Nato withdrawal from Afghanistan could be speeded up, says Rasmussen

[littlemissmartypants]

Source: The Guardian

Redeployment of some troops might be accelerated, says Nato chief, who admits 'green on blue' attacks have hit morale

The retreat of western forces from Afghanistan could come sooner than expected, the head of Nato has said as he conceded that the recent Taliban strategy of "green on blue" killings had been successful in sapping morale.

In an interview with the Guardian Nato's secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, responded to pressure for a faster withdrawal from Afghanistan by stating that the options were being studied and should be clear within three months.

"From now until the end of 2014 you may see adaptation of our presence. Our troops can redeploy, take on other tasks, or even withdraw, or we can reduce the number of foreign troops," he said. "From now until the end of 2014 we will see announcements of redeployments, withdrawals or drawdown … If the security situation allows, I would not exclude the possibility that in certain areas you could accelerate the process."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/01/nato-forces-afghanistan-early-retreat

---

What? And leave all those trillions in mineral wealth behind. Hardly. This is spin.

[Socal31]

1. Oh PLEASE bring all regulars home! (We will always have a CIA/Special Forces contingent)

What a waste of a life to be killed when you know you are withdrawing anyway. My little brother ships off to S. Carolina for Army boot camp in a few weeks, and if he could avoid the Sandbox, and we could stop wasting our lives and resources immediately........

[Iggy]

2. BALONEY

I can more or less guarantee there will never be a full drawn-down of our troops from Afghanistan.

1.) all of the lamestream reporting on this consistently FAILS to mention we just spent $17 Billion dollars
building state of the art military bases there. (16-17 bases).

2.) Most Afghan "soldiers" are illiterate-- they cannot READ or write. who exactly will run/operate/maintain
these new bases if we fully pull out? who will read the equipment manuals?

2.) Panetta was in Afghanistan a few months ago and flat out stated: "we aren't going anywhere"..

Our military is still in Okinawa, still in Germany-- over fifty years after the END of WW II.

It's rather easy to predict we'll have at least 50,000 troops in Afghanistan-- permanently.

[littlemissmartypants]

3. I concur. n/t

[bemildred]

4. We left Vietnam, for domestic reasons.

And we will leave Afghanistan for domestic reasons. The waste does not matter. It just means the money cannot be spent on public services, but that is OK with our "leaders", a good thing, keeps those nasty public services "in check", and they still make a bundle.

[Iggy]

9. Not Just That, My Friend....

I had a draft card at one time.. and had I been born 5-6 years earlier, I would have likely ended up
in Vietnam.

regardless, I am aware of the massive protests, COINTELPRO, etc.

it wasn't just "domestic reasons" which ended the Vietnam "war" (actually labeled a "police action&quot
unless you mean what congress does or does not do regarding funding of warmongering.

regarding Vietnam, congress simply stopped writing the checks-- i.e. paying for it. That was
the end of that "war".. once the money dries up, it's over

I don't see that happening now. there's just a giant blank check.

i.e. we just spent around $7 Billion building several military bases in Afghanistan:

The U.S. has funded dozens of bases for Afghan army units. The bill has come to $6.7
billion in projects completed, under way or planned since fiscal 2005.

Now, imagine the moaning and groaning from on High.. if just one of these bases is overrun/taken
over by the Taliban, al Qaeda, Haqqani network, etc.

this can't happen-- and that's why we're not leaving.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303610504577420232465796466.html

[bemildred]

10. Yes, that is right.

This time, I see either that again, or O doing what he said before it comes to that.

We'll just have to disagree and see what happens WRT Afghanistan. You seem to think we have a choice, I don't think so. It's sort of like holding our hand over a flame, depending on your will, how high you hold it, you might keep it there longer, but it's going to keep right on getting worse until you move it.

I had a draft card, I turned it in at a rally in 1969. At the time I had an exemption (parent, college), but nothing ever happened from it. I had a high number the one year I was eligible for the lottery, then I was "too old". Worked and hung out with a lot of vets come home (working in a sawmill, putting self through school, supporting wife +2. You could do that back then on min wage.), they made good friends but had a lot of issues, I was quite naive at the time, I learned a lot from them. But what I remember was the universal agreement that that war sucked.

