{"id":66700,"date":"2016-07-07T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=66700"},"modified":"2016-07-06T19:30:48","modified_gmt":"2016-07-06T23:30:48","slug":"obama-to-reduce-troop-strength-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=66700","title":{"rendered":"Obama to reduce troop strength in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.military.com\/daily-news\/2016\/07\/06\/about-8400-us-troops-to-remain-in-afghanistan-next-year-obama.html?ESRC=dod-bz.nl?ESRC=dod-bz.nl\">Military.com<\/a> reports that after hemming and hawing for the better part of a year, Obama has finally arrived at the politically-expedient solution for troops strength in Afghanistan. Despite warnings from his military commanders, the President has decided to reduce the number from 9800 to 8400. Initially, his plan was to leave only 5500, but ISIS cahnged his mind;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The announcement by Obama at the White House, with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford flanking him, left decisions on future U.S. commitments to Afghanistan to the next president and essentially scuttled Obama&#8217;s dream of leaving office after ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The decision I&#8217;m making today ensures that my successor has a solid foundation for progress in Afghanistan, as well as the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism as it evolves,&#8221; Obama said. &#8220;I firmly believe the decision I&#8217;m announcing is the right thing to do.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Taliban has been making gains in Afghanistan since early 2014, when 38,000 troops were withdrawn from the fight. But then withdrawal and saving the President&#8217;s legacy has been this President&#8217;s sole strategy since he took office, so why stop now?<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to AW1Ed for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Military.com reports that after hemming and hawing for the better part of a year, Obama has &hellip; <a title=\"Obama to reduce troop strength in Afghanistan\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=66700\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Obama to reduce troop strength in Afghanistan<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}