Obama plans to speed up Afghan troop withdrawals

10,000 U.S. troops that will be withdrawn from Afghanistan this year
20,000 more troops that will be withdrawn by the end of next summer source

» Quickening the pace: The above numbers represent a much quicker withdrawal than some of President Obama’s military advisers would like, General David Petraeus among them. This decision is being seen as a victory over Petraeus’ vision by Vice President Biden, who’s been a proponent of a more rapid end to American involvement in Afghanistan. The withdrawal would equal the total of Obama’s Afghanistan surge, to which he committed 30,000 troops back in 2009.

Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

The President has announced that this July will mark the beginning of a transition of security responsibility to Afghan forces. However, in my view the transition plan is too slow. We need to begin handing responsibility of security to Afghan forces immediately and aim to have most US combat troops out of Afghanistan by the end of next year. We should leave behind only a small force to hunt down and kill terrorists in Afghanistan, and to help the Afghan military perform their duties.
Senator Max Baucus • Calling for both a quicker withdrawal of troops, and a quicker transfer of responsibility from the U.S. military to Afghan security forces. That these conversations are starting to crop up is unsurprising; the death of Osama bin Laden, the ostensible reason the U.S. entered Afghanistan to begin with, makes this the most politically opportune time to voice such sentiments. And while the concerns in leaving quicker are by no means negligible, with a government as steeped in corruption as the Afghanistan’s is, and under a leader like Hamid Karzai (famously volatile, takes bags of money from Iran, once threatened that he might join the Taliban), what is the ultimate definition of success for the U.S. involvement there? source

Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

A University of Maryland study had 200 students drop their internet connections for a day. Many of them showed signs of withdrawal. source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Jun 2011 19:07