[Iggy]

12. One Thing I neglected to mention:

we now know Afghanistan is loaded with tons and tons of commodities.. in the ground

someone once said: "All wars are about real estate".. in this case, the commodities IN the real
estate are what matters.

one of the reasons the one percent is winning is because they have long term plans-- fifty and one
hundred years out. right now the plan in Afghanistan is to get those commodities out of the ground
for the cheapest cost possible-- and sell them on the world market at the highest price possible. this
is how the Empire has operated from the start

I wonder how many here know there's already a gigantic copper mine in Afghanistan.. operated by
a Chinese company?

I'm not sure what you and I are disagreeing on?

you think we're going to pull out 100%?

[bemildred]

13. That is a good point.

No, I don't think we disagree much.

You are quite right that Afghanistan is not likely to be left to it's own devices, but I would expect that the US military will have a much smaller footprint.

And of course the whole region can go up, and then all bets are off. Some people seem to be working feverishly to bring that about.

But if O keeps the lid on it, I expect we will take a more gingerly approach in the future, more carrot and a lot less stick.

[bemildred]

5. So Fogh Rasmussen is feeling a bit more subdued now?

You can't fight a war when your troops turn on you, look up "fragging".

[littlemissmartypants]

6. Oxford Companion to Military History: fragging

An American term for the ancient practice of soldiers to register lethal disapproval of members of their own side with whatever comes to hand. In Vietnam this was the fragmentation grenade, from which the word is derived.

The historical incidence of the phenomenon cannot be known. On the one hand leadership from the front exposes the backs of officers to malcontents in their own ranks, but on the other the higher risks thereby incurred tend to strengthen the hope that the enemy may do the job. A classic illustration is the fate of a hated major at Blenheim, whose grenadiers punctiliously granted his request to take his chances with enemy bullets, and only shot him after the battle was over. A variant was the killing of the Anarchist Durruti during the Spanish civil war, by men who could no longer stand to be shamed by his suicidal bravery.

There have been groups of fighting men throughout history whose religious or cultural sensibilities were ignored by officers at their peril. The largest ‘fragging’ incident in history was the Indian Mutiny, provoked by just such a failure on the part of the East India Company, and while the empire lasted British officers of Arab, Sikh (see Sikh wars), or high-caste Hindu regiments who struck their men were regularly murdered. As a general rule the more intrinsically warlike peoples are the ones most likely to avenge offences against their honour without regard to subsequent punishment. Attempts to harness the energy of violently antisocial individuals for war have included the French and Spanish Foreign Legions and the Nazi and Soviet penal battalions of WW II, but the downside of this from the disciplinary point of view is self-evident...

http://www.answers.com/topic/fragging#ixzz28BQ7J56g

[bemildred]

7. Ibid:

Something more akin to vengeful despair was at work towards the end in Vietnam among those unwillingly in uniform and unwilling to be the last to die in a by-then pointless war. The system of exemptions told draftees that their society did not value them, long before this was made patent on their return home when they were spat upon by the exempt. Racial tensions in the greater society were magnified in the field, and the traditional glues of group pride and of winning honour among peers were perversely diluted by the posting of soldiers as individuals and the profligate award of medals to non-combatants. It is unremarkable that in excess of 1, 000 officers and NCOs were fragged.

[littlemissmartypants]

8. And furthermore...

"An American term for the ancient practice of soldiers to register lethal disapproval of members of their own side with whatever comes to hand... officers and NCOs were fragged." so says Hugh Bicheno.

Hugh Bicheno is a living British-American military historian most famous for his revisionist interpretations of the American Revolution in his acclaimed publication Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War and of the Falklands War in his best-selling Razor's Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War.
Bicheno was born in Cuba to British parents in 1948. He is a naturalised citizen of the United States, although he now lives in Cambridge, England, where he was educated. Before becoming an author he was an academic and served as an intelligence officer and security consultant in Italy and across Latin America, specializing in kidnap negotiations.
Bicheno has collaborated with Richard Holmes on a number of projects. Holmes wrote the prefaces to Rebels and Redcoats and Razor's Edge and also made a television series adaptation of Rebels and Redcoats.
See Hugh Bicheno's website at http://hughbicheno.co.uk

[bemildred]

11. Thank you, that looks good ... nt