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Good point! Re: U.S. and allies will shift Afghan mission to training next year - Why next year? Why not now?
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lo yeeOn
Feb 5, 2012, 1:00:26 AM2/5/12
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Perhaps just so that we can blow another half a trillion USD on a war
we won't win: )!
What is so amazing is that we're blowing hundreds of billions each
year on this war fighting the Taliban while the Taliban has relied on
at most hundreds of millions (not billions like us). Let's be clear
that no money which financed their fighting could have come from any
government without ours pounding the hell out of them for being an
accomplice to terrorism. So, according to the propaganda sources,
such as the NY Times:
The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial
network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of
millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings,
extortion and foreign donations that American officials say they are
struggling to cut off.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/world/asia/19taliban.html
Boy, when you read the NYT narrative, you don't know whether to laugh
or cry. The sandal-clad Taliban fighters have held us down for more
than a decade and bled our economy dry simply by relying on individual
donations, drug trade, extortion and kidnappings for a total amount of
no more than one percent of our military expense on that war!
Clearly something is very wrong with our government's judgment unless
the Afghan war is merely a front of a more ambitous war against other
countries in the world. So, the policy planners in the government
might now be betting that if we keep the Afghan war going for just one
more year, then we may be able to finish off Syria, Iran, and get a
piece of Pakistan as a foothold into the western frontier of China.
The Afghan war has always seemed phony to me. I mean, how can our
military be so incompetent to have gone to Bora Bora and not find bin
Laden in the winter of 2001, more than 10 years ago? And then we say
we had to invade Iraq and forget about Afghanistan? And then we just
sort of willy-nilly for ten years in there and did nothing while
fomenting violence elsewhere, from Libya to Syria to Pakistan? And
for those whole think that killing bin Laden was something special,
then like you were wonderful, why then are we still planning to fight
for another year as if it hasn't cost us dearly enough, instead of
just concentraing on training Karzai's soldiers as soon as possible?
It's absolutely unbelievable when you think about the stories they are
telling us!
lo yeeOn
========
In article <8c555020-69c5-46bd...@pk8g2000pbb.googlegroups.com>,
rst9 <rst9...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>U.S. and allies will shift Afghan mission to training next year
>February 1, 2012 | 11:38 am
>http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/02/us-allies-shift-afghan-mission-training-next-year.html
>REPORTING FROM BRUSSELS -- The U.S. and its allies will formally
>change their military mission in Afghanistan to training and advising
>Afghan troops next year, a shift meant to extricate the alliance from
>a combat role after more than a decade of war, Defense Secretary Leon
>E. Panetta said Wednesday.
>
>Panetta outlined the mission shift on his way to Brussels for talks at
>NATO headquarters, noting that U.S. combat troops would still remain
>until the end of 2014, as previously announced, but mainly in a
>support role as Afghan forces assume responsibility for fighting the
>insurgency.
>
>“Our goal is to complete all of that transition in 2013, and hopefully
>by mid- to the latter part of 2013 we’ll be able to make a transition
>from a combat role to a training, advise and assist role,” Panetta
>told reporters traveling on his plane.
>
>It was the first time a senior U.S. official had given a timetable for
>moving U.S. troops out of a lead combat role, although Gen. John
>Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, said in December that he was
>planning such a shift.
>
>By announcing a specific timetable for beginning the advisory mission,
>U.S. officials are hoping to head off a push among allies to pull out
>their forces more quickly, with public support for the war and defense
>budgets shrinking.
>
>Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France intended to
>remove all of its combat troops next year, instead of at the end of
>2014, as NATO agreed to at the 2010 Lisbon summit. Sarkozy said he
>would urge the rest of the alliance to speed up its withdrawal as
>well.
>
>But Panetta insisted that other than France, there is little support
>among most other members of the alliance for moving up the 2014 date
>for removing all their troops.
>
>Even within the Obama administration there are divisions about how
>quickly to withdraw U.S. forces, with some White House aides in favor
>of announcing further steep withdrawals of U.S. forces ahead of the
>presidential election in November.
>
>Like Sarkozy, President Obama is facing a reelection campaign in which
>he is keen to show voters that the decadelong Afghanistan war is
>winding down. Though the formal NATO timetable calls for some U.S.
