Less Troops In Afghanistan? Unlikely

June 6, 2011

The Obama re-election committee wants to let the Obamanits know that his

national security team is contemplating troop reductions in Afghanistan that would be steeper than those discussed even a few weeks ago, with some officials arguing that such a change is justified by the rising cost of the war and the death of Osama bin Laden, which they called new “strategic considerations.”

Significant less troops in Afghanistan?

Not.Gonna.Happen.

This is just feigning a discussion. In all decisions Obama has so far always taken the more conservative side of the issue in question. That side wants all troops to stay in Afghanistan and only made a token withdrawal offer of some 3,000-5,000 troops. These troops leaving will be “fobbits”, administrative personal that sits in Forward Operation Bases and can do the job from anywhere else on the planed without any problems. That is what Gates wants, the military leadership wants, the new CIA head Petreaus wants and the new Secretary of Defense Panetta likely wants. Biden? Who cares what he says?

The bulk of the troops will stay in Afghanistan at least until 2014. Then a new war will have to be found to allow for significant troop reduction in Afghanistan while keeping the money flowing to the defense contractors.

These well placed rumors of “contemplation” and “deliberate decision making” get only launched to keep up a fake Obama image. The issue is likely already decided. There will be no significant troops reduction from Afghanistan within the next year or two.

Posted by b on June 6, 2011 at 16:08 UTC | Permalink

Comments

It would appear that the US withdrawal plan involves US bankruptcy. Put another way the US Empire is to far gone to turn around now.

Posted by: Dr Gonzo | Jun 6 2011 16:39 utc | 1

Agreed. The whole point of the quagmire in Afghanistan is to expunge the ghosts of Vietnam, for which the ruling crazies blame public opinion. This time around, the ruling crazies want to prove that neither American public opinion, Afghan public opinion or even outrageous cost, fraud, and waste can deter the military when it sets out to do something stupid.

Posted by: JohnH | Jun 6 2011 19:16 utc | 2

The Yanks are playing the “great game” 100 years too late.
They sold their soul to China 20 years ago.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jun 6 2011 19:35 utc | 3

I couldn’t agree more that the main point is to keep dollars flowing into the defense budget.
The presumption is that the US economy is infinite, and they can afford anything.
Well, that’s not true.

Posted by: alexno | Jun 6 2011 21:11 utc | 4

I don’t agree completely; I think part of the military-industrial establishment does want to shift voices of the defense budget from ground wars to high-tech toys (ground wars entail an exorbitant and – from their point of view – unprofitable expenditure on humans); the Army wants ground wars as a means to gain a greater part of the budget and greater political weight, with respect to the air force and the navy; and on the background, there is an objective problem with the ever-increasing budget of the pentagon, which the Us can’t afford;
Obama shrewdly weights and shifts his opinions accordingly to the debate that is sure developing quite hotly behind the scenes;
at the end I believe that yes, there will always be new Us wars, but the invasions with ground troops, neocon-style, will be faded out as political conditions permit it; for example, we haven’t analyzed enough what Petreaus’ appointment to the Cia means from this point of view;

Posted by: claudio | Jun 6 2011 21:46 utc | 5

Yanks are playing the “great game” 100 years too late. – Cloned Poster.
Yes: All these bombs and boots on the ground are not very effective at enslaving ppl or extracting resources, or even in imposing a certain kind of cultural take-over. They serve principally to feed the arms industry, defense contractors, etc. and other internal purposes, such as absorbing a part of young male unemployment, keeping up the red state votes, encouraging belligerent nationalism which limits analysis, and so on.
No: because military prowess and domination must be kept up to be used as a threat and to hold allies and client states, and generally wield power in all domains.
That is the trap the US has fallen into. It is maintaining its power at great cost for little, marginal or simply uncertain return, and can’t see any way of changing course.
Maybe/ It is irrelevant: The struggle we are looking at should not be framed in terms or Nation States, but in terms of Corporations or other groupings who have bought off, deeply infiltrated, national ‘democratic’ Gvmts. for their own interests which don’t coincide with national ones.

Posted by: Noirette | Jun 7 2011 21:55 utc | 6

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