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THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Fri 16 Oct 2015, 01:25:40

Plantagenet wrote:We'll also be involved in a new war in Iraq
Who told you the old war ended?
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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby davep » Fri 16 Oct 2015, 04:55:33

Didn't George W. say it was over in about 2004?
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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 16 Oct 2015, 17:04:46

davep wrote:Didn't George W. say it was over in about 2004?

Didn't he do a photo shoot on a aircraft carrier proclaiming victory after shock and awe. Oh by the way whatever happened to Bod the spokesperson for Saddam government who was busy denying implausibly that the US was busy destroying Saddam forces as it was happening :lol: :lol: I am sure the US military brass got a good chuckle out of that
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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Fri 16 Oct 2015, 17:18:26

davep wrote:Didn't George W. say it was over in about 2004?


In fairness the victory dance was about Iraq, not Afghanistan.
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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Plantagenet » Fri 16 Oct 2015, 17:55:00

Keith_McClary wrote:
Plantagenet wrote:... a new war in Iraq
Who told you the old war ended?


Obama did. Don't you remember?

Lets go through the chronology.

in 2011 Obama said the Iraq war was over and Iraq was now a stable thriving democracy. As the last US troops left Iraq in 2011 Obama gave a speech taking credit for ending the Iraq War and proclaiming "We’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq"

BZZZZZT!!!!

Turns out Obama was wrong. Just three years later in 2014 IS invaded Iraq and started another war. Then for some reason Obama decided the US had to join that war and we started bombing IS in Iraq and Obama sent thousands of US troops back to Baghdad. Then Obama decided we had to start bombing IS in Syria and the US also tarted arming and training the Free Syrian Army.

Do you remember now?

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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Mon 19 Oct 2015, 13:22:22

Plantagenet wrote:
Keith_McClary wrote:
Plantagenet wrote:... a new war in Iraq
Who told you the old war ended?


Obama did. Don't you remember?
Just wondering where you get your facts from.

When do you think it will become the 51st state?
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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Mon 19 Oct 2015, 16:26:50

Keith - "When do you think it will become the 51st state?" Based on the big Iraq JV recently announced between BP and China it may become the 23rd Chinese province first. LOL. China was conducting so much business in Iraq they built their own private air port in country a couple of years ago to handle all the equipment/personnel movement.
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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Fri 23 Oct 2015, 23:30:50

Can you count how many contradictory stories:
APNewsBreak: US analysts knew Afghan site was hospital
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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Plantagenet » Mon 28 Dec 2015, 02:34:18

Obama's Afghanistan strategy has failed.

you-wont-hear-it-but-news-from-afghanistan-is-bad-

a-year-of-taliban-gains-shows-that-we-havent-delivered

One of the stupidest moves I've ever seen was Obama announcing precisely when he was going to pull out all US troops from Afghanistan---- he might as well have painted a "due date" on the Afghan regime.

And now here we are just months before Obama promised he would withdraw all US troops---and both the Taliban AND ISIS are now gaining territory in Afghanistan.

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Re: BBC: Afghanistan War Kundus taken by Taliban !

Unread postby M_B_S » Mon 28 Dec 2015, 05:43:16

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... ly-7079369

Brave Scots soldiers tell of daily hell in Helmand as resurgent Taliban fight back in Afghanistan
06:00, 28 DEC 2015
BY STEPHEN STEWART


News Scottish News Armed forces
Brave Scots soldiers tell of daily hell in Helmand as resurgent Taliban fight back in Afghanistan
06:00, 28 DEC 2015
BY STEPHEN STEWART
SINCE the majority of the British Army left Afghanistan two years ago, the remaining troops have been left isolated, working long hours with fewer welfare parcels than before.
******************************
The last stand...

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The Taliban on move forward in Helmand.

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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Mon 28 Dec 2015, 14:54:41

Confusion, corruption among Afghan forces hit Helmand defense
Reuters
Dec. 25, 2015
Sarwar Jan is the commander of a police battalion that has been heavily engaged in Sangin and Marjah, another district mostly in Taliban hands, and he is scathing about Afghan army units he says left his isolated, under-equipped men to fight alone.

"We call them up for reinforcement when there is an attack, but they won't respond. So our forces are like: 'If they don't cooperate, why should we help them?'" he said.
...
Units in Helmand have been left to fight for months on end with inadequate supplies and reinforcements. Corruption has siphoned off supplies and some units are under-strength because of ghost troops - deserters who are not reported so that officials can pocket their pay.

