US to End Combat Missions in Afghanistan in 2013

[Flummoxed Lummox]

Now that Bin-Laden is dead (thanks to Obama), we no longer have a reason to be in Afghanistan. Kudos to Obama for beginning the transition to let the Afghans run their hell hole of a country.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that the U.S. and NATO will be ending their combat mission at some point next year, transitioning to a training role and letting Afghan security forces take the lead.

“Hopefully by mid to the latter part of 2013 we’ll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise and assist role,” Panetta said. His comment, while en route to Brussels for a NATO meeting, was confirmed to CNN by a defense official.

Late last year, Gen. John Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said U.S. forces will begin to be deployed this year within Afghan units as advisors and trainers, reducing the direct combat role of foreign troops in the country.

Afghanistan's growing security force has surpassed 305,000 and is headed toward 352,000 next year. At the same time, the United States is withdrawing forces through 2012, aiming to bring the number of American troops down to 68,000 by 2012 from over 100,000 after a 33,000 troop surge last year. There will also be 38,000 troops from other NATO countries.

Having Afghan forces take the lead with American advisers is the goal as the United States hopes to increase the indigenous force, but it is a challenging shift as Afghan forces have not proven to be uniformly cohesive or reliable as the numbers increase.

"That will in many respect be a preview of how we'll see our forces postured in the years to come," Allen said in December. "The crossover point where we become largely an advisory, assisting, an education force, versus a force that is engaged at any given moment in counterinsurgency, that crossover point remains to be determined."

The news comes just a few days after France announced it was withdrawing its troops a year earlier than 2014 after four of its troops were killed by an Afghan soldier. The Obama administration has taken pains to to show the alliance of nations fighting is still strong and committed to the 2014 deadline.

"That framework is very much to put through 2014 so that the end of this process, the end of this transition, the end of this draw down in which the Afghans fully move into the lead, is slated to be 2014, said White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes at a briefing with reporters in Chicago on Tuesday. "Just as we made decisions about the pace of our draw down, other nations will make decisions."

Chicago will be the site of a NATO meeting this May to discuss the war progress and, Rhodes explained, make sure NATO members are "aligned on our drawdowns and transition."

"One of the things that we have been able to see in Afghanistan, unlike in Iraq, in Iraq remember that the United States was kind of the last nation there, you know, alone, we never had the kind of International Legitimacy that we have in Afghanistan," Rhodes said. "It wasn’t as big of an international coalition. But one of the success stories that we have had is that we have been able to hold together this coalition."

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/01/us-to-end-afghan-combat-mission-in-2013/?hpt=hp_t1

[Sasquatch]

Officials: Longterm commitment for U.S. forces in Afghanistan

Top U.S. intelligence officials are downplaying talk of an early U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, saying American combat forces will stay there until the end of 2014 and there would be a substantial commitment for much longer than that.

CIA Director David H. Petraeus told lawmakers Thursday that the media had overblown comments by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who told reporters Wednesday that the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan would transition to a support mission next year.

James R. Clapper, director of national intelligence, told Thursday’s hearing that the U.S. and its allies would maintain a substantial commitment to and presence in Afghanistan “considerably longer” than that

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/2/officials-longterm-commitment-us-forces-afghanista/

Sounds like the number of troops will be reduced to the levels they were pre-Obama whenever that "transition" occurs.

[Jeremy Roenick]

Can you say decade-long quagmire?  It's not going to end any time soon either.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/12033/1207574-82-0.stm?cmpid=nationworld.xml

Captives say Taliban winning the war in Afghanistan, NATO report discloses

"Taliban commanders, along with rank-and-file members, increasingly believe their control of Afghanistan is inevitable," the report said. "Though the Taliban suffered severely in 2011, its strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remains intact."

[Sasquatch]

Combine that with Taliban members being transferred to Qatar with the HOPE by the Obama administration that they will stay incarcerated.  

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/31/administration_briefs_senate_leaders_on_taliban_transfer

[Flummoxed Lummox]

Can you say decade-long quagmire?  It's not going to end any time soon either.

Captives say Taliban winning the war in Afghanistan, NATO report discloses

I completely agree. The Russians experienced exactly the same before us. We didn't learn from history. We could be there the next 100 years and nothing significant would change.

Bin Laden is dead. It's time to begin the process of withdrawing. Hopefully, the transition will be the first step.