Obama to withdraw 30,000 troops against Pentagon advice

[gaurish]

NATO should be renamed as North Atlantic Terrorist organisation.... i the crimes they have done against humaity are unpardonable

 

[Asian.Century]

NATO should be renamed as North Atlantic Terrorist organisation.... i the crimes they have done against humaity are unpardonable

+1.

NATO is a Satanic with innocent blood in its hand, God forbid those criminals what they have done to this peaceful world.

 

[Oldman1]

nato killed more ppl than taliban if u think little hard.

No it was the Taliban even you knew that.

 

[Oldman1]

dude, why arent they defeated by the world's best equipped army in ten years.

Why haven't the Taliban wipe the U.S. military in 10 years? And why haven't Pakistan wiped out the Taliban on their side? Think about whats going on in Iraq. What are the intentions? Conquer? Kill everybody? Or stabilized the country? Are we pulling out of Iraq cause the insurgents wiped out the U.S. military? Or have the goals been achieved? The insurgents have tried to kill many Iraqi recruits by suicide bombing but that has not deterred them. The Afghan forces are growing but still needs more training. Also the problem is that its from different tribes and are not united to fight the Taliban.

 

[Respect4Respect01]

No it was the Taliban even you knew that.

not really.

taliban killed "innocents" for some reason, because they are "bad".

but why did usa kill innocents, usa is "good".

 

[Spring Onion]

Why haven't the Taliban wipe the U.S. military in 10 years? And why haven't Pakistan wiped out the Taliban on their side? Think about whats going on in Iraq. What are the intentions? Conquer? Kill everybody? Or stabilized the country? Are we pulling out of Iraq cause the insurgents wiped out the U.S. military? Or have the goals been achieved? The insurgents have tried to kill many Iraqi recruits by suicide bombing but that has not deterred them. The Afghan forces are growing but still needs more training. Also the problem is that its from different tribes and are not united to fight the Taliban.

you are leaving with large expenditure, alot of casualties and above all maimed soldiers is it more important or wiping out an invader army that doesnt come out of their bases ?

 

[Respect4Respect01]

Why haven't the Taliban wipe the U.S. military in 10 years? And why haven't Pakistan wiped out the Taliban on their side? Think about whats going on in Iraq. What are the intentions? Conquer? Kill everybody? Or stabilized the country? Are we pulling out of Iraq cause the insurgents wiped out the U.S. military? Or have the goals been achieved? The insurgents have tried to kill many Iraqi recruits by suicide bombing but that has not deterred them. The Afghan forces are growing but still needs more training. Also the problem is that its from different tribes and are not united to fight the Taliban.

The world would die with peace, if there was no usa.

 

[JayAtl]

Thank you for your post - May I suggest that you consider your responses without reference to such things as "your country" -- after all, you don't have a clue to my nationality and it should not matter after all, your position does not change because of the nationality of persons, right?

Ok, so if going into Afghanistan was about protecting Americans and the war is not won, is leaving about protecting Americans as well??

AQ was the target in Afghanistan and it has been destroyed in Afghanistan - - Has the threat to the US diminished??

US think of lives before money?? Is that why the US president has said it's time for nation building in the US??




An end to all intimidation? We must be real - we must ask what are the objectives of the effort and access if the objectives were met -- Is Afghanistan safer and are US citizens safer?? Is it true that sorting out Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Syria and .. will make US citizens safer in the US??

If you are convinced by the argument that these peoples and countries must be sorted out to make the US safe, then of course the war is not won and there must be war for a long long time to come -- On the other hand if you are willing to think that security is a mutual, that US cannot be safe without others being safe, then you might consider whether or not US citizens can best be made safe by formulating policies whose focus is not "sorting out" peoples and nations.

going into Afghanistan was to kill and punish those who thought like osama did that America is actually weak at its core and if you really attack it, killing thousands of its citizens, it will succumb, maybe lob a few missiles like Clinton did, but will ultimately succumb. I guess his history books did not include pearl harbor.

