Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Why The Commitment To Keep 10,000 U.S. Troops In Afghanistan After 2014?



Why Obama Is Leaving 10,000 Troops in Afghanistan -- Michael Crowley, Time

A clean break like the U.S. made from Iraq is tempting. But it's not a risk Obama is ready to take—yet

By choosing to leave almost 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after the formal end of American combat operations later this year, President Barack Obama made a choice between two imperatives.

One was to make a clean break with a war that has lasted more than 12 years, costing hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives, with inconclusive results. Obama was happy to take that path in Iraq, from which he pulled out the last U.S. soldier in December 2011. (There’s some dispute as to whether Obama preferred to leave a small residual force but was denied by the Iraqi government; suffice to say Obama wasn’t hell-bent on staying.)

Read more ....

My Comment: Iraq is .... for all intents and purposes .... experiencing a low grade civil war right now. To do the same type of withdrawal from Afghanistan is tempting .... but I guess the White House has made the decision that if when one looks at the cost - benefits in such a withdrawal .... the costs/risks may become too high to justify such a policy. Hence .... a commitment to stay in Afghanistan .... for now.

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