In a milestone toward ending a decade of war in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said yesterday that US forces would step back from a combat role there as early as mid-2013, more than a year before all US troops are scheduled to come home.
Panetta cast the decision as an orderly step in a withdrawal process long planned by the United States and its allies, but his comments were the first time that the US had put a date on stepping back from its central role in the war. The defense secretary’s words reflected the Obama administration’s eagerness to bring to a close the second of two grinding ground wars it inherited from the Bush administration.
Promising the end of the US combat mission in Afghanistan next year would also give President Obama a certain applause line in his reelection stump speech this fall.
Meanwhile, according to a NATO report, more Taliban insurgents are being killed or captured than ever before, yet when the captives are interrogated by the US military, they remain convinced that they are winning the war.
Because they frikkin' are, 'kay?
You don't seriously expect to believe anything NATO says anymore, do you?
That is because the Taliban believe that their own hearts-and-minds campaign is winning over Afghans - or so they tell their interrogators - and even converting growing numbers of Afghan government officials and soldiers.
So does the mouthpiece AmeriKan media and the government it fronts for.
Those are among some of the findings of a NATO report, “State of the Taliban 2012,’’ based on 27,000 interrogations of 4,000 Taliban and other captives, that portrays a Taliban insurgency that is far from vanquished or demoralized even as the United States and its allies enter what they hope to be the final phase of the war.
Yeah, they feel they have won because they -- as predicted, and not just by me -- they waited out the invasion and -- as everyone knew -- the invader will eventually leave. Oh, the Empire will leave it's intelligence agency assets and agents in theater, and will seek to sowhavoc and chaos, but that is not like an occupying army.
A copy of the document, which was first reported by the BBC and the Times of London, was given to the New York Times by a Western official on the condition of anonymity because it was classified.
The report provides a sobering counterpoint to the coalition’s decidedly more upbeat public assessments of progress in the war and of the Afghanistan that NATO says it will leave behind....
Translation: You were lied to!
Related:
“Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over GIRoA [the Afghan government], usually as a result of government corruption, ethnic bias and lack of connection with local religious and tribal leaders”.
That is a direct quote from a NATO report
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Taliban I Told You So
More: AmeriKa Has Lost Afghanistan
Yup, and everyone has known it for over a year.
How many more lives have been senselessly lost?
Panetta said the NATO discussions would also focus on a potential downsizing of Afghan security forces from 350,000 troops, largely because of the expense of maintaining such a large army.
These are the same guys we are supposed to be handing duties to.... man, Orwell must be a twirly bird in that box these days.
The United States and other NATO countries support those forces at a cost of around $6 billion a year, but financial crises in Europe are causing countries to balk at the bill.
Yup, you are RUNNING KILLER DEFICITS and facing SLASHES to the SOCIAL SERVICE SECTOR along with INCREASED TAXES back home, Americans -- but the government (and media) that loves you so much it will wage wars over abominable lies and shell out $6 billion bucks a year to prop up an Afghan police force that turns and shoots on us (or so I've been told).
“The funding is going to largely determine the kind of force we can sustain in the future,’’ Panetta said.
He and his team played down last week’s announcement by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France that his country would break with its NATO allies and accelerate the withdrawal of its forces in Afghanistan by recalling its troops a year early, by the end of 2013.
Yeah, so do I.
See: French Phonies in Afghanistan
Pentagon officials said Sarkozy and the United States might be more in tune than it appeared, although they acknowledged confusion about the French president’s statement and said their goal was to sort it out at the NATO meeting today....
Can I just say for one second that I'm sick of being lied to in my newspaper, be it distortion, obfuscation, or omission?
Thank you.
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"NATO says forces in Afghanistan will move gradually from combat" February 03, 2012|By Elisabeth Bumiller
BRUSSELS - A day of confusion at the headquarters here of the military alliance.
Happens every time I read a Globe no matter what the subject.
The disarray began after the US defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta, surprised at least some NATO officials when he said Wednesday that the United States wanted to step back from a combat role in Afghanistan by as early as mid-2013, more than a year before most US and other NATO forces are scheduled to go home....
