Somalilandsun- Most of the violence now occurring in Afghanistan’s east is the latest act in this centuries-long play. And despite the huge presence of foreign troops armed with an array of sophisticated weaponry Eleven thousand civilians were killed or wounded in various parts of Afghanistan last year—the highest toll since the United Nations started keeping track in 2009.
In contrast is the US foray of April 2002, in those early days of what would become the longest war in American history, President George W. Bush offered a rousing summary of the United States’ goals in Afghanistan. “We will stay until the mission is done,” he said in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute. “Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan develop its own stable government. Peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan train and develop its own national army, and peace will be achieved through an education system for boys and girls which works.”
Since then, the United States has repeatedly sent more troops to Afghanistan; by 2011, U.S. force levels topped one hundred thousand. Drone strikes and special operations raids have weakened al Qaeda’s leadership and killed Osama bin Laden. But almost all of Bush’s other goals remain out of reach. Today, the Taliban is gaining ground, the Afghan army is suffering unsustainable losses, and the government in Kabul is corrupt and riven by ethnic divisions.
Somalilandsun- The Taliban, Today’s Ghilzai have no trouble recruiting new fighters, particularly when they direct their anger toward the Western “crusaders” fighting alongside the Durrani-dominated government.
And in this backdrop the untested US administration of president Trump bend on dismantling anything Obama is set on a new mini troop surge that shall surely do one thing only, slightly slow down the Taliban’s momentum argues Aaron B. O’Connell a former a veteran of the War in Afghanistan
Urging caution the former Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel says that “if more troops fail to reverse the Taliban momentum the US should quietly change course with Washington limiting itself to preserving its aviation and Special Forces in eastern Afghanistan
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