Report: Obama Administration To Negotiate To Prolong Presence of U.S. Troops In Afghanistan

While President Barack Obama again heralded his keeping his promise to pull out of Afghanistan, news accounts this week revealed that the Administration is again discussing the extension of U.S. troops in that country past 2014. The Administration is determined to stay in a country where U.S. citizens are increasingly attacked not only by the Taliban but Afghan troops. Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated inclinations toward the Taliban and harsh treatment of women. Then there was Karzai’s recent position that women are worth less than men — presumably even those American women keeping Karzai and his corrupt family and friends in power.

Just a week ago, Vice President Joe Biden said in his debate that U.S. troops were leaving Afghanistan by 2014: “We are leaving in 2014, period, and in the process, we’re going to be saving over the next 10 years another $800 billion.” While he said this, the Administration was preparing for negotiations to keep troops in the country.

Many of us have long opposed any troops in the country and Obama has failed to end that presence after three years despite polls showing that a majority oppose our continued presence in the country. In the meantime, Obama has spent hundreds of billions on these wars and we have continued to incur the deaths and wounding of our personnel.

Just last May, Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement that assured an ongoing U.S. commitment to Afghanistan through 2024 — the very troops that Karzai has called “the enemy.” Reports indicate that we want to keep roughly 25,000 American troops in Afghanistan past 2014. Even a fraction of that is too many for many citizens who fail to see why we must continue to drain ourselves of treasure and lives in that country’s civil war.

In the meantime, our British cousins have set a hardcore deadline for 2013 to leave the country.

Source: Foreign Policy