"In one battalion, the official strength is 400 but the actual number is around 150," said Ataullah Afghan, a member of provincial council in Helmand. "There is intelligence failure, lack of coordination, huge corruption in terms of selling fuel, ghost troops and much else," he said.
...
While NATO officials readily praise the courage and endurance of Afghan soldiers, a Pentagon report to Congress last week highlighted the overall shortcomings of the forces, which it said had serious problems with leadership.
...
Afghan commanders have repeatedly pleaded for more helicopters, and close air support and intelligence from surveillance aircraft - battlefield assets referred to in military jargon as "enablers".'
...
He said that NATO forces had operated with around 60 eye-in-the-sky surveillance balloons in Sangin, allowing them to track the movements of groups of insurgents. By contrast, Afghan forces now had just one balloon in the whole province, despite pleas for help. "Our request is still pending," he said.
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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Fri 15 Jan 2016, 14:11:05

Kabul has committed to a huge 7,000-member security force to guard the $10-billion, 1,800 km long Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline within Afghanistan, assuming it will really be finished by December 2018. Optimistically, heavy work on clearing TAPI’s passage – and that includes demining – will begin in April.

Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov already
ordered state companies Turkmengaz and Turkmengazneftstroi to begin building the country’s 214-km section of TAPI. The pipeline will also travel 773 km in Afghanistan and 827 km in Pakistan before entering India. Whether all this frenzy will actually materialize by 2018 is open to never-ending question.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/15/ ... an-puzzle/
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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Plantagenet » Wed 06 Jul 2016, 11:07:07

Obama made it official today.....He's breaking his promise to end the war in Afghanistan

obama-renegs-on-afghanistan-drawdown-

Hillary says nothing about Afghanistan, but if she follows obama's policy we'll be there forever.
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Re: BBC: Afghanistan War Kundus taken by Taliban !

Unread postby M_B_S » Mon 03 Oct 2016, 02:38:20

Taliban launches major assault on Afghan city of Kunduz

Taliban fighters have mounted a four-pronged assault on the northern city of Kunduz, a senior city police official said.

Sheer Ali Kamal, a police commander in Kunduz, said the attack began at around midnight (1930 GMT on Sunday) and fighting was still going on in and around the city.

“We are putting all our efforts together to push them back,” he said.

Military helicopters were flying overhead and gunfire could be heard in the city, which was deserted with streets empty and shops closed....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/ ... -of-kunduz
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Re: BBC: Afghanistan War Kundus taken by Taliban !

Unread postby M_B_S » Fri 27 Jan 2017, 07:30:02

Afghanistan: Taliban At The Gates
We join Afghan forces on the frontlines in Helmand, as they try to keep the Taliban from seizing a crucial capital.
26 Jan 2017 22:18 GMT War & Conflict, Taliban, Afghanistan
Fifteen years after suffering defeat at the hands of the United States, the Taliban are retaking territory in Afghanistan at an alarming pace.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101 ... 23975.html
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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Wed 08 Mar 2017, 12:17:02

Military Times wrote:WASHINGTON — There is mounting evidence that Chinese ground troops are operating inside Afghanistan, conducting joint counter-terror patrols with Afghan forces along a 50-mile stretch of their shared border and fueling speculation that Beijing is preparing to play a significantly greater role in the country's security once the U.S. and NATO leave.

The full scope of China's involvement remains unclear, and the Pentagon is unwilling to discuss it. “We know that they are there, that they are present,” a Pentagon spokesman said. Yet beyond a subtle acknowledgement, U.S. military officials in Washington and in Kabul would not respond to several detailed questions submitted by Military Times.

This dynamic stands in stark contrast to the two sides' feisty rhetoric over their ongoing dispute in the South China Sea, and to Washington's vocal condemnation of Russian and Iranian activity in Afghanistan. One explanation may be that this quiet arrangement is mutually beneficial.

Both the Chinese and Afghan governments have disputed reports of joint patrols inside Afghanistan. Those first surfaced late last year when India's Wion News published photos claiming to show Chinese military vehicles in a region called Little Pamir, a barren plateau near the border. Reuters, an international news agency, also recently documented the development.

