A motorized convoy clears a route during Operation Alekhine's Gun in the Musa Qaleh district of Afghanistan's Helmand, Afghanistan, Feb 9, 2012. The Marines, assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, found numerous weapons caches and an estimated 150 pounds of black tar heroin. The Marines also made use of their mobilized speed and night vision capability to disrupt and confuse enemy operations in the city of Shah Karez. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. Robert Storm The West’s Undignified Scramble For The Exit Is A Gift To The Taliban -- Con Coughlin
We are in danger of making the same costly mistake as the Soviet Union did when it withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989.
It did not have to end like this. Our valiant mission to defeat the Taliban and stabilise Afghanistan has been reduced to an undignified scramble for the exit by Nato leaders desperate to see who can be the first to bring their troops home.
It is, after all, little more than two years since Barack Obama committed America, by some distance the biggest contributor to Nato’s military mission to Afghanistan, to a comprehensive strategy of defeating the Taliban and bringing about political reconciliation in a country exhausted by three decades of conflict.
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My Comment: Laura Rozen has a similar analysis here. What's my take .... there is no political support for a continued U.S./NATO presence in Afghanistan .... as well as no support among a good percentage of the Afghan people themselves for our continued presence. Couple this lack of political and Afghan support with the realization that there are probably no longer any Al Qaeda cells in the country, the military justifications start to not make any sense either. In the end, the Afghan conflict will have to be settled by the Afghans themselves, and our continued presence is only exacerbating and making this situation worse.