Looking across the Sarhani Valley in the eighth year of what is now a 14-year war
in Afghanistan, with no end yet in sight.
Nadia Prupis at Common Dreams writes
US Quietly Abandons Troop Reduction Plans in Afghanistan:
The Obama administration is dropping its plans to reduce the amount of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to 5,500 by the end of the year, significantly altering the timeline which officials had said would see troops largely withdraw from the country by 2016, according to reports.
In fact, officials say, the administration could allow up to 9,800 American troops to remain in Afghanistan well into next year's "fighting season."
The announcement on Saturday came a few weeks after new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter indicated that the White House was "rethinking" its counter-terrorism mission in Afghanistan and would slow down its troop withdrawal from the country, despite long-held promises from Washington to remove the U.S. military presence there.
While no final decisions on numbers of troops have been made yet, Associated Press reports that officials are also discussing "options under which some [troops] would remain in the country or be nearby beyond 2016.
"
President Barack Obama will likely use an upcoming visit by U.S.-backed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to make an official announcement about the development later this month.
The U.S. and Afghanistan in September signed a controversial Bilateral Security Agreement, which went into effect in January and will last until 2024. As Common Dreams previously reported, the BSA "stipulates long-term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and access to numerous bases and installations in the country, including facilities located in Bagram, home to the notorious U.S. military prison," without specifying the number of troops to remain in the country.
In February, the United Nations published a report that revealed "credible and reliable" evidence of the U.S. military torturing detainees in Afghanistan.
•••
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2011—Tenthers and birthers in New Hampshire:
Welcome to New Hampshire: land of mountains, maple syrup, the first in the nation presidential primary, and, these days, totally batshit Republican electeds. Preventing students from voting isn't all the state's Republicans are up to.
They've changed a proposed birther law so that it wouldn't take effect until after the 2012 elections. They claim this way it won't look like it's aimed at President Obama. It's just, you know, a coincidence, something that occurred to them to do on principle. No intention to validate birtherism.
Meanwhile, state House Speaker Bill O'Brien is speaking at a Tenther rally, in addition tothe state Republican party chair and another state representative.
O'Brien, at least, has been a tenther for a while now, having in a previous legislative session:
voted for a states' rights bill that attempted to nullify the U.S. Constitution if the federal government exceeded its constitutional authority by actions such as limiting the right to bear arms or limiting the right to free speech. |
To reiterate, this man is the House Speaker in a state won by both Barack Obama and John Kerry. That is all.
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