Kucinich: We are Not Exiting Afghanistan. We are Staying. [View all]

[Better Believe It]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 2, 2012

Kucinich: We are Not Exiting Afghanistan. We are Staying.

Strategic Partnership Agreement Commits U.S. to Afghanistan for the Indefinite Future


WASHINGTON - May 2 - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who has led the call to end the war in Afghanistan, today released the following statement after President Obama announced that the U.S. has signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Afghanistan.

“Yesterday, the President announced that the U.S. signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Afghanistan, committing the United States to the country for a long time to come. The agreement addressed the transition to Afghan-led security forces by 2014. Human and monetary costs to the U.S. will continue to skyrocket.

“According to a recent article in The Atlantic, the U.S. spends an estimated $14,000 per Afghan troop per year. The long-term costs to the U.S. to train the 352,000 Afghan security troops we are counting on to allow the withdrawal of U.S. troops will be over $4 billion per year; or more than $40 billion over the next ten years. The Associated Press recently highlighted a report that raises significant questions regarding International Security Assistance Force claims that there have been Afghan-led military operations, an indicator of progress toward Afghan military self sufficiency, a cornerstone of our strategy.

“It is widely recognized that much of Al-Qaeda’s leadership and presence in Afghanistan has been decimated. Since the death of Osama bin Laden exactly one year ago, we have lost 381 U.S. troops. The President stated that ‘we must give Afghanistan the opportunity to stabilize.’ The assertion that maintaining a long-term presence in the country is the best way to prevent future attacks on the U.S. belies the reality on the ground: that our mere presence is destabilizing. The events of the past few months alone – the Koran burnings, coordinated attacks by the Taliban in Kabul, and the killing of Afghan civilians by a U.S. solider – should be enough of an indication that more time in Afghanistan is not the answer.

“America has been lulled to sleep by the mindboggling elongation of a war seven thousand miles away. The plain fact is we are not exiting Afghanistan, despite the appearances which the White House is trying to create. We are staying. Have we learned nothing from ten years of quagmire? It is time to bring our troops home safely and responsibly.”

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http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2012/05/02-1


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In Midnight Signing Ceremony, Obama Promises at Least Ten More Years of War in Afghanistan
One thing crystal clear in secretive US-Afghan 'strategic partnership agreement': War not even close to ending
by Common Dreams staff
May 2, 2012

President Obama's secret trip to Afghanistan, shrouded in secrecy for security reasons, culminated in a midnight meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the signing of a 'strategic partnership agreement', the full details of which have not been made available to either the American or Afghan public.

The agreement, broadly understood, codifies the ongoing conditions under which the US government agrees to operate in Afghanistan and will guide policies on the management of military bases, authority over detainees, the execution of night raids and other security operations, and will set conditions for troop levels and residual US forces that will remain in Afghanistan even after a 'withdrawal' commences in 2014. The agreement also deals with ongoing financial support for the Afghan government and military into the future.

Though Obama spoke optimistically of 'light of a new day' in Afghanistan and many media reports heralded the agreement as a 'signal to the end of war', other analysts arrived at different conclusions.

Read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/02-6


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Obama's midnight dash to Kabul shows that he dare not visit the place in daylight
By Peter Foster
May 2, 2012

If ever there was an image to convey the limits of the UK-US success in Afghanistan, it was the way that Barack Obama, the Commander-in-Chief of the liberating, Taliban-scattering forces was forced to skulk into Kabul last night under the cover of darkness.

.... after landing at Bagram Airbase just after 10pm local time, there was a low-level, cover-of-darkness of helicopter insertion to the Presidential Palace where the ten-page deal (which contains no specifics on funding or troop levels) was signed around midnight.

After the signing, there was just time for Mr Obama to duck into hangar and make a rousing address to the poor troops who must daily wonder which direction enemy fire is coming from, before making an address to the nation. This was, of course, another perfect excuse for the President to remind everyone of his heroic decisions in the Situation Room a year ago.

Mr Obama tried to make a virtue out of absurdity, referring to a “new light” breaking on the horizon for Afghanistan, even as he gestured to the “pre-dawn darkness” in which he was speaking, but even Mr Obama oratorical skills couldn’t disguise the tail-between-the-legs ‘optics’ of the event. It was terrible.

