Obama Orders Withdrawal of 10,000 Troops from Afghanistan

[Cowboy]

Well now that Obama has won the war in Iraq single handedly , looks like the one in Afghanistan will be over soon too.


WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's order to withdraw 10,000 American troops from Afghanistan this year has been accomplished, a little more than a week before the year-end deadline, military officials said Thursday.
[See a collection of political cartoons on Afghanistan.]
The drawdown is the first step in the plan to wind down the war, transition security to Afghan forces and end the combat role for international troops by the end of 2014.
It also gives the Obama administration a second war-related accomplishment to tout this month — coming just a week after U.S. officials marked the end of the war in Iraq and the last convoy of American soldiers rumbled out of that country into Kuwait.
Officials say there are now 91,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan — down from the peak of 101,000 in June.
In December 2009 Obama announced he was sending an additional 33,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan in a bid to beat back the escalating Taliban insurgency and change the course of the war. Six months ago, declaring that the "tide of war is receding," Obama said he would withdraw 10,000 troops by the end of this year, and another 23,000 by the end of next summer.
The decision was met with initial opposition from military leaders who thought the withdrawal was too much, too soon, particularly since it would pull troops out before the end of next year's fighting season, which can last well into October and even November.
[See the latest political cartoons.]
Last week, however, during a trip to Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta repeatedly told troops that the U.S. had reached a turning point in the war. And at one point he went so far as to say, "I really think that for all the sacrifices that you're doing, the reality is that it is paying off and that we're moving in the right direction. ... We're winning this very tough conflict here in Afghanistan."
Contrasting that assessment is the ongoing violence in Afghanistan's east, along the Pakistan border, and the high-profile attacks and assassinations that continue to wreak havoc in and around Kabul. The violence is compounded by worries about government corruption, the fragile economy, and fears that Afghan forces won't be ready to take over security of the country as American and NATO troops leave.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles...s-withdrawal-of-10000-troops-from-afghanistan

 

[Cowboy]

Then in other news.

After U.S. Withdrawal, Iraqi Political Standoff Raises Concern of 'Unraveling'

One week after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, a flare-up in sectarian tensions is threatening to not only invite new violence but tear apart the country's fragile political arrangement.
Some officials fear the situation, if not properly handled, could reverse post-surge gains and plunge the country back into a climate of sectarian war. U.S. diplomats have conducted a flurry of phone calls and meetings over the past week in a bid to contain the problem and convince Iraq's political leaders to come together.


At the heart of the dispute is a decision by the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, to issue an arrest warrant for Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi. The vice president is accused of running hit squads against government officials years ago, but Hashemi denies it and has been holding out in Iraq's Kurdish region while Maliki demands he be brought into custody.
Stoking the tensions, a wave of bombings ripped through mostly Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad Thursday, killing at least 69 and wounding nearly 200. The country's top Shiite cleric afterward blamed the politicians for creating an atmosphere for such attacks.
Amid the chaos, Hashemi has been lambasting Maliki from afar, using a string of media interviews to accuse him of pushing the country toward catastrophe. In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine, Hashemi warned the situation could spiral "beyond control," and likened Maliki to Saddam Hussein.
Maliki in turn has suggested he might abandon a critical power-sharing agreement in Baghdad.
Walid Phares, a Middle East analyst and Fox News contributor, said Saturday that the tensions are a reflection of conflicts that had been "frozen" -- but not resolved -- during the U.S. troop presence.
"As soon as we are out, and there is no political consensus, everything is coming back," Phares said.
While praising the U.S. for its military gains in the country, he said the broader political problems remain -- the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites, and also the presence of Iranian influence which he said is provoking the minority Sunni population.
"It's a spiraling process," Phares said.
Earlier this week, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., issued a dire warning about the political crisis.
"This is a clear sign that the fragile political accommodation made possible by the surge of 2007, which ended large-scale sectarian violence in Iraq, is now unraveling," they said.
The senators claimed the Obama administration's decision not to leave a small residual force in Iraq "precipitated" the dispute.
"If Iraq slides back into sectarian violence, the consequences will be catastrophic for the Iraqi people and U.S. interests in the Middle East, and a clear victory for Al Qaeda and Iran," the senators said. "A deterioration of the kind we are now witnessing in Iraq was not unforeseen, and now the U.S. government must do whatever it can to help Iraqis stabilize the situation."
Administration officials say they have been in constant contact with all sides.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Ambassador James Jeffrey had talks with "the leaders of every major group in Iraq" earlier in the week. Vice President Biden also has been deeply involved, talking to Maliki and other leaders.
In a statement, his office said Biden stressed the United States' commitment to Iraq and the need for leaders to "work through their differences."
After Thursday's bombings, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney issued a statement appealing to the need for unity.
"Time and again, the Iraqi people have shown their resilience in overcoming efforts to divide them. We continue to urge leaders to come together to face common challenges," he said, noting the vice president's call for the country to abide by the rule of law.
The administration has not said publicly whether that means the Kurds should turn over Hashemi.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the bombings underscore, though, "how critical it is that Iraq's leaders act quickly to resolve their differences."
Asked for an update on the impasse Friday, Toner said: "We remain concerned about the political situation, and we would urge dialogue."
The dispute has created an apparent opening for other voices to resurface. On Saturday, notorious anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr launched what was described as a peace initiative.
Al-Sadr, whose militiamen were blamed for sectarian killings during the worst years of Iraq's violence, put out a 14-point "peace code" proposal. It warns against spilling Iraqi blood and urges respect for all religions, sects and ethnic groups.
Al-Sadr's aide Salah al-Obeidi described the code as an attempt "to preserve the unity of the country and save it from fighting."