The vehicles were identified as a Dongfeng EQ 2050, which is the Chinese equivalent of a U.S. Humvee, and a Norinco VP 11a, which are like the mine-resistant MRAPs developed by the U.S. military last decade. China maintains that while its police forces do conduct joint counter-terrorism operations along the border, based on existing bilateral agreements between the two nations, the People's Liberation Army does not.

But then there's this peculiarity: In January, Chinese media circulated a report about Chinese troops allegedly rescuing a U.S. special forces team that had been attacked in Afghanistan. The story is likely bogus propaganda, and U.S. officials in Afghanistan say no U.S. personnel have been part of any operations involving Chinese forces, but it would seem to underscore the two countries' shared interest in combating terrorism there.

But why is China even interested in Afghanistan? There are two motivators: security and commerce.

The first, says Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow at the East-West Institute, centers around China’s desire to eradicate a Uyghur militant group known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which has been active throughout the region for many years. Its feud with the Chinese government dates to 1949. The U.S. State Department designated it a terrorist organization in 2002. More recently, Uyghurs fighting with the Islamic State in Iraq have vowed to wreak havoc back home in China.

The U.S. military is not expressly targeting China's adversary though its continued presence in Afghanistan does further China's objective by helping to secure the country and deny sanctuary to rogue terror groups. Today, there are about 15,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, down from nearly 130,000 during the war's peak. They're spread across a handful of bases, focused on teaching the Afghans how to fight their enemies independently. A separate U.S-led counter-terror mission is focused on taking out high-profile leaders within al-Qaida and its affiliates.

But as coalition forces have pulled back, security has eroded, leaving ripe conditions for militants — be it the Taliban, al-Qaida or Uyghurs — to move in. The top American commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Nicholson, last month called the 15-year war a stalemate, raising the possibility that the U.S. and its allies could once more expand their footprint. Long term, however, the goal is to extract. "Beijing," Gady said, "has expressed repeated concern over the diminished Western foot print in Afghanistan.”

Border security and broader stability are of prime concern to China, said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of U.S.-East Asia relations at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. So its “law enforcement actions inside Afghanistan in cooperation with Pakistan, as the U.S. draws down, serve Beijing's interests quite well.” The U.S. is dependent on this assistance, he said. "Hence, there's no compelling reason for China not to resort to military force in its unstable western neighbor.”

It's a unique dilemma for Washington. On the one hand, China's assistance in war-torn Afghanistan is seen as helpful. All the saber rattling in the South China Sea — to include China's militarization of several man-made islands — is not.

So the U.S. appears willing to cooperate where it can, and confront where it must. "A stable Afghanistan is in the interest of both the United States and China," Gady said. "I assume there must be a tacit understanding that China's involvement in Afghanistan is welcome up to a point."

China's financial interests revolve around Afghanistan’s abundance of natural resources and minerals, and its access to Central Asian markets. Beijing sees Afghanistan as a vital link for its “One Belt, One Road” initiative, an economic policy that seeks to connect Eurasia to China.

"China," Gady said, "has been seen as a 'free rider' — gaining economic benefits by exploiting the country’s natural resources while not contributing to the political and military solution of the conflict. So it is not surprising that as Western engagement in the country diminishes, China gradually steps in to fill the void to secure its interests."

In 2015, after the Taliban reclaimed Kunduz, a strategic city in northern Afghanistan, Beijing agreed to cooperate with Kabul. It pledged $73 million to support Afghanistan fledgling security forces. Afghan border police also are being trained in China, and the Chinese government is providing military hardware, including bullet proof jackets, demining equipment and armored police vehicles.

Lee does not view this as a softening stance between Beijing and Washington. There are too many other disagreements, he noted. Beyond the South China Sea, the U.S. wants China to do more to keep North Korea in check and to lay off South Korea, which intends to deploy a self-defense anti-ballistic missile system.

And the notion of Chinese forces pushing deeper into Afghanistan, beyond the border region, strikes Gady as unlikely — at least in the near term, while the U.S. and its allies are there in significant numbers. "China's security footprint," he said, "will remain small and insignificant in comparison."

Shawn Snow is a Military Times staff writer and editor of the Early Bird Brief.


http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/c ... fghanistan
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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Subjectivist » Wed 08 Mar 2017, 12:37:53

Tanada wrote:
Military Times wrote:WASHINGTON — There is mounting evidence that Chinese ground troops are operating inside Afghanistan, conducting joint counter-terror patrols with Afghan forces along a 50-mile stretch of their shared border and fueling speculation that Beijing is preparing to play a significantly greater role in the country's security once the U.S. and NATO leave.