>combat troops to remain until the end of 2014, the White House has
>made clear it intends to continue bringing the U.S. troop numbers down
>steadily over the next three years and to put Afghan forces into the
>lead as much as possible.
>
>The U.S. is already in the midst of a draw-down in Afghanistan that
>will reduce troop levels to 68,000 by next fall, but Panetta
>emphasized that the decision about how many U.S. troops would remain
>in Afghanistan in 2013 and 2014 has not been made yet by Obama.
>
>Among Pentagon officials and commanders in the field, there is support
>for keeping as many U.S. troops in place for as long as possible. Even
>after NATO shifting its “main effort” to training and advising, the
>U.S. and other allied combat troops will still be needed in case
>Afghan forces, which remain plagued by operational and personnel
>problems, need assistance against Taliban insurgents.
>
>NATO's International Security Assistance Force “still needs to be
>there in robust fashion to back them up” until the end of 2014, said a
>senior Defense Department official traveling with Panetta said.
>
>The shift to an advisory mission in Afghanistan is similar to the
>approach used in Iraq, where U.S. troops pulled out of major cities
>and focused on training Iraqi troops more than a year before leaving
>the country for good. But it remained unclear whether it will be
>possible to hand off main responsibility for fighting the insurgency
>to the Afghan National Army and police.
>
>Though violence is down in many areas of Afghanistan, a recent U.S.
>intelligence estimate concluded that the war is stalemated and that
>the Taliban has not abandoned its goal of retaking control of the
>country.
>
>In addition to military moves, the administration is seeking to jump-
>start peace talks with the Taliban, but even U.S. officials concede
>that effort is still in its infancy.
>
>The advisory effort would put small teams of U.S. troops with Afghan
>units to help them plan operations and to call in air support and
>artillery fire if needed.
>
>Panetta emphasized that some U.S. troops probably would remain in
>Afghanistan after 2014 to continue assisting Afghan forces and to
>carry out what the Pentagon calls counterterrorism operations —
>special forces raids aimed at Al Qaeda and its allies.
>
>U.S. officials were caught by surprise by Sarkozy's announcement last
>week. His proposal that the rest of the alliance speed up its pullout
>introduced an element of uncertainty in what were expected to be low-
>key meetings of defense ministers at NATO headquarters.
>
>A senior Defense Department official traveling with Panetta said the
>U.S. was still trying to understand Sarkozy’s proposal, but he implied
>there may not be as much disagreement as it appears between the U.S.
>and French positions.
>
>“The discussions will reveal whether there’s a serious difference or
>not,” the official said. “We may find we can work with the French.”
>
>Photo: Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, right, attends a Cabinet
>meeting Tuesday with President Obama. Credit: Susan Walsh / Associated
>Press
we won't win: )!
What is so amazing is that we're blowing hundreds of billions each
year on this war fighting the Taliban while the Taliban has relied on
at most hundreds of millions (not billions like us). Let's be clear
that no money which financed their fighting could have come from any
government without ours pounding the hell out of them for being an
accomplice to terrorism. So, according to the propaganda sources,
such as the NY Times:
The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial
network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of
millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings,
extortion and foreign donations that American officials say they are
struggling to cut off.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/world/asia/19taliban.html
Boy, when you read the NYT narrative, you don't know whether to laugh
or cry. The sandal-clad Taliban fighters have held us down for more
than a decade and bled our economy dry simply by relying on individual
donations, drug trade, extortion and kidnappings for a total amount of
no more than one percent of our military expense on that war!
Clearly something is very wrong with our government's judgment unless
the Afghan war is merely a front of a more ambitous war against other
countries in the world. So, the policy planners in the government
might now be betting that if we keep the Afghan war going for just one
more year, then we may be able to finish off Syria, Iran, and get a
piece of Pakistan as a foothold into the western frontier of China.
The Afghan war has always seemed phony to me. I mean, how can our
military be so incompetent to have gone to Bora Bora and not find bin
Laden in the winter of 2001, more than 10 years ago? And then we say
we had to invade Iraq and forget about Afghanistan? And then we just
sort of willy-nilly for ten years in there and did nothing while
fomenting violence elsewhere, from Libya to Syria to Pakistan? And
for those whole think that killing bin Laden was something special,
then like you were wonderful, why then are we still planning to fight
for another year as if it hasn't cost us dearly enough, instead of
just concentraing on training Karzai's soldiers as soon as possible?