What we did in Afghanistan is kill AQ to the levels of having a few numbers left, some say as low as 40-50 remain there. We completely annihilated most of their structure there. The war was won from a military perspective but now we are switching to what we call counter insurgency mode- where you will still see American boots on the ground- just not in such large numbers. The counter insurgency mode is similar to the raid that killed Osama. The school of thought now is more and more speccial op's, is that we don't need to commit large numbers any more - just special forces operations on the ground and special op's raids and drones.

Libya and Syria are two completely different things. Libya saw where the arabss themselves requesting the UN body for intervention and it was as you see now a NATO action after initially being spearhead by the US. My question is, why do you bring Libya into the mix though? do you agree with the killing of thousands of his citizens, raping of the women and killing of children? I think not. Even Syria , where we have not gone in- do agree with what that dictator is doing? I think not again. I feel the issue is fundamentally religious, if Muslims slaughter thousands then its a-okay and accepted part of the culture of violence I guess but if the US or NATO come in to protect the civilian population and in the mix have a rare here and there mis-fire that kills a handful of civilians- then some how that's more egregious than the thousands killed by the hands of the Muslim despot. I think it's unfair to judge Us by such double standards.

You say we need a solution that keeps the civilian population safe too. we do, the US military takes great pain in doing so and at risk of risking US soldiers lives many a times. people may not agree but those are the facts.

the argument we are satisfied with is live and let live and if you don't then you will feel the total might of the American military and resolve, even if takes decades. That's the american way and we won't apologize for hunting, killing them down where ever and whenever.

 

[JayAtl]

The world would die with peace, if there was no usa.

I would say if there were no religions, the world will be at peace.

 

[Solomon2]

I would say if there were no religions, the world will be at peace.

Then what would the moral foundation of the human race rest upon?

 

[JayAtl]

Then what would the moral foundation of the human race rest upon?

Civilized citizenry. Religion did not teach me right or wrong when I was born , my parents did. what came first religion or human learning and adaptation ?

 

[Spring Onion]

I would say if there were no religions, the world will be at peace.

its war for survival, religion or no religion its just human instinct to kill the weaker for own rule

 

[DV RULES]

Mullen calls Obama Afghanistan plan risky

By Robert Burns - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jun 23, 2011 10:54:42 EDT

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military’s top officer told Congress on Thursday that President Obama’s decision to withdraw up to 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by next summer is riskier than he originally was prepared to endorse.

Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House hearing that he supports the president’s plans. But Mullen said they are “more aggressive and incur more risk” than he had considered prudent.

“More force for more time is, without doubt, the safer course,” Mullen said. “But that does not necessarily make it the best course. Only the president, in the end, can really determine the acceptable level of risk we must take. I believe he has done so.”
Obama announced Wednesday evening that the U.S. and its allies had achieved enough in Afghanistan to merit a drawdown of forces beginning this summer. Obama said 10,000 troops would come home by the end of this year, to be followed by as many as 23,000 next summer. That will leave about 68,000 U.S. troops there.

Mullen, who is retiring Oct. 1, was blunt in testifying about the risks and potential rewards of Obama’s decision.

“No commander ever wants to sacrifice fighting power in the middle of a war,” Mullen said. “And no decision to demand that sacrifice is ever without risk. This is particularly true in a counterinsurgency, where success is achieved not solely by technological prowess or conventional superiority, but by the wit and the wisdom of our people as they pursue terrorists and engage the local populace on a daily basis. In a counterinsurgency, firepower is manpower.”

On the other hand, Mullen said, taking the safer course would have entailed other kinds of risks, such as increasing the Afghan government’s dependence on the U.S.

Many Democrats had urged Obama to pull out U.S. troops faster, while other lawmakers — particularly Republicans — have taken the opposite view.

Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told Mullen at Thursday’s hearing that he fears the Obama plan “will significantly undermine” the goal of transferring full responsibility for security to the Afghan government by the end of 2014.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the committee’s top ranking Democrat, endorsed the drawdown as “modest” and said that taking 33,000 U.S. troops out while adding more than 120,000 Afghan security forces limits the risk. He said it would be more risky for the U.S. to stay too long.

Pain within war mongers

But on other side there are countries saying well come to this decision and they want to use this budget in their own country which they must spend in Afghanistan following US path.

