US-Afghan agreement; US has open-ended committment
Pinto Nag sends us a link to NBC News which reports that the US and Afghanistan have reached an agreement for continued US presence in the country “for many years” while we continue to shell out for Afghan forces’ payroll;
Taken as a whole, the document describes a basic US-Afghan exchange. Afghanistan would allow Washington to operate military bases to train Afghan forces and conduct counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaeda after the current mission ends in 2014. For that foothold in this volatile mountain region wedged between Pakistan and Iran, the United States would agree to sustain and equip Afghanistan’s large security force, which the government in Kabul currently cannot afford. The deal, according to the text, would take effect on January 1, 2015 and “shall remain in force until the end of 2024 and beyond.” It could be terminated by either Washington or Kabul with two years advance written notice.
There is however what US officials believe is a contradiction in the July draft, which would effectively ask American troops to provide training and confront al-Qaeda from the confines of bases. While it says operations against al-Qaeda may be necessary, it also says US troops will not be allowed to make arrests or enter Afghan homes.
“No detention or arrest shall be carried out by the United States forces. The United States forces shall not search any homes or other real estate properties,” it says.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that the media and the opposition party wouldn’t have allowed the Bush Administration to forge a document that would cost billions with no end in sight without raising a loud and constant stink. Remember during the 2008 campaign, the press and Democrats were screaming because they thought that John McCain wanted to stay in Iraq “forever”? So where are those voices now?
ADDED: I don’t know what to make of this, sent to us by “Ohio”; Fox News reports that the New York Times says that part of the security deal is a letter from our President to the Afghan people “Acknowledging mistakes” during our war against terror.
The New York Times, citing a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, reported that Secretary of State John Kerry proposed the letter in a conversation with Karzai.
Karzai asked that Obama sign it, and Kerry reportedly agreed. The letter apparently helped them reach a tentative deal authorizing U.S. raids on Afghan homes in certain circumstances, which had been an area of disagreement.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, at Tuesday’s daily press briefing in Washington, would not confirm or deny the letter when asked by Fox News.
Proposed by Kerry – this is not my shocked face.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
Screw ’em, it’s past time to get the hell out of there.
@1 +1000
Total bullshit.
2024!!! Are you kidding me! Two year notice of termination from either side. Well that sounds like a good lease agreement to me. Meanwhile, back on the home front, we are cutting the military’s strength in bodies, cutting benefits for active and retired veterans. Can’t keep parts and supplies for our equipment in any branch or the repairmen to fix them. Yea let’s pour more money down that rathole, shithole, Afghanistan. We should have been out of there long before now. So now we have another 11 year commitment to these assholes. Jonn is right, the Bush administration would never have gotten away with this. Oh and just for shits and giggles, let’s write them a nice letter of apology for all the “mistakes” we made in bailing out those worthless f!ckers!
As a side note, I wrote to Jonn, the President is too busy to take the time to remember the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address today. Golf, I guess. Never hated a president or an administration more than this one. Don’t know who we will get in 2016 but at least it won’t be him! I should say I only hate him to the point he seems to hate America and what we stand for and have fought for.
Yee-effing-hah!
Here’s one question (that we suspected the answer to all along) down…makes projecting my late 2014-15 calendar much easier.
I’m shocked…shocked, I tell you.
So we have agreed to help them fight with one hand tied behind our backs. Wonder what the SOFA will look like. Probably no real protections for our troops. Makes perfect sense to me. Amateur hour diplomacy once again.
Really, letter from the president “acknowledging mistakes” on the war on terror to the Afgan people. The only mistake is the eleven plus years our troops have spent in that miserable. Piece of real estate.
Oh and another thing, there is probably a secret codicil that states we agree to pay the exit fee for equipment with interest.
I am sick. I am sick to my #@!^&** stomach. I saw that business about A-freakin’-POLOGIZING and it just makes me sick. At this point, whether it actually happens or not–and, please, no one try to tell me that ‘acknowledging mistakes’ is not apologizing–the reported fact from the NYT that Jacques Kerry suggested it is enough for me. Those stinking, lousy ingrates. Why are we there now? Tell me. Someone tell me.
What Air Cav said! God damn them to blistering hell for keeping our troops there, sending our money to a government that supports TERRORISTS, and apologizing to people who intend to use our flesh and blood for body shields and target practice until we figure out how to GET THEM HOME. I now wish that every single member of every branch of govenment had a family member in harms way over there. Maybe that would get some of those elected imbecils to unf*ck themselves.
@8….. I don’t get it either. It seems as a nation, we want everyother nation to like us. Get over it people it’s a fact those third world country’s basically, hate us. So what,we as a nation need to accept it. All they want is the $$$. I say aid starts at home. With the military cuts looming on the horizon I can see how this is going to workout.
Well, the president and Mr. Kerry are correct we have made mistakes in that war, I think the biggest mistake was not firebombing the country until even the cockroaches were burnt to a fine crisp….another mistake was not setting an ROE that says if you are out at night not in US uniform you are f@cking dead, man, woman, child, no matter stay indoors or get one in the melon…
So now that we have been working with chickensh1t ROEs for several years these two foreign policy freshmen have come up with a plan to add a dozen years or so to the occupation, on the terms of the enemy. Karzai is no ally, he’s just an enemy in a currently submissive role. Make no mistake about these people being our friends, they are not and they will not ever be our friends and allies. Their religion prohibits them from ever being friends with infidels…that alone should tell a smart man everything he needs to know in dealing with those f#ckers….
