NPR | 300 Marines To Deploy To Afghanistan : NPR NPR Rachel Martin talks with Marine Brig. Gen. Roger Turner about the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan as the U.S. prepares to send 300 Marines to Helmand province. |
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300 Marines To Deploy To Afghanistan : NPR - NPR
Tensions between Russia and the U.S. are again flaring up in the Middle East, but this time its not about Syria or chemical weapons. Instead, the conflict is over a potential peace deal in Afghanistan that could bring an end to 16 years of war that has ravaged the country. The Kremlin is slated to hold a meeting Friday in Moscow aimed at brokering a resolution between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Washington has refused to attend, instead accusing Russia of arming Taliban fighters and undermining NATOs efforts to bring peace and security to the region.
The meeting is the third peace summit held by Moscow since December. At the first,Moscow only invited China and Pakistan to the table, angering both Washington and Kabul. At the second, in February, it invited Afghanistan, but excluded the U.S. Now, finally invited to the talks, the Trump administration says it questions Russias motives.
Russia has denied giving weapons to Taliban fighters, while conceding that it did reach out to the militant group in its efforts to broker the peace deal. Russia has also called for an end to sanctions against Taliban leaders.
As a candidate ahead of the November elections, Trump said he would improve relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but his White House has already caught Moscows ire after vowing to uphold sanctions against Russia, introduced after the countrys annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, and, more recently, ordering an airstrike against the Syrian government on April 6 in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed more than 80 people. The bombing marked the U.S. first military action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally to Russia. Moscow described the strike as an act of aggression.
Read more: Donald Trump's approval rating stayed pretty much the same after he ordered airstrikes in Syria
Its perhaps a sign of how bad things have become that the Kremlin, which once awarded Secretary of State Rex Tillerson itsOrder of Friendship, initially denied that Putin would meet with him during his official visit to Moscow on Tuesday and Wednesday. Officials were expected to discuss how to end Syrias nearly six-year civil war. Putin has met with other U.S. secretaries of state in the past.
Russias relationship with the Taliban is of major concern to Washington. The Taliban controlled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 until the U.S.-led invasion that divided the nation. The militants now rule over roughly half of Afghanistans population and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has repeatedly urged Taliban leaders in recent years to agree to a peace deal.
Russia could be looking to regain influence in Afghanistan after its 1979 invasion and 10-year occupation of the Central Asian nation. Afghanistan is considered strategically important, particularly in relation to economic and national security concerns in nearby India, Pakistan and Iran, while Afghanistan has also claimed its mineral resources are worth around $3 trillion.
Moscow says its reason for getting involved in peace talks is to prevent instability from spilling over to central Asia. Russias special envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, claimed last month that any accusations from the Afghan government and its allies over alleged weapons deals were being used to justify their own failure on the battlefield. Russia has also said its particularly worried about the presence of the Islamic State group, which the Taliban opposes. Despite the Kremlins concerns, security experts say the group is not a significant threat to Afghanistan or the wider region.
In assisting the militants, Russia would also undermine NATO forces in the region at a time of growing tensions between Russia and NATO in Europe. Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters at a press conference in London on March 31 that he was aware of Russian activity concerning the Taliban. I'm not going to say at this point if that has manifested into weapons and that sort of thing, but certainly what they're up to there in light of their other activities gives us concern, Mattis said.
Another senior defense official was less cautious. I think it is fair to assume [Russia] may be providing some sort of support to [the Taliban], in terms of weapons or other things that may be there, U.S. Central Command chief General Joseph Votel told members of Congress on March 29. I believe what Russia is attempting to be [is] an influential party in this part of the world.
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After Syria, the US And Russia Are Now Clashing Over Afghanistan - Newsweek
Afghan Ambassador to the U.S., Hamdullah Mohib, speaks with USA TODAY Editorial Board writer Gregg Zoroya about Afghanistan's progress against the Taliban and its preparation to fight with fewer U.S. forces. USA TODAY Opinion
In this photograph taken on February 9, 2017, an Italian soldier from NATO's Resolute Support Mission (2L) trains Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers at the Kabul Military Training center on the outskirts of Herat.(Photo: Aref Karimi, AFP/Getty Images)
Afghanistans military should be able to carry on the fight against Taliban insurgents mostly without the help of U.S. and other foreign troops by 2020, Afghanistans ambassador to the United States said Tuesday.
By 2020 our security forces will be able to have what they need to carry on the fight on their own for the most part, Hamdullah Mohib toldthe USA TODAY editorial board.
Were not talking about creating a new military, Mohib said. What were talking about is adjusting what we already have.
He said the forecast assumes there won't be any major changes in the security threat in Afghanistan. The Islamic State has made some inroads in the country, though is not considered a major threat.
Mohib said Afghans fledgling air force also is growing more self reliant.
U.S. troops have been in Afghanistan since 2001, when they overthrew a Taliban regime for providing safe haven to the al-Qaeda terrorist groupbehind the Sept. 11attacks.
Even if Afghan forces are mostly self-sufficient they will likely require international financial support for many years. The United States provides the bulk of the foreign aid, including $67 billion since 2005 just to buildup the Afghan securityforce. It currently has350,000 members, including the police and army.
The local forces are taking heavy casualties in the war against the Taliban. Mohib said theysuffered 29,000 deaths and injurieslastyear.