Europeans hail U.S. drawdown from Afghanistan


PARIS — European allies on Thursday applauded President Barack Obama's plan to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, with France jumping at the chance to announce its own drawdown in a mission that has drained budgets and strained public opinion across the continent.

After nearly a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, Obama's withdrawal blueprint was welcomed by NATO allies facing dwindling support, if not outright opposition, because of the conflict.

France, with some 4,000 troops in Afghanistan, will start "a progressive pullout of reinforcements sent to Afghanistan, in a proportional way and on a similar timetable to the pullout of the American reinforcements," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement just hours after Obama's speech.

French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet, doing the math on the U.S. pullout, said on BFM TV that roughly a quarter of American troops would leave Afghanistan by summer 2012 and that France "will do the same." That means about 1,000 French troops will be out by next summer.

In Germany, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said his country aims to begin pulling out troops for the first time by year's end. Germany has some 4,900 troops in a part of northern Afghanistan that was long relatively calm but has seen increasing fighting in recent years.

In Brussels, a member of NATO's governing body, the North Atlantic Council, said a number of smaller member states are now "actively looking" at reducing their Afghanistan contingents over the next 12 months.

Countries with troops based in the safer northern and western regions of Afghanistan expect to be the first to hand over responsibilities to Afghan security forces, said the diplomat who could not be identified because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media on the issue. A residual number of advisers and instructors could stay behind.

"The prospect of withdrawal is now becoming concrete," Westerwelle said in a statement. "The international community and we, too, have worked hard on this for over a year."

No other details have been made public on the looming European drawdowns. Like other allies, these countries have said the military situation and the stability of Afghanistan and its government would determine the pace.

"We will keep U.K. force levels in Afghanistan under constant review," British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement. He noted that Britain had already planned to pull all of its 10,000 troops out by 2015, "and, where conditions on the ground allow, it is right that we bring troops home sooner."

In part, plans to pull back reflect the war's long, costly commitment in lives and money as well as the slow but growing autonomy of Afghanistan security forces. The killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has added to the sense of progress, though fighting continues and the Taliban publicly say they won't stop fighting until foreign troops leave.

Longuet, the French defense minister, said the drawdown is "first of all the result of the death — the elimination — of Osama bin Laden."

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance's International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, in Afghanistan will gradually move from combat to support roles.

"We can see the tide is turning," Rasmussen said in a statement. "The Taliban are under pressure. The Afghan security forces are getting stronger every day."

Major national elections loom in countries such as France, Germany, Spain and the United States over the next 18 months, and the drawn-out effort in Afghanistan has fared poorly in opinion polls in many parts of Europe.

Countries such as France and Britain also have been in the cost-cutting mode amid sizable budget deficits that have meant reductions in popular national programs such as education and pensions.

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2011/06/ap-europeans-hail-us-afghanistan-drawdown-062311/

 

[Respect4Respect01]

I would say if there were no religions, the world will be at peace.

no no no dude, all religions teach peace, its just humans who do bad things. all humans do bad things.

 

[Stealth IFV]

Why haven't the Taliban wipe the U.S. military in 10 years? And why haven't Pakistan wiped out the Taliban on their side? Think about whats going on in Iraq. What are the intentions? Conquer? Kill everybody? Or stabilized the country? Are we pulling out of Iraq cause the insurgents wiped out the U.S. military? Or have the goals been achieved? The insurgents have tried to kill many Iraqi recruits by suicide bombing but that has not deterred them. The Afghan forces are growing but still needs more training. Also the problem is that its from different tribes and are not united to fight the Taliban.

I hope CENTCOM can back me up when I say this, but there are far too many floating theories around here that ISAF is taking a beating in Afghanistan, or even that US forces have somehow "lost" in Iraq. Let's just focus on Afghanistan for a moment. The governments that were erected, the infrastructure that was revived, and the grips of tyranny that have been removed in the forms of mass enemy casualties, disruption of command in terror groups and the capture of many top leaders are huge stepping stones for Afghan society. In a bid to pull them onto a hopeful path and future, nations like Canada, USA, England, Turkey, Georgia, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, etc. give their best soldiers for the sake of creating stability in a region torn apart by not only civil war but militant fingering from all her neighbours, mostly from the southern border.