The full scope of China's involvement remains unclear, and the Pentagon is unwilling to discuss it. “We know that they are there, that they are present,” a Pentagon spokesman said. Yet beyond a subtle acknowledgement, U.S. military officials in Washington and in Kabul would not respond to several detailed questions submitted by Military Times.

This dynamic stands in stark contrast to the two sides' feisty rhetoric over their ongoing dispute in the South China Sea, and to Washington's vocal condemnation of Russian and Iranian activity in Afghanistan. One explanation may be that this quiet arrangement is mutually beneficial.

Both the Chinese and Afghan governments have disputed reports of joint patrols inside Afghanistan. Those first surfaced late last year when India's Wion News published photos claiming to show Chinese military vehicles in a region called Little Pamir, a barren plateau near the border. Reuters, an international news agency, also recently documented the development.

The vehicles were identified as a Dongfeng EQ 2050, which is the Chinese equivalent of a U.S. Humvee, and a Norinco VP 11a, which are like the mine-resistant MRAPs developed by the U.S. military last decade. China maintains that while its police forces do conduct joint counter-terrorism operations along the border, based on existing bilateral agreements between the two nations, the People's Liberation Army does not.

But then there's this peculiarity: In January, Chinese media circulated a report about Chinese troops allegedly rescuing a U.S. special forces team that had been attacked in Afghanistan. The story is likely bogus propaganda, and U.S. officials in Afghanistan say no U.S. personnel have been part of any operations involving Chinese forces, but it would seem to underscore the two countries' shared interest in combating terrorism there.

But why is China even interested in Afghanistan? There are two motivators: security and commerce.

The first, says Franz-Stefan Gady, a senior fellow at the East-West Institute, centers around China’s desire to eradicate a Uyghur militant group known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which has been active throughout the region for many years. Its feud with the Chinese government dates to 1949. The U.S. State Department designated it a terrorist organization in 2002. More recently, Uyghurs fighting with the Islamic State in Iraq have vowed to wreak havoc back home in China.

The U.S. military is not expressly targeting China's adversary though its continued presence in Afghanistan does further China's objective by helping to secure the country and deny sanctuary to rogue terror groups. Today, there are about 15,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, down from nearly 130,000 during the war's peak. They're spread across a handful of bases, focused on teaching the Afghans how to fight their enemies independently. A separate U.S-led counter-terror mission is focused on taking out high-profile leaders within al-Qaida and its affiliates.

But as coalition forces have pulled back, security has eroded, leaving ripe conditions for militants — be it the Taliban, al-Qaida or Uyghurs — to move in. The top American commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. John Nicholson, last month called the 15-year war a stalemate, raising the possibility that the U.S. and its allies could once more expand their footprint. Long term, however, the goal is to extract. "Beijing," Gady said, "has expressed repeated concern over the diminished Western foot print in Afghanistan.”

Border security and broader stability are of prime concern to China, said Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of U.S.-East Asia relations at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. So its “law enforcement actions inside Afghanistan in cooperation with Pakistan, as the U.S. draws down, serve Beijing's interests quite well.” The U.S. is dependent on this assistance, he said. "Hence, there's no compelling reason for China not to resort to military force in its unstable western neighbor.”

It's a unique dilemma for Washington. On the one hand, China's assistance in war-torn Afghanistan is seen as helpful. All the saber rattling in the South China Sea — to include China's militarization of several man-made islands — is not.

So the U.S. appears willing to cooperate where it can, and confront where it must. "A stable Afghanistan is in the interest of both the United States and China," Gady said. "I assume there must be a tacit understanding that China's involvement in Afghanistan is welcome up to a point."

China's financial interests revolve around Afghanistan’s abundance of natural resources and minerals, and its access to Central Asian markets. Beijing sees Afghanistan as a vital link for its “One Belt, One Road” initiative, an economic policy that seeks to connect Eurasia to China.

"China," Gady said, "has been seen as a 'free rider' — gaining economic benefits by exploiting the country’s natural resources while not contributing to the political and military solution of the conflict. So it is not surprising that as Western engagement in the country diminishes, China gradually steps in to fill the void to secure its interests."