Panetta’s comments appeared to reflect the White House’s desire to extract itself as quickly as possible from an unpopular war.
You say I'm only critical, and much too caustic about things? NOT THERE!! If that is the CASE, it is NEVER TOO LATE!!
But yesterday Panetta’s advisers and some NATO officials appeared concerned that other countries might hasten their exit from Afghanistan.
Oh, never mind.
Defense officials said throughout the day that the United States would continue in combat operations as needed through 2014 and that a residual international force would remain in 2015....
Aaaaaaaah, forget it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Panetta had offered no details of what stepping back from combat would mean, saying only that the troops would move into an advise and assist role to Afghanistan’s security forces.
I think I heard all this before with the semantics around Iraq, so pfffft!
Such definitions are typically murky, particularly in a country like Afghanistan, where US forces are spread among small bases across the desert, farmland, and mountains, and where the native security forces have had a mixed record of success at best.
The defense secretary offered the US withdrawal from Iraq as a model.
Pffft!
US troops there eventually pulled back to large bases and left the bulk of the fighting to the Iraqis.
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And now the puppet, 'er, president is saying take a hike?
"Karzai calls for US troop curtailment by 2013" March 16, 2012
KABUL - President Hamid Karzai insisted Thursday that the United States confine its troops to major bases in Afghanistan by next year as the Taliban announced that they were suspending peace talks with the Americans, both of which served to complicate the Obama administration’s plans for an orderly exit from the country.
I knew that leaving as soon as possible.... sigh.
Karzai’s abrupt shift was at odds with a pledge offered just hours earlier by President Obama to stick to a 2014 withdrawal schedule for troops in Afghanistan. It also ran up against the Pentagon’s stark assessment that Afghan security forces were not yet ready to take over control of the country.
Karzai’s surprise announcement, which would confine American troops to their bases a year earlier than Obama proposed, was initially made at a Thursday meeting with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who spent two days here apologizing in person to the Afghan president for the massacre of civilians by an American soldier last Sunday at a village in Kandahar Province. Upon Panetta’s arrival, an Afghan interpreter working for coalition forces crashed a stolen pickup truck near his plane.
See: Afghan crashes vehicle on runway during Panetta visit
Further fraying the United States’ efforts to preserve some degree of control over its exit strategy, Taliban insurgents announced Thursday that they had broken off preliminary peace talks. While the move may have been coincidental, it imperiled another crucial element of the American exit strategy: brokering peace talks between insurgents and the government....
Related: Peace Talk Post
Just pap!
Both Afghan and American officials scrambled to put the best possible face on yet another rift between the two allies, coming at what both hope will be a final stage in negotiations between their diplomats on a long-term strategic partnership, and at a time when some White House officials have been advocating an accelerated withdrawal....
“I don’t see how this changes the plan,’’ said an American official in Afghanistan, speaking on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic guidelines....
American defense officials acknowledged there was a major divide between Karzai’s demand and American goals of training and advising Afghan security forces as well as conducting counterinsurgency operations.
Asked whether those activities could continue with American troops confined to bases, a senior American defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity replied, “It’s not clear that we would be able to.’’
Although about half of Afghan territory has formally been transferred from international to Afghan authority, in most of those areas American and other coalition troops continue to operate outside of large bases, and it is unclear how soon they could be removed when Afghan forces still are largely unprepared to operate on their own. According to NATO figures last year, only one of the Afghan National Army’s 158 battalions has been rated as able to fight independently, according to figures compiled by the Brookings Institution. That was up from zero the year earlier.
The Taliban statement said talks with an American representative had commenced over the release of some Taliban members from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but accused the American representative of changing the preconditions for the talks. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said the statement suspending the talks was genuine.
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And even though we are leaving(?)....
"Special forces to take lead as US winds down in Afghanistan" February 05, 2012|By Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker
WASHINGTON - The United States’ plan to wind down its combat role in Afghanistan a year earlier than expected relies on shifting responsibility to Special Operations forces that hunt insurgent leaders and train local troops, according to senior Pentagon officials and military officers. These forces could remain in the country well after the NATO mission ends in late 2014.