Hamdullah Mohib, the Afghan ambassador to the United States, speaks to the USA TODAY Editorial Board in McLean, Va., on April 11, 2017.(Photo: Jarrad Henderson, USA TODAY NETWORK)
Army Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told Congress earlier this year that he needed a few thousand additional troops to help Afghanistans military turn the tide in the war. No decision has been made.
There are currently 8,400 U.S. forces in Afghanistan, down from a peak of nearly 100,000 in 2011.They are not engaged in direct combat but are advising and assisting Afghanistans military. The U.S. military also provideslimited air support to Afghan forces.
More than 2,200 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan since the invasion. The latest U.S. combat death, the first this year, occurred Saturday, when a U.S. soldier was killed duringan operation against an Islamic State offshoot.
Nicholson described the war against the Taliban as a stalemate. The Taliban havent been able to take over any major cities, but have made gains in remote parts of the country.
Mohib said the Afghan government would like to double the number of its special operations commandos, an elite U.S.-trained force that has made significant headway in fighting the Taliban.The Afghan special operations command currently has about 11,700 personnel, according to the Pentagon.
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U.S. troops may not be needed in Afghanistan by 2020, ambassador ... - USA TODAY
The Pentagon is not fighting to win the war in Afghanistan, but not to have the perception the US lost the war, said Brian Becker from the ANSWER Coalition. Any troop surge in Afghanistan will not be decisive, he added.
Afghanistans ambassador to the US said local Afghan forces should be able to deal with the Taliban threat themselves by 2020.
However, the Pentagon keeps considering whether to send more troops to the country. General Joseph Votel, Commander of the US Central Command, recently said he anticipated an increase in troops stationed in Afghanistan.
We are developing a strategy, and we are in discussions with the secretary and the department right now, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. I do believe it will involve additional forces to ensure that we can make the advise-and-assist mission more effective.
RT: Do you feel the US military is going in circles? They continue to ask for an increased military presence, yet the situation on the ground is not changing?
Brian Becker: General Votels request for a troops surge in Afghanistan comes almost exactly eight years after President Obama carried out a troop surge, at that time with more than 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan. Here we are eight years later: the war is not over, the war continues. It now continues to be the longest war in US history. Any troop surge in Afghanistan will not be decisive. The American people wont tolerate sending hundreds of thousands of troops so that it would be a smaller surge. Nonetheless, it wont win the war.
RT: Do you feel the US military is going in circles? They continue to ask for an increased military presence, yet the situation on the ground is not changing?
Brian Becker: General Votels request for a troops surge in Afghanistan comes almost exactly eight years after President Obama carried out a troop surge, at that time with more than 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan. Here we are eight years later: the war is not over, the war continues. It now continues to be the longest war in US history. Any troop surge in Afghanistan will not be decisive. The American people wont tolerate sending hundreds of thousands of troops so that it would be a smaller surge. Nonetheless, it wont win the war.
The real problem is the US cant win the war. The Pentagon knows that it cant win the war. It is not fighting to win the war anymore. It is fighting not to have the perception that it lost the war. More and more American young people: soldiers, sailors, marines are being sent to Afghanistan. Some will be killed; some will be injured; many Afghans will die. That is the strategy; there is no light at the end of this tunnel.
RT: Could this be another Vietnam a lost war with little chance of success the US government cannot let go?
BB: The component that existed in Vietnam and that is missing in Afghanistan is that in the Vietnam War in 1967-1972 millions of Americans were in the street demanding the war end. There could be no expectation that the war could be won. So there was mounting pressure at home to stop the war in Vietnam. The US could not win the war. The US cant win the war in Afghanistan. But the missing component here is that huge surge of anti-war opinion among the population. The reason for that is that US military planners have made sure that the numbers of US casualties are very low. All the bleeding is done on the other side, in other words, precisely in order to prevent massive anti-war sentiment from growing in the US that would be political pressure on this government or any American government.
RT: Could the indifference of the American people be the result of the lack of a mandatory draft, where people think that this war is far away and does not concern them?
BB: Yes, the combination of the absence of a selective service a conscripted army, whereby the burden of a foreign war had to be shared by the entire population, and the low number of American casualties the two things that have prevented the crystallization of mass anti-war sentiment as existed during the Vietnam War.
When I was a young kid, every year we were thinking: Oh, in four years, in three years, in two years I will be 18, I will be drafted. So for every family that had a young male in the family, the entire family had to deal with the question: Do we support the war? Do we want our son to go and fight, perhaps be killed? That is absent right now with the volunteer army. A very small part of the American people feel the burden of the foreign war.
Here we are in 2017 almost 16 years since the beginning of the US invasion of Afghanistan that began in October 2001. The Taliban probably controls more territory now than in did when it was the government of Afghanistan. At that time it couldnt control Northern Afghanistan. The country was severely divided by the warlords following the fall of the socialist government of Afghanistan in the early 1990s. I think the US knows they cant win. They dont want to leave. They know that Afghanistan will be effectively partitioned, but at least some parts of Afghanistan will remain under American control.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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'No light at end of this tunnel, US can't win Afghanistan war' - RT
Stars and Stripes | Hecker assumes command of US, NATO air forces in Afghanistan Stars and Stripes KABUL, Afghanistan Maj. Gen. James B. Hecker became the top Air Force general in Afghanistan on Tuesday by assuming command of the 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force and the NATO Air Command. Hecker took over from Air Force Maj. |
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Hecker assumes command of US, NATO air forces in Afghanistan - Stars and Stripes