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...raise-concerns-iraq-unraveling/#ixzz1hVCQ7zkH
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...raise-concerns-iraq-unraveling/#ixzz1hVCE5S5a​

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[muleman]

It is all designed to boost his woeful ratings as the election season ramps up. He needs to let the generals run the war not political advisers.

 

[Danang Sailor]

People called our involvement in Iraq "another Vietnam" but the two were not even vaguely similar ... until now. Our
biggest failure in Vietnam was not going there in the first place as many have suggested (although the wisdom of our being
there can be earnestly debated), but in our total failure to honor the commitment we made to those people. It became
politically "inconvenient" to do the right thing, to keep the promises we made, so we began a policy of "Vietnamization",
a concept where we would hand over control of the war to the locals, and then pull out. In essence, this meant taking a
little over a year to train people whose most used farm implement was a water buffalo, and train them to both
use and maintain a wealth of high tech gear. Our leaders were oh, so surprised when this didn't work out. In the opinion
of many military who were actually there, the truth was slightly different: we sold those poor bastards down the
river when it became politically expedient to do so!

And now, less than a month after our withdrawal, we seem to be once again surprised when things in Iraq are going back
to where they were before we got there. There are many Iraqis who really welcomed us there, who wanted a democratic
secular government, and who wanted us to stay and help them build it, but once again our political will failed, and
we cast another population adrift. It was known going in that it would take decades to bring a semblance of a democratic
form of government to Iraq; they were Muslims, who had been killing each other over what started as a single, trivial
argument, for 1400 years! It would take the maturing of a new generation for the ideals of democracy to take hold
... and everyone with even half a brain knew this.

So, naturally, we:
1) Went in with no plan on how to deal with the political vacuum our military victory guaranteed, and;
2) Removed the one man who had shown success in dealing with the Iraqis, and replaced him with others who were
good soldiers but lacked General Petraeus' insight into how to work with the locals, and;
3) Went into hysterical shock when this collection of overwhelming mistakes failed to produce a positive outcome, then;
4) Ran away and abandoned the people when we did not immediately achieve success in what we knew going in had to be a
long, long process ... and finally, made Iraq seem like Vietnam!

To slightly misquote Joseph Nye Welch's famous question to Senator McCarthy, I say to President Obama and the
Congressional Cowards, "Have you no sense of decency or honor, sirs, at long last? Have you left no sense of
decency and honor?"

We should all be ashamed of our country's indecent performance in this abysmal fiasco.

 

[muleman]

Have to agree DS. The enemy has sure jumped at the chance to reassert themselves. Iran will support whoever shares their agenda and it will flare up again. The same thing will happen in Afghanistan and folks will lose even more respect for the U.S.