It's absolutely unbelievable when you think about the stories they are
telling us!
lo yeeOn
========
In article <8c555020-69c5-46bd...@pk8g2000pbb.googlegroups.com>,
rst9 <rst9...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>U.S. and allies will shift Afghan mission to training next year
>February 1, 2012 | 11:38 am
>http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/02/us-allies-shift-afghan-mission-training-next-year.html
>REPORTING FROM BRUSSELS -- The U.S. and its allies will formally
>change their military mission in Afghanistan to training and advising
>Afghan troops next year, a shift meant to extricate the alliance from
>a combat role after more than a decade of war, Defense Secretary Leon
>E. Panetta said Wednesday.
>
>Panetta outlined the mission shift on his way to Brussels for talks at
>NATO headquarters, noting that U.S. combat troops would still remain
>until the end of 2014, as previously announced, but mainly in a
>support role as Afghan forces assume responsibility for fighting the
>insurgency.
>
>“Our goal is to complete all of that transition in 2013, and hopefully
>by mid- to the latter part of 2013 we’ll be able to make a transition
>from a combat role to a training, advise and assist role,” Panetta
>told reporters traveling on his plane.
>
>It was the first time a senior U.S. official had given a timetable for
>moving U.S. troops out of a lead combat role, although Gen. John
>Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, said in December that he was
>planning such a shift.
>
>By announcing a specific timetable for beginning the advisory mission,
>U.S. officials are hoping to head off a push among allies to pull out
>their forces more quickly, with public support for the war and defense
>budgets shrinking.
>
>Last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France intended to
>remove all of its combat troops next year, instead of at the end of
>2014, as NATO agreed to at the 2010 Lisbon summit. Sarkozy said he
>would urge the rest of the alliance to speed up its withdrawal as
>well.
>
>But Panetta insisted that other than France, there is little support
>among most other members of the alliance for moving up the 2014 date
>for removing all their troops.
>
>Even within the Obama administration there are divisions about how
>quickly to withdraw U.S. forces, with some White House aides in favor
>of announcing further steep withdrawals of U.S. forces ahead of the
>presidential election in November.
>
>Like Sarkozy, President Obama is facing a reelection campaign in which
>he is keen to show voters that the decadelong Afghanistan war is
>winding down. Though the formal NATO timetable calls for some U.S.
>combat troops to remain until the end of 2014, the White House has
>made clear it intends to continue bringing the U.S. troop numbers down
>steadily over the next three years and to put Afghan forces into the
>lead as much as possible.
>
>The U.S. is already in the midst of a draw-down in Afghanistan that
>will reduce troop levels to 68,000 by next fall, but Panetta
>emphasized that the decision about how many U.S. troops would remain
>in Afghanistan in 2013 and 2014 has not been made yet by Obama.
>
>Among Pentagon officials and commanders in the field, there is support
>for keeping as many U.S. troops in place for as long as possible. Even
>after NATO shifting its “main effort” to training and advising, the
>U.S. and other allied combat troops will still be needed in case
>Afghan forces, which remain plagued by operational and personnel
>problems, need assistance against Taliban insurgents.
>
>NATO's International Security Assistance Force “still needs to be
>there in robust fashion to back them up” until the end of 2014, said a
>senior Defense Department official traveling with Panetta said.
>
>The shift to an advisory mission in Afghanistan is similar to the
>approach used in Iraq, where U.S. troops pulled out of major cities
>and focused on training Iraqi troops more than a year before leaving
>the country for good. But it remained unclear whether it will be
>possible to hand off main responsibility for fighting the insurgency
>to the Afghan National Army and police.
>
>Though violence is down in many areas of Afghanistan, a recent U.S.
>intelligence estimate concluded that the war is stalemated and that
>the Taliban has not abandoned its goal of retaking control of the
>country.
>
>In addition to military moves, the administration is seeking to jump-
>start peace talks with the Taliban, but even U.S. officials concede
>that effort is still in its infancy.
>
>The advisory effort would put small teams of U.S. troops with Afghan
>units to help them plan operations and to call in air support and
>artillery fire if needed.