The war isn't ending, not for Afghans or Americans.
The plan, if approved by President Obama, would amount to the most significant evolution in the military campaign since Obama sent in 32,000 more troops to wage an intensive and costly counterinsurgency effort.
Under the emerging plan, US conventional forces, focused on policing large parts of Afghanistan, will be the first to leave, while thousands of Special Operations forces remain, making up an increasing percentage of the troops on the ground. Their number may even grow.
Yup, squadrons of assassins will stay behind.
The evolving strategy is far different from the withdrawal plan for Iraq, where almost all US forces, conventional or otherwise, have left.
That's because the Iraqis said get the f*** out.
Iraq has since devolved into sectarian violence that threatens to undo the political and security gains there.
Uh-huh.
Related: Occupation Iraq: Divide and Conquer
I'll be touching on that a bit later in a post to come above.
Pentagon officials and military planners say the new plan for Afghanistan is not a direct response to the deteriorating conditions in Iraq. Even so, the shift could give Obama a political shield against attacks from his Republican rivals in the presidential race who have already begun criticizing him for moving too swiftly to extract troops from Afghanistan.
I find this whole politics thing distasteful amongst the death and destruction, sorry.
Senior US officials have also expressed a desire to keep some training and counterterrorism troops in Afghanistan past 2014. The transition plan for the next three years in Afghanistan could be a model for such a continued military relationship.
In other words, we are NEVER LEAVING and you are being HOODWINKED AGAIN, American!
The plan would put a particularly heavy focus on Army Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets. They would be in charge of training a variety of Afghan security forces. Americans would no longer be carrying out large numbers of patrols to clear vast areas of Afghanistan of insurgents, or holding villages and towns vulnerable to militant attacks while local forces and government agencies rebuilt the local economy and empowered local governments.
Those tasks would fall to Afghan forces, with Special Forces soldiers remaining in the field to guide them. This shift has already begun to take place....
As those guys turn and shoot their guns at.... oh, never mind. I'm juggling so many lies and mixed messages I'm surprised my eyes haven't rolled out the skull yet.
The planned shift in military personnel first calls for creating a two-star command position overseeing the entire Special Operations effort in Afghanistan.
That DOES NOT LOOK like a WITHDRAWAL to ME!
No wonder "peace" talks have come to an end. It's more like PIECE talks, as WHAT PIECE of Afghanistan are Amerikans going to be allowed to set up shop.
Next, the three-star corps headquarters that currently commands the day-to-day operations of the war - and is held by an Army officer from the conventional force - would be handed over to a Special Operations officer.
Officials said that no final decisions had been made on the timing of the transition, although it is likely to begin late this year....
Meaning not now.
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"10 dead after attack on Afghan building" January 11, 2012
KABUL - Three suicide attackers stormed a government building in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, setting off a seven-hour gunfight with Afghan soldiers and police officers that left 10 people dead, including the three attackers, the Afghan police said....
Paktika, where the Taliban have been active, sits along the Pakistan border....
US Special Forces were present at the standoff, the provincial police chief said. A spokesman for the coalition forces in Afghanistan confirmed that coalition personnel were present in support of the Afghan response, but the spokesman said that according to policy, he could not say whether they were from US Special Forces.
Yeah, but they aren't getting involved, blah, blah, blah.
In a separate attack, four Afghan military personnel were killed and 10 others were wounded when a military base in Kunar Province came under mortar and rocket attack, according to a spokesman for the Kunar provincial government.
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Also see: More Afghan withdrawals unlikely until end of year
Yeah, why are we still there?
"Afghan troops suspected in plot to launch Kabul attack; Defense ministry put in lockdown, soldiers arrested; could signal new surge by Taliban" by Jawad Sukhanyar and Matthew Rosenberg | New York Times, March 28, 2012
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan Defense Ministry went into a near-total lockdown Tuesday after the discovery of 10 suicide vests and the arrest of more than a dozen Afghan soldiers suspected of plotting to attack the ministry and blow up commuter buses for government employees, Afghan and Western officials said.
The security breach took place in one of the most fortified parts of Kabul, less than a mile from the presidential palace and the headquarters of the US-led coalition.
