Valar Dohaeris
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U.S. troops walk outside their base in Uruzgan province Thomson Reuters
President Trump delivered his first prime-time address to the nation at 9 p.m. EDT Monday and announced that he’s sending thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.
That announcement represents a remarkable shift, given his long history of criticism of the war, including tweets like this one from 2013:
The war began on October 7, 2001, nearly 16 years ago, following the 9/11 attacks.As you watch Trump’s address, here are some facts and figures about the “blood and treasure” toll to keep in mind:
- President Obama declared an end to U.S. combat in Afghanistan in December 2014. It is America's longest-running war.
- As of May, the U.S. still had about 8,300 troops in Afghanistan training and advising the country’s security forces. NATO and other allies have roughly 6,600 troops there.
- The peak U.S. troop level in Afghanistan was 100,000, under President Obama.
- As armed clashes have intensified recently and the Taliban insurgency has made recent gains, the insurgents now hold 48 of Afghanistan’s roughly 400 administrative areas, according to The New York Times.
- On average, 31 Afghan national security forces and nine civilians are now killed each day on average, The Times reports.
- About 6,000 Afghan soldiers were killed last year.
- The war has cost more than $1 trillion. The U.S. has already spent $117 billion on Afghanistan reconstruction efforts.
- Some 2,350 U.S. troops have been killed in the war, and another 20,000 have been wounded. In all, about 3,500 U.S. and allied forces have been killed.
