{"id":66731,"date":"2016-07-08T09:30:31","date_gmt":"2016-07-08T13:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=66731"},"modified":"2016-07-08T11:59:54","modified_gmt":"2016-07-08T15:59:54","slug":"operation-resolute-cluster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=66731","title":{"rendered":"Operation Resolute Cluster****"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?attachment_id=56792\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-56792\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Ashton-Carter-492x333.jpg\" alt=\"Ashton Carter\" width=\"492\" height=\"333\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-56792\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Ashton-Carter-492x333.jpg 492w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Ashton-Carter-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Ashton-Carter.jpg 594w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 492px) 100vw, 492px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The other day, the President announced his plan to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan, yet again. A rational person might think that the new number was based on detailed planning and the result of months of study. Well, not according to the Secretary of Defense when he was talking to reporters on a flight to Poland yesterday, as told by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/checkpoint\/wp\/2016\/07\/07\/pentagon-chief-details-of-obamas-new-plan-for-u-s-troops-in-afghanistan-still-unclear\/\">Washington Post<\/a>;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Carter&#8230;said he did not know how many of the 8,400 troops that President Obama announced Wednesday will remain in the country next year will be focused on advising Afghan forces versus striking al-Qaeda and other terrorists.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe haven\u2019t decided,\u201d the Pentagon chief said, adding that some will come from each category.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>There are currently about 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with some 6,950 focused on the advising mission, known as Resolute Support, and more than 2,000 involved in raids and other counterterrorism missions in an operation known as Freedom\u2019s Sentinel.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>A senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss Carter\u2019s comments, said that Army Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is still determining \u201cthe specific number devoted to each mission. But the majority of U.S. troops in Afghanistan will remain focused on the advising mission, the official said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So basically, the Secretary is admitting that the administration just pulled the 8400 number out of their collective ass. If there was a plan, they would know what each soldier in Afghanistan would be doing on a given day &#8211; that&#8217;s how you arrive at a number as low as 8400.<\/p>\n<p>But, there is no plan, no rhyme nor reason, just a number that is smaller than the number of troops who are in Afghanistan this year. The overarching plan of the Obama Administration for Afghanistan is withdrawal, no more no less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other day, the President announced his plan to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan, &hellip; <a title=\"Operation Resolute Cluster****\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=66731\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Operation Resolute Cluster****<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-terror-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66731","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=66731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}