{"id":72057,"date":"2017-05-13T14:38:33","date_gmt":"2017-05-13T18:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=72057"},"modified":"2017-05-13T14:40:07","modified_gmt":"2017-05-13T18:40:07","slug":"more-us-troops-for-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=72057","title":{"rendered":"More US troops for Afghanistan?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post<\/a> frets that the Trump Administration might send 3,000 more troops to Afghanistan to reverse recent gains made by the Taliban there;<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, after a lengthy review, top Trump administration advisers were reported to be urging an ambitious new military role in Afghanistan, led by the Pentagon, with at least 3,000 troops added to the current 8,400, to halt the country\u2019s deteriorating security and push the Taliban back to the negotiating table. President Trump is expected to make a final decision this month.<\/p>\n

Such a policy would dramatically ramp up American involvement in the war, which was systematically cut back under President Barack Obama. By the end of 2014, most U.S. and NATO forces had left the country, leaving \u00adAfghan troops struggling to hold off a determined Taliban insurgency, at a loss of life that a U.S. watchdog group recently called \u201cshockingly high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Afghan officials and experts agree that the defense forces are desperately in need of both short- and long-term U.S. assistance \u2014 more equipment, air support and Special Operations partnerships as the summer fighting season intensifies, and more troop training and leadership reforms so that the defense forces can become self-sufficient.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, well, tough. President Obama had an opportunity to have a real “surge”, but instead he half-assed it with a political decision, deciding in favor of his political advisors instead of his generals. Then he let the Taliban take over from gains that US troops had made with one hand tied behind their collective back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is more fighting and more ground held by Taliban now than ever before, and increasing the troops can help reverse that,\u201d said Abdul Bari Barakzai, a member of the government\u2019s High Peace Council. \u201cBut people have lost their trust in the government. No matter how many troops you bring now, it will have no lasting impact unless there is real reform and good governance.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Obama’s legacy in Afghanistan. If I was making the decisions at this point, instead of hoping the Afghans would reform their political problems somewhere down the road, I’d make the increase in more US troops contingent on the Afghans’ political reform right now. They’ve been making promises, and now all we get are excuses. Let’s see an investment in their future from the Afghans for a change. Otherwise, we’re gone.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Post frets that the Trump Administration might send 3,000 more troops to Afghanistan to … More US troops for 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-72057","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\/72057","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=72057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}