In 2015, after the Taliban reclaimed Kunduz, a strategic city in northern Afghanistan, Beijing agreed to cooperate with Kabul. It pledged $73 million to support Afghanistan fledgling security forces. Afghan border police also are being trained in China, and the Chinese government is providing military hardware, including bullet proof jackets, demining equipment and armored police vehicles.

Lee does not view this as a softening stance between Beijing and Washington. There are too many other disagreements, he noted. Beyond the South China Sea, the U.S. wants China to do more to keep North Korea in check and to lay off South Korea, which intends to deploy a self-defense anti-ballistic missile system.

And the notion of Chinese forces pushing deeper into Afghanistan, beyond the border region, strikes Gady as unlikely — at least in the near term, while the U.S. and its allies are there in significant numbers. "China's security footprint," he said, "will remain small and insignificant in comparison."

Shawn Snow is a Military Times staff writer and editor of the Early Bird Brief.


http://www.militarytimes.com/articles/c ... fghanistan



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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Sat 10 Feb 2018, 11:21:18

The expansion of the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan to target a little-known Chinese terrorist group is an example of how the 16-year-old war has changed under President Trump, according to U.S. military officers and outside analysts.

The airstrikes began Feb. 2 in northeastern Afghanistan’s remote, mountainous Badakhshan province, destroying training camps and fighting positions in the Wurduj district. The area was once relatively peaceful, but fell under Taliban control in 2015 and is now home to members of both the Taliban and a separatist group that is known as both the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP).

The Taliban and ETIM were commingled on the facilities that were bombed, and often work together, said Air Force Brig. Gen. Lance R. Bunch, the director of future operations at the U.S.-led military headquarters in Kabul. The strikes included three Humvees and two Ford Ranger pickup trucks that the United States once provided to Afghan troops and were in the process of being converted into rolling suicide bombs.

Anybody that is an enemy of Afghanistan, we’re going to target them,” Bunch said in a phone interview. “We’ve got new authorities now that allow us to be able to . . . target the Taliban and the ETIM where they previously thought they were safe.”

The new authorities were approved in August by Trump, and the United States has escalated the air campaign ever since. While U.S. officials have declined to say what specifically they entail, there is broad agreement that they have allowed the U.S. military to expand how frequently it strikes. The Air Force dropped 4,361 bombs in Afghanistan last year, as opposed to 1,337 in 2016 and 947 in 2015, according to service statistics.


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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sat 20 Feb 2021, 01:17:59

Its time for Biden to make a decision on Afghanistan.

If Biden goes through with the Trump peace deal and pulls out the remaining US troops, NATO forces will leave with the US troops and the Afghan government will likely collapse on his watch.

If Biden walks away from the peace deal, then the Afghan war will start up again and US casualties will be happening on his watch.

-biden-prepared-lose-afghanistan

So far Biden has mainly mindlessly reversed whatever policy Trump had set up, and if he continues that pattern Biden will reverse the peace deal and lock the US into more years of war in Afghanistan.

Image
Its time for Biden to decide what to do in Afghanistan......will he reverse Trump's peace plan and keep the afghanistan war going or will he pull out and allow a US military defeat to happen on his watch.

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Re: THE Afghanistan Thread Pt 2 (merged)

Unread postby Tanada » Sun 21 Feb 2021, 11:14:40

Plantagenet wrote:Its time for Biden to make a decision on Afghanistan.

If Biden goes through with the Trump peace deal and pulls out the remaining US troops, NATO forces will leave with the US troops and the Afghan government will likely collapse on his watch.

If Biden walks away from the peace deal, then the Afghan war will start up again and US casualties will be happening on his watch.

-biden-prepared-lose-afghanistan

So far Biden has mainly mindlessly reversed whatever policy Trump had set up, and if he continues that pattern Biden will reverse the peace deal and lock the US into more years of war in Afghanistan.

Image
Its time for Biden to decide what to do in Afghanistan......will he reverse Trump's peace plan and keep the afghanistan war going or will he pull out and allow a US military defeat to happen on his watch.

Cheers!


I am sorry but that is a silly ass statement. If the USA pulls out as we should have done circa 13 years ago and Afghanistan becomes a failed state that isn't a USA military defeat. It is simply recognizing that we are not the world police force who makes everyone play nice. Afghanistan has been the death zone for invaders for millennia. The British Empire, Soviet Union and now the USA have all taken a stab at making the place a nice stable region full of shiny happy people. All have failed and pretending that staying is a better option than leaving is just plain asinine.
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Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
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Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
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