Read the full article at:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100155044/obamas-midnight-dash-to-kabul-shows-that-he-dare-not-visit-the-place-in-daylight/


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What Did We Get for 381 US Dead Since the Death of bin Laden?
by Robert Naiman
Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy
May 2, 2012

No U.S. official has explained to us yet what we won in Afghanistan since May 2, 2011, that justified the additional sacrifice that we have made in Afghanistan since Osama bin Laden's death. No U.S. official has presented a case that we are safer than we were a year ago as a result of our additional sacrifice in Afghanistan, still less that our increased safety was sufficient to justify the additional sacrifice of the last year.

In his speech, President Obama said, "As we move forward, some people will ask why we need a firm timeline." I'm delighted that President Obama supports the principle of a firm timeline. But it's far from obvious that we actually have a "firm timeline," and if we do, exactly what it is. Certainly there is no timeline for when all U.S. troops will be withdrawn. President Obama did seem to imply that we can be sure that there will be no U.S. troops involved in "combat" in Afghanistan after December 31, 2014. But they may be involved in "counterterrorism," which presumably is combat, and "training," and if you ask the military what "training" is, they will say it includes embedding with Afghanistan troops who are engaged in combat. So "training" is also combat. And therefore it is far from obvious that we actually have a "firm timeline" for anything.

If it's a good idea to end "combat" by December 31, 2014, how do we know it's not a good idea to end "combat" by December 31, 2013, or by December 31, 2012? Shouldn't someone have to explain this? If the government wants to regulate a chemical, it has to do a cost-benefit analysis of the regulation. Shouldn't the government have to do a cost-benefit analysis of keeping tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan for another 2 years, given the huge sacrifice involved? Shouldn't that be a public document that outside experts can examine?

In his speech, President Obama said, "Others will ask why we don't leave immediately." Isn't that a "strawman" argument? Is a single Member of Congress actually proposing that we "leave immediately"? Could 90,000 people "immediately" leave a rock concert or a football game in a safe way, even if they were sober and unarmed? Wouldn't we want them to file out in an orderly and deliberate way? Except for rhetorical flourish, is anyone really arguing that 90,000 U.S. troops should leave Afghanistan "immediately"? If we pulled all U.S. troops from Afghanistan within a year, wouldn't most war critics be satisfied by that? Therefore isn't the real question that the Administration has to answer not "why can't we leave immediately?" but "why can't we leave within a year?" Didn't we withdraw tens of thousands of troops from Iraq in a matter of months?

Regardless of when we withdraw troops, couldn't we end offensive combat immediately while we try to pursue peace talks? The official policy of the international community towards the Syrian civil war is to support a ceasefire followed by political talks. Why isn't this the official policy of the international community towards the civil war in Afghanistan? If we ended offensive combat operations, wouldn't U.S. casualties in Afghanistan fall considerably? Isn't that what happened in Iraq?

Read the full article at:

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/1207


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One Year After Bin Laden’s Death, Bring the Troops Home Now
by Kevin Martin and Michael Eisenscher
May 2, 2012

Kevin Martin is Executive Director of Peace Action, the country’s largest peace and disarmament organization with 100,000 members and over 70,000 on-line supporters.
Michael Eisenscher is National Coordinator of U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW) a network of over 190 national, regional and local unions and other labor organizations.

Today marks one year since the death of Osama bin Laden. The CIA estimates there are fewer than 100 al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. Since ‘getting Bin Laden’ and defeating al Qaeda were the stated reasons the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, President Barack Obama should use the anniversary to announce the end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Instead, his administration has negotiated an agreement with President Hamid Karzai’s government for a U.S. presence in that country until at least 2024, ten years past the supposed date for withdrawal of U.S. combat troops. The U.S. and its NATO allies are supposed to commit to ongoing training of the Afghan military, as well as development aid. Obama swept into Afghanistan in the middle of the night to sign the agreement, but full details of the agreement remain secret.

If the agreement covers a ten year period, commits U.S. military forces for training and counter-insurgency (which means inevitable combat), obligates the U.S. to continue providing billions of taxpayer dollars annually in aid (essentially bankrolling the entire Afghan government and military), and posits support for any number of "nation-building" measures, isn't this in fact a treaty, subject to U.S. Senate ratification, rather than an intergovernmental memorandum of agreement?

Karzai apparently feels obligated to take the agreement to his parliament for approval. Doesn’t Obama have a similar obligation - one imposed by the U.S. Constitution? It’s not clear what the year since the killing of Bin Laden has done to improve U.S. or Afghan security. It’s even less clear what staying for another dozen years will do for either country.

Read the full article at:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/02-4