Never Mind The Drawdown: Taliban Talks, Not Troop Numbers, Are What Really Matter for Afghanistan

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/21-4

All the D.C. punditocracy is playing a numbers game about President Obama’s troop reductions from Afghanistan. And once, again, that misses the whole point of the war’s next phase. What matters isn’t how many troops Obama withdraws this year, or next. It’s how the drawdown supports Taliban peace talks, the only real ticket out of the war.

Our sources tell us that if the president has even settled on a number to unveil in a Wednesday night speech, he’s not sharing it very widely. Still, the Los Angeles Times confidently reports that he’ll remove 10,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year, with the remaining 20,000 surge forces to follow by 2012. The New York Times and the Washington Post are more circumspect, reporting that the White House is still debating how to structure the drawdown.

Notice that doesn’t even end the 2009 Afghanistan surge, let alone the war. Here’s why.

Even if Obama decides to pull out all the 30,000 troops he ordered sent to Afghanistan in a December 2009 speech at West Point, that still won’t constitute the end of the reinforcements he ordered earlier same year. It’s easy to forget, but Obama sent 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan as one of his first acts in office. Front-load the withdrawal of “West Point” troops, and 68,000 U.S. troops will still remain.

More at the link --

[damntexdem]

1. The drawn-down troops might feel a bit different.

And talks with the Taliban will result in further destruction of the rights of Afghan women.