Well the news this week here in Afghanistan has not been a good one.
President Karzei shot his mouth off saying that the US and the Taliban have been working together to create security issues which will ensure Foreign Troops will have to stay here longer than Afghanis want.....yeah, riiiiiight. Dude, when the Taliban gets you, you'll only have yourself to blame.
2 dead and 10 wounded in a "Green on Blue" attack in Wardak. A helicopter crash in Daman Province killed 5 American troops near Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.
At the same time, things are winding down here pretty damn quick. They are cleaning out KAF (Kandahar Air Field) one shipping container at a time. There are vast areas of the base that were jammed full with gear/kit/vehicles etc. and now you could hold a football game in the open space. Parts of KAF look more open and empty than I have ever seen it in the past three years.
I bought the t-shirt pictured in the photo above today at the PX. It pretty much sums it all up. The process as described in the press is pretty much BS. There is a great rush for the door and we will likely see this wind down much faster than it should.
In the end, this will help the Taliban and hurt the people of Afghanistan.
I know this much - The work we have done here has helped but the early exit is sure to take away from that work especially when we watch things go sideways here after our exit.
I hope I am wrong and would love to see it go better with the Afghans gaining control of their country. Being wrong about this would mean a self sustaining Afghanistan and more freedom for the Afghans.
" Inshalla " as they say here, translated as " If it be God's will "
This is not a shocker....Most who know anything about things in Afghanistan expected this development. The info put out by Biden last week is also as expected as the POLS in charge are incapable of being honest with the American people about what is planned for Afghanistan.
The road ahead is hard and will be difficult....sorry to be a buzzkill but our enemies are not going to make things easy anytime soon.
State Department official: Negotiations to extend U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan starting soon
Posted By Josh Rogin Tuesday, October 16, 2012http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/10/16/state_department_official_negotiations_to_extend_us_troop_presence_in_afghanistan_s
Despite statements by Vice President Joe Biden, the State Department is about to begin formal negotiations over the extension of U.S. troops past 2014, a top State Department official said Tuesday.
Last week, U.S. and Afghan negotiators met in Kabul to talk about the Bilateral Security Agreement that will govern the extension of U.S. troops past 2014, when President Barack Obama said the combat mission in Afghanistan will end and the U.S. will complete the transition of the entire country to Afghan government control.
Also last week, Biden told Americans during his Oct. 11 debate with Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan that U.S. troops were leaving Afghanistan by 2014.
"We are leaving in 2014, period, and in the process, we're going to be saving over the next 10 years another $800 billion," Biden said. "We've been in this war for over a decade. The primary objective is almost completed. Now all we're doing is putting the Kabul government in a position to be able to maintain their own security. It's their responsibility, not America's."
Marc Grossman, the State Department's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, explained today that's not the whole story.
Grossman said Tuesday that the point of the upcoming negotiations is to agree on an extension of the U.S. troop presence well past 2014, for the purposes of conducting counterterrorism operations and training and advising the Afghan security forces