>
>Panetta emphasized that some U.S. troops probably would remain in
>Afghanistan after 2014 to continue assisting Afghan forces and to
>carry out what the Pentagon calls counterterrorism operations —
>special forces raids aimed at Al Qaeda and its allies.
>
>U.S. officials were caught by surprise by Sarkozy's announcement last
>week. His proposal that the rest of the alliance speed up its pullout
>introduced an element of uncertainty in what were expected to be low-
>key meetings of defense ministers at NATO headquarters.
>
>A senior Defense Department official traveling with Panetta said the
>U.S. was still trying to understand Sarkozy’s proposal, but he implied
>there may not be as much disagreement as it appears between the U.S.
>and French positions.
>
>“The discussions will reveal whether there’s a serious difference or
>not,” the official said. “We may find we can work with the French.”
>
>Photo: Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, right, attends a Cabinet
>meeting Tuesday with President Obama. Credit: Susan Walsh / Associated
>Press
rst0
Feb 5, 2012, 1:54:13 AM2/5/12
to
On Feb 4, 10:00 pm, acous...@panix.com (lo yeeOn) wrote:
> Perhaps just so that we can blow another half a trillion USD on a war
> we won't win: )!
>
> What is so amazing is that we're blowing hundreds of billions each
> year on this war fighting the Taliban while the Taliban has relied on
> at most hundreds of millions (not billions like us). Let's be clear
> that no money which financed their fighting could have come from any
> government without ours pounding the hell out of them for being an
> accomplice to terrorism. So, according to the propaganda sources,
> such as the NY Times:
>
> The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial
> network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of
> millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade,
To Americans on the streets of America!!! In a way, we are financing
> Perhaps just so that we can blow another half a trillion USD on a war
> we won't win: )!
>
> What is so amazing is that we're blowing hundreds of billions each
> year on this war fighting the Taliban while the Taliban has relied on
> at most hundreds of millions (not billions like us). Let's be clear
> that no money which financed their fighting could have come from any
> government without ours pounding the hell out of them for being an
> accomplice to terrorism. So, according to the propaganda sources,
> such as the NY Times:
>
> The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial
> network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of
> millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade,
their war against us!!!
> kidnappings,
> extortion and foreign donations that American officials say they are
> struggling to cut off.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/world/asia/19taliban.html
>
> Boy, when you read the NYT narrative, you don't know whether to laugh
> or cry. The sandal-clad Taliban fighters have held us down for more
> than a decade and bled our economy dry simply by relying on individual
> donations, drug trade, extortion and kidnappings for a total amount of
> no more than one percent of our military expense on that war!
>
> Clearly something is very wrong with our government's judgment unless
> the Afghan war is merely a front of a more ambitous war against other
> countries in the world. So, the policy planners in the government
> might now be betting that if we keep the Afghan war going for just one
> more year, then we may be able to finish off Syria, Iran, and get a
> piece of Pakistan as a foothold into the western frontier of China.
>
> The Afghan war has always seemed phony to me. I mean, how can our
> military be so incompetent to have gone to Bora Bora and not
> find bin Laden in the winter of 2001,
Alliance's foot soldiers to go take him in. The problem was; those
Northern Alliance soldiers were also bin Laden's soldiers, too. And
they let him go.
> more than 10 years ago? And then we say
> we had to invade Iraq and forget about Afghanistan? And then we just
> sort of willy-nilly for ten years in there and did nothing while
> fomenting violence elsewhere, from Libya to Syria to Pakistan?
"kill two birds with one stone".
Uncle Sam is betting that he can kill 3 Islamic countries with one
war, Iran, Syria and Pakistan.
> And
> for those whole think that killing bin Laden was something special,
> then like you were wonderful, why then are we still planning to fight
> for another year as if it hasn't cost us dearly enough,
> instead of
> just concentraing on training Karzai's soldiers as soon as possible?
>
> It's absolutely unbelievable when you think about the stories they are
> telling us!
>
> lo yeeOn
> ========
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> rst9 <rst9w...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >U.S. and allies will shift Afghan mission to training next year
> >February 1, 2012 | 11:38 am
> >http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/02/us-allies-shift-afg...
>
>
>
>
>
>
> rst9 <rst9w...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >U.S. and allies will shift Afghan mission to training next year
> >February 1, 2012 | 11:38 am
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