Last Friday, President Obama held a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The purpose was to notify Americans that the drawdown of American troops in Afghanistan would begin sooner than was previously believed. The president said the drawdown of the 66,000 troops currently in that would would begin this spring, and at that time the U.S. would basically turn the conduct of the war over to the Afghan government, and the U.S. troops would assume a support role.
The president said, "This war will come to a responsible end."
I really wish that was true. This war should have been ended long ago, when it was realized that nothing was really being accomplished. It should have at least been ended a year ago (the end of 2011), as President Obama promised when he was running for his first term in 2008. But it didn't end back then, and sadly, it won't be ending at the end of 2014 either.
While the president claims he is ending the war, the truth is that he and the military generals want to leave troops in Afghanistan far beyond the end of 2014. That's what he was negotiating with Karzai last week. We don't yet know how many troops they want to leave in harm's way in Afghanistan beyond the end of 2014, but we do know it will be in the thousands. There have been various estimates, from as low a number as 2,500 to as high as 15,000 (which is what the generals want). It seems that this administration wants to continue operations in that country for an indeterminate period of time (endless war?), by leaving thousands of American soldiers there to train Afghan troops and to chase the remaining insurgents.
The fact is that neither political party in this country seems to want to end this nasty and unnecessary war. While the Democrats would leave a few thousand troops there indefinitely, the Republicans want to maintain current troop levels (or even send more troops).
There is only one slim hope for the complete withdrawal of American troops. President Obama said troops would remain past 2014 only if American troops are given complete immunity for any crimes they might commit in that country. Karzai believes he can sell that idea to his legislature as not infringing on Afghan sovereignty (even though it clearly does that -- we certainly wouldn't let foreign troops be stationed in this country with complete immunity).
The same demand was made in Iraq, but the Iraqi government wouldn't go along with it. That's the real reason the troops were completely withdrawn from that country. There will be a new election for president in Afghanistan in 2014. We must hope that the new president (and the legislature) will refuse to submit to such a ridiculous notion as giving immunity, regardless of what crimes may be committed. It is our only hope for a complete troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in the near future.
Politics Magazine