It raised the prospect that the Taliban, which committed a series of high-profile attacks inside Kabul last year, planned to pick up where it left off as winter snows give way to spring, clearing the high mountain passes and opening the annual fighting season.
If they can make it through the closed of passes due to the avalanches or floods.
Compounding the fears of renewed violence in Kabul was what appeared to be complicity of Afghan soldiers in the plot. Afghan soldiers and police officers have been killing their colleagues among the international military force here at an alarming rate in recent months — only hidden bombs have killed more coalition service members this year.
The killings have already reached into the heart of the Afghan security establishment; in February, amid riots over US soldiers burning Korans, an Afghan Interior Ministry employee shot dead two US military advisers in a restricted-access area of the ministry.
Three other coalition service members were killed Monday by Afghan security forces in two separate episodes in the country’s south and east.
The attacks by Afghan soldiers and police attacks on coalition forces have called into question a pillar of the United States’ exit strategy: the readying of the Afghan security forces to fight on their own. Now, in light of the potential plot against the Defense Ministry, it appears that elements of the security forces may also pose a threat to their own government.
Then they have been trained by AmeriKa!!
So how many false flags their government pull off against its own people?
Details of the latest plot, which officials said was uncovered Monday, remained sketchy, leaving unanswered questions about how the plotters gained access to the grounds of the ministry, which lie behind multiple checkpoints.
I smell a STAGED, SET-UP POS or an INSIDE JOB, don't you?
The Defense Ministry refused to even allow that a breach had occurred; it denied any attempted bombings and said no soldiers had been arrested.
Behaving just like an AmeriKan-advised and -trained government!
But the denials were contradicted by a half-dozen Afghan and Western officials. While some praised Afghan security forces managing to stop the attack, all spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid contradicting the Afghan government....
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"Afghan militiaman kills 9 colleagues; Assailant drugged, shot members of irregular force" by Farooq Jan Mangal and Matthew Rosenberg | New York Times March 31, 2012
KHOST, Afghanistan - A member of an Afghan militia promoted by the US military to protect rural villages drugged his colleagues and killed at least nine of them as they slept Friday, the third deadly episode involving the irregular guard force in March.
The killings added to concerns about the militia, known as the Afghan Local Police. Touted by US military commanders as a way to give Afghans a larger stake in battling the insurgency, the local police program has been assailed by rights advocates and many Afghans as bringing former Taliban and criminal elements into positions of armed authority....
Liberation is going back to the way it was in the 1980s and 1990s?
Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said the assailant, identified as Assadullah, who like many Afghans goes by a single name, had rejoined the insurgency’s ranks after infiltrating the command post a few days ago. He referred to the assailant by what appeared to be a nom de guerre, Mujahid Sanaullah.
Well, yeah, you do need an ass to leave a qaqa in the toilet.
The Taliban often take credit for attacks by members of the Afghan security forces, especially when coalition service members are slain.
US and Afghan officials say they do not believe most attacks on the coalition by Afghan army and national police are the work of Taliban infiltrators.
But there is less certainty about Taliban infiltration in the local police forces, among other problems.
A US military report released in December found that some members of the force have engaged in illegal taxation, carried weapons outside their villages, and committed assault. The report was a response to a critical study of program by Human Rights Watch.
Still, the December report concluded that the US military leadership thinks the Afghan local police have generally been effective.
It's called propaganda, and is for 'murkn consumption.
But problems with the local police have continued.
Another Afghan local policeman allowed Taliban to enter his guard post March 7 and kill nine of his fellow Afghan local police in the southern province of Oruzgan.
On Monday, an Afghan local policeman shot and killed a coalition soldier in Paktika province, the same province where Friday’s killings took place.
The province borders Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal area, a hub for Islamist militancy in South Asia.
Coalition losses, meanwhile, continued to mount, with NATO saying Friday that one of its service members was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan and another in an insurgent attack.
NATO provided no additional details.
The number of coalition deaths here this year stands at 94, according to icasualties.org, an independent website that tracks deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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The number of coalition deaths here this year stands at 94, according to icasualties.org, an independent website that tracks deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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