US to Slow Down Troop Withdrawal from Afghanistan as White House 'Rethinks' Mission

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8. "our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending"

"...and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion."

President Obama's statement on the End of the Combat Mission in Afghanistan -December 28, 2014


___Ready or not, its becoming increasingly clear that President Obama can't leave Afghanistan fast enough to outrun the mission's devastating failure...but, we're not really leaving, are we? Almost 11,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq for the first few months of 2015 and then drawdown to about 5,500 troops by the end of next year; 'training' Afghan military forces and conducting 'counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al Qaeda.'

"Our personnel will continue to face risks," President Obama admitted in his statement. Understated, I think, given that he's re-escalated his terror war in Iraq and expanded U.S. attacks to Syria in a military offensive which the administration and military has justified and defined as an extension of their 13 year terror war by stressing dubious and tangential ties between their new nemesis and enemy and al-Qaeda. Notwithstanding approval by the new republican Congress of President Obama's pursuit of a new authorization to use military force, they're still relying on the original 9-11 AUMF to recommit our forces to their perpetual war. Only in the most evasive and contradictory terms can Pres. Obama claim that the "longest war in American history" is coming to a an end.

"The Afghan people must know that our commitment to their future is enduring, because the security of Afghanistan and the United States is shared." Barack Obama said on July 15, 2008.

"I think Afghanistan is still winnable, in the sense of our ability to ensure that it is not a launching pad for attacks against North America. I think it's still possible for us to stamp out al Qaeda to make sure that extremism is not expanding but rather is contracting. I think all those goals are still possible, but I think that as a consequence to the war on Iraq, we took our eye off the ball. We have not been as focused as we need to be on all the various steps that are needed in order to deal with Afghanistan," the president had said.

I don't believe there was ever anything to 'win' in Afghanistan, as the president suggested. There has been, however, much to lose in this repeated flailing of our military forces against the Afghan people; against the remnants and ghosts of al-Qaeda. We have already been shown, repeatedly, that our government-building efforts behind the force of our military in the Middle East has produced more individuals inclined or resigned to violent expressions of resistance than it's succeeded in establishing any of the 'democracy' or 'stability' promised.

There's absolutely no hint of lessons learned from the President's tragic escalation of Bush's Afghanistan deployment in which he sacrificed over 1000 more troops' lives in his ''surge' than Bush lost avenging 9-11. Over 2200 U.S. troops have been sacrificed in Afghanistan - 630 of those deaths occurring in 8 years under George W. Bush. Illustratively, the top three deadliest years of the war -- 2010 (497 deaths), 2011 (362), 2009 (303) -- occurred under President Obama’s tenure. Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. fatalities in the war in Afghanistan have occurred during the Obama administration, in a quarter of the war's duration.

One would hope that the American public would demand accountability from this administration on the goals they establish behind these new deployments. It should be remembered that the Iraq 'surge' began as a trickle, and, in a year, over 800 U.S. troops had lost their lives as a result of that escalation. What we need to hear from the administration is a clear mission for our nation's defenders in Afghanistan, and elsewhere, which is actually directed toward fulfilling the original authorization to use military force which Congress approved for prosecution against "those responsible for the (9-11) attacks launched against the United States."

"That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."

If we are really serious about 'democracy' in Afghanistan we should let Afghans sort out those conflicts they have with resistant communities and provinces by themselves. Unfortunately, with any continued U.S. military presence there, that means more armed conflict for our assisting troops, and the reality is, democratic governance from the protected regime won't happen in any truly representative way while the Afghan military is operating behind our heavy-handed presence which carries with it our decidedly retaliatory and destabilizing agenda. We should let Ashraf Ghani (or whoever manages to assume authority in the future) prosecute those defenses without our compromising influence.

What we need in Afghanistan is a true end-point to the occupation. That isn't likely to come with the President's announcement, but it's something which Congress should demand from the administration before they hand over another wad of borrowed cash to continue. If they're not prepared to draft a more defining and relevant authorization for the use of our defensive forces in Afghanistan they should, at least, endeavor to compel the administration to adhere to the limited mandate in the original one.

The President and our legislators need to craft and direct policy in Afghanistan which is 'enduring' but, not merely an extension of this self-perpetuating flailing of our military forces at every expression of resistance to their self-serving presence; or against their self-serving political agendas. Both Bush and Obama made dubious and tenuous representations of the threat to the U.S. in order to declare and secure their unilateral authority to use our military forces (at least initially) any way they see fit, without congressional pre-approval - justified almost entirely in their view by their opportunistic declarations that our security is threatened.

That was the slippery slope that Bush used to war. That's the slope that Pres. Obama used to escalate Bush's Afghanistan occupation far beyond the former republican presidency's limits - with the catastrophic result of scores more casualties than Bush to our forces during this Democratic administration's first term and scores more innocent Afghans dead, maimed, or uprooted.

In pressing forward with a re-escalated U.S. military response to the atrocities committed within Iraq, this Democratic president is losing almost all of the ground we thought we'd covered in repudiating the opportunistic Bush wars. Bush's were waged, certainly, for oil and other greed; but just as certainly to effect U.S. expansionist ideals involving regime changes and 'dominoes.'

In President Obama's recent representations of a future threat to the U.S. from this new enemy in Iraq, we see echoes of Bush's 'preemptive doctrine' which many believed this new president's election was repudiating. The results, worldwide, of contemporary U.S. interventionism, speak for themselves. The Obama administration, almost blithely, is hoping their own military steadfastness in Afghanistan - and their new offensive stand in Iraq says something uniquely democratic and inspiring to the world. I'm afraid that all anyone outside of this country will hear is 'empire. . .'


(We're still at war)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026021908