Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Why Wait Till 2014?

Weeks after American forces in Afghanistan stopped joint training exercise with Afghan security forces, NATO has just decided to “scale back” joint operations with Afghan security forces as well. This came after a series of insider attacks by Afghan security forces personnel against NATO and American troops.

Now I can understand why the decision was made, such "insider" attacks by the Taliban have killed 51 NATO soldiers this year, but if this is the decision made then NATO and America should go all the way and pull out of the country immediately. American and NATO troops are going to be gone by the end of 2014 and the only reason they are still in Afghanistan is to train the Afghan security forces to take over when they pull out.

You can call it a delay, a suspension or whatever, but the current strategy of the Americans and NATO is to train an Afghan army to fight the Taliban after 2014. If neither the Americans nor NATO is going to do that, then why bother to wait till 2014 before pulling out? Do the pullout now and get it over with. 

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