That noise you hear is my head pounding against a brick wall.
I thought we were supposed to be leaving. In fact, I know someone whose nephew in the Marines went over there two months ago to help get the US and its stuff loaded to depart. She said he’d be there for 8 months, which will be April next year.
And now, somebody with a brain the size of a pea is changing all of that? Ten more years in that pisshole country, for what reason?
Can’t wait to rub the father-in-law’s nose in this
Told him 6 years ago it would turn into Korea
@Ex-PH2
My Brigade has units scheduled to deploy there next fall
Fuck us! Oh, wait, that’s EXACTLY what B. Hussein 0bama & Co. want to do!
@11: I like your thinking.
I guess Karzai’s slush fund/retirement plan isn’t big enough yet and he needs to skim for a few more years.
I wonder where they propose to find the “volunteers”, to fill their all volunteer military with, in the coming years. Does anyone feel a draft?
I read this on a couple other news sites. This still has to be approved by the Afghans, and there still isn’t agreement on the immunity issue. Aside from the obvious griping and issues with us staying there, this puts a hole in the President’s budget plans. His rosy budget numbers planned on us being out of there next year. Unless sequestration is solved, we’ll have to find another $20 billion a year to fund this. They’re talking anywhere from 8000 to 15000 troops that will be mostly stuck on bases doing training. Logistics will cost a fortune because it’ll be mostly by air and the Taliban will have free reign of the highways. So we’ll have to cut a few more brigades in order to afford keep a few more brigades deployed. Makes sense right?
No.
Out.
Yesterday.
Even my wife agrees.
Give me a freaking break… Today marks me with more shame and embarrassment. I have never regretted my enlistment- but today makes me resents my oath.
“MISTAKES WERE MADE”…Dude Piss up a rope, climb a wall of dicks and choke you on it. I never thought that I would feel this level of shame.
#13 – O-4E, you have my sympathy. Trust no one, keep your eyes and ears open, and if the dirt looks odd, don’t step on it.
Geez! Worst nightmare ever.
I want to be sure that I understand this correctly.
Instead of withdrawing next year as planned, we’re going to extend our stay by 10 years in a country where the primary cash crop is opium poppies. And it also offers a place to stay for a declared enemy of world peace, the AQ-T consortium.
Yeah, makes sense to me.
I hope that some day, someone finds a dark and dirty connection between this decision and people who will profit from it.
@20….dirtdart, please don’t throw your hands up. Politicians come and go. Kerry is from my generation he brings great shame on Vietnam vets of which I am one. We need your generation to. Get us thru this. Three years he’s gone; Obama is gone. Again we start over. We need you. You make me proud to say I’m a vet. You take good care of yourself……Steve
Fox News just reported a letter of apology to Afgan people is from POTUS is included as part of this deal. Serious.
Gunny “Hot Lips” Dunn was just on Kelly Files. God what a great segment. Serious.
@24……. God damit, unbelievable
PintoNag…….. Need your fire and brimstone. Bring it. Makes me feel better.
Will we ever end this war?
If I were the president, my first act would be to hint at India that we wouldn’t mind any uncontrolled release of Indian troops across the border into Pakistan… That would at least get the Taliban out of Afghanistan into Pakistan and fighting against people whose government will let them fight without tying their hands.
“The United States would agree to sustain and equip Afghanistan’s (Taliban) large security force”
There, now it is correct. Green on Blue, anyone?
I’m also waiting for the provision for the U.S. to pay Karzai’s expenses when he goes into exile in Dubai.
Well, Jacques Chamberlain Kerry can pick up his umbrella now. The sweetheart deal is now to go before 3,000 madmen for whatever they will do with it. Details were, at best sketchy, but limits or prohibitions on night raids were evidently a part of it. Night raids? The US role after 2014 is, according to Kerrizai, to train, equip, and assist. And although he is reported to have denied that an apology is part of the deal, the denial is no denial at all. “Let me be clear: President Karzai didn’t ask for an apology. There was no discussion of an apology. There will — there is no –I mean, it’s not even on the table. He didn’t ask for it, we’re not discussing it”
Let me be clear? Read that again. Where is the denial? What a doofus. Here’s what a denial should sound like, “ The United States has not and will not apologize to Afghanistan, directly or indirectly, and that includes any acknowledgement that the United States has made or is making any mistakes in its military operations in Afghanistan.”
If Kerry cuts himself shaving, is he eligible for another Purple Heart?
@31 In Obama-speak that means “Karzai didn’t need to ask. There was no discussion needed because we already offered one.”
[…] in Chief last September in order to sway the sheeple in his favor. However, as my beloved Jonn over at This ain’t Hell tells us, NBC is reporting that we are to maintain a presence of forces and a blank check in […]
This article has several parts. The SECOND section relates to the presence of residual US troops in Afghanistan, so read that first, then go and grumble also about Harry Reid and his power tripping votes.
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/21/21561772-first-thoughts-democrats-poised-to-deploy-the-nuclear-option?lite>1=43001
Well, now Karzai wants the US to bring peace to Afghanistan.
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/24/21593422-afghan-leader-says-peace-needed-before-us-security-deal?lite>1=43001