Thread: War in Afghanistan Could Be Over in a Week, Trump Says | President Donald Trump

War in Afghanistan Could Be Over in a Week, Trump Says

President Donald Trump gestures as he greets Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan as he arrives at the White House, Monday, July 22, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

22 Jul 2019
Military.com | By Oriana Pawlyk

President Donald Trump on Monday said the United States will work more closely with Pakistan to provide relief to U.S. forces in Afghanistan, where roughly 14,000 American troops are currently stationed.
While Trump did not elaborate on what the relief measures will entail, he said the White House will have new answers on Afghanistan "very quick" because he wants to bring more troops home from America's longest war as soon as possible.

"We're like policemen. We're not fighting a war. If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I could win that war in a week. I just don't want to kill 10 million people," he said in the Oval Office, alongside Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.
"I have plans on Afghanistan that, if I wanted to win that war, Afghanistan would be wiped off the face of the Earth. … It would be over literally in 10 days, and I don't want to go that route," Trump continued.
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He said working with Pakistan will help the U.S. "extricate ourselves" from the conflict.
"We've been there for 19 years. It's ridiculous," Trump said.
The U.S. has lost 12 service members in Afghanistan this year. Since January 2015, 72 U.S. troops have died in the country, 53 under hostile conditions, according to the Defense Manpower Data Center.
The Trump administration boosted force strength in the region by 3,500 troops in 2017 and 2018 to support the advise-and-assist mission with the Afghan military.
While a plan for Afghanistan has not been fully articulated since Trump took office, early in his presidency he made clear his preference to give more leeway to generals, allowing them to take an aggressive approach toward stamping out extremist threats.
Such was the case with the highly publicized drop of the 21,600-pound GBU-43 Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) -- nicknamed the "mother of all bombs" -- against ISIS-K in the Achin district of eastern Nangarhar province in April 2017. ISIS-K is a branch of the militant group active in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But in his State of the Union address in February, Trump highlighted the need to pull out of Afghanistan entirely.
"Great nations do not fight endless wars," he said during the speech.
The president's latest comments come at a time when the conflict has become an afterthought to politicians and the American public.
Last week, during Dr. Mark Esper's confirmation hearing to become the next defense secretary, Afghanistan was mentioned twice in passing by lawmakers. No senator presented a direct line of questioning about Afghanistan.
However, in his written answers and testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Esper said that troop levels in Afghanistan should be directly tied to the level of violent extremist activity that could pose a direct threat to the U.S., and Afghanistan’s ability to mitigate those terrorist threats.
"As levels of violence decline and the capabilities of our Afghan partners improve, force levels could be adjusted accordingly," he wrote. "Progress in peace negotiations would reduce levels of violence and therefore factor into recommendations on force levels."
Esper added that he believes negotiations with the Taliban should continue.
"DoD supports reconciliation negotiations by applying military pressure on the Taliban leaders to negotiate. An enduring peace settlement can only result from direct negotiations among Afghans, including the Taliban, the government and representatives of all political groups, as well as civil society," he wrote.
-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/...my-a_190724.nl

Get us out of there and no rebuilding that dump!

No refugees either!

Taliban Says Deal on U.S. Troop Pullout From Afghanistan Is Near

Henry Meyer and Eltaf Najafizada
2 hrs ago

(Bloomberg) — The Taliban said it’s nearing a peace deal with the U.S. to bring an end to the foreign military presence in Afghanistan, though it ruled out a halt to hostilities for now.

© KARIM JAAFAR/AFP/Getty Images/File Members of Afghan delegations gather during the second day of the Intra Afghan Dialogue talks in the Qatari capital Doha on July 8, 2019.“We are getting close,”

Mohammad Suhail Shaheen, a spokesman for the Taliban’s Doha-based political office, said by phone on Thursday. If the U.S. makes “a reasonable and convincing proposal, the peace agreement will be concluded soon.”

The fundamentalist Islamic movement and the U.S. are due to resume negotiations soon in the Qatari capital after adjourning their seventh round of meetings earlier this month. U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani agreed Wednesday in a phone call that “now is the time to accelerate efforts to reach a negotiated end to the war,” according to a State Department statement.

Pompeo said in a Fox News interview late Thursday that he expects “real progress” in reaching agreement by September on “a complete reduction in the scope of the conflict,” allowing for inter-Afghan peace talks to begin followed by the start of a withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces.
The Taliban controls or contests about half of territory in Afghanistan. That’s more than at any time since it was ousted from power in 2001 by an American-led invasion after the al-Qaeda group based in the country carried out the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. The Taliban refuses to hold talks with the authorities in Kabul until it first reaches a binding deal with the Trump administration on withdrawing foreign forces.

While it wants the 14,000 U.S. troops and allied NATO forces to leave Afghanistan, the Taliban is showing some signs of flexibility over the timetable, dropping its previous insistence that the withdrawal happen within months.

“We hope the Americans come up with a reasonable timeline and that we can agree to,” said Shaheen, who declined to say how soon the foreign forces should go.

Troop Losses

After losing more than 2,400 soldiers and spending more than $900 billion in Afghanistan since 2001, critics say the U.S. risks losing hard-won gains. President Donald Trump on Monday called the nearly 18-year campaign “ridiculous” and said he could win the conflict in a week but “I don’t want to kill 10 million people.” Ghani’s office responded that Afghanistan “will never allow any foreign power to determine its fate.”

U.S. envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad described the latest round of talks that paused July 9 as the “most productive” ever. Among U.S. demands is a commitment by the Taliban to stop terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and Islamic State from continuing to use Afghanistan as a base of operations.

Despite its conciliatory language, the Taliban insists it won’t accept a single foreign soldier remaining on Afghan soil, fanning fears in Kabul that the U.S. will leave the government at the mercy of its armed opponents.

“The Afghan people see it as occupation, whether it is 1,000 or 100 soldiers,” Shaheen said. “So we want this to end.”

The Taliban won’t consider a halt to violence until they thrash out a settlement with other Afghans after the U.S. commits to pull out its forces, Shaheen said. The U.S. maintains that no deal can take effect until the Taliban talks directly with the Afghan government, something the militant group has resisted.

The Taliban will join negotiations that involve all of Afghanistan’s political forces and not just the administration in Kabul, Shaheen said. It also refuses to recognize the result of the Afghan presidential election planned for Sept. 28, irrespective of the outcome of the talks with the U.S.

“This election is not a remedy to the problem of Afghanistan,” said Shaheen. “It only prolongs the war.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world...cid=spartanntp

Army Times

56 mins ·

A civil war may be brewing in Afghanistan once U.S. troops draw down, a new report says.



militarytimes.com

Analysis suggests warlords in Afghanistan are bracing for civil war once US, NATO troops exit

They can fight their own Civil War and keep them all the hell out of the USA.

No refugees, no asylum, no TPS, no illegal aliens!!!

We are not the policeman or dumping ground for the world and THEIR problems!

We have our own hot mess to clean up!

No money, no aid, no oatmeal.

They will be fighting another 1,000 years!