Pull-Out Not A Given

From the Stars and Stripes:
"Capture of Kunduz could mean more US troops will stay in Afghanistan"

 

The U.S. drawdown of forces in Afghanistan could once again stall as military leaders and advisers weigh the options in the wake of the Taliban’s seizure Monday of a key city in the country’s north. The seizure of Kunduz from the U.S.-trained Afghan National Security Forces has raised questions about the country’s ability to defend itself from extremists in the absence of the U.S. military. According to the Wall Street Journal, military leaders will once again advise the president to retain a larger force in Afghanistan than he’d initially planned. U.S. Army Gen. John Campbell, the top military commander in Afghanistan, has provided Pentagon and NATO officials five plans addressing the drawdown, according to the newspaper. Campbell’s options include maintaining current troop levels through 2016, or shrinking them to 8,000, 5,000 or less than 1,000. Campbell is expected to testify in front of Congress next week. A Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday that the Department of Defense has not made a formal recommendation to President Barack Obama about the drawdown. Any such guidance, said Army Maj. Roger Cabiness, would include input from Obama’s national security team, commanders on the ground in Afghanistan including Campbell, and the Afghan government and military. For now, Cabiness said, the Pentagon remains committed to the president’s current plan, which calls for the current level of 9,800 U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan, primarily serving in an advisory role, through the end of 2015. However, he said, it has not yet been determined how quickly it will draw down to less than 1,000 troops next year. "The specific trajectory of the 2016 drawdown will be established later this year to enable our final consolidation to a Kabul-based embassy presence by the end of 2016, with a security assistance component,” he said. The loss of Kunduz, which might only be temporary as the Afghans regrouped to launch a counteroffensive, was an obvious “setback” for the ANSF, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said Tuesday. It’s the first seizure of a major city by the Taliban since 2001.

 

^ This is not a surprise especially after Obama removed all our troops from Iraq and then let ISIS take over large parts of that country and Syria. It showed he (Obama) and his advisors don't have a grasp of military reality and would rather work to keep their campaign promises rather than keeping Americans safe. We are in a much worse situation now in the Middle East than we were before we first left Iraq. If Obama removes all US troops from Afghanistan now - especially when the Taliban have taken a large city - it will just show his continued lack of military knowledge. The US needs to get other nations together for Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and work out a better campaign then what is currently going on since none of it is really working. ^

 

 

http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/capture-of-kunduz-could-mean-more-us-troops-will-stay-in-afghanistan-1.370979