10 Facts About US Withdrawal From Afghanistan
The tripartite relation of USA, Pakistan and Afghanistan is now coming to a very historic and complex stage as the trio now intends to resolve the ongoing war on terrorism through dialogues. After combating the militants for quite a long time now, USA is of the opinion that it is high time for the Afghanistan government to take over the control and be at the helm of the affairs. For this to happen, USA has announced the withdrawal of its troops within 2 years and at the moment they are training the local Afghan police to tackle the Al-Qaeda militants in a pragmatic way. Let us get on to some interesting facts about this entire scene which is soon to take place.
10. The fact that all the troops would leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014 is not true in its entirety as the President said that their mission will change from ‘combat’ to ‘support’ mission. The number of troops will be reduced gradually but the mission will not be abandoned completely.
9. At the moment, the U.S administration has no end date in mind for the ongoing war in Afghanistan. The President didn’t mention any such thing in his speeches. What should it be taken as then? Is there anything which U.S is after?
8. Mr.Obama intends to reduce the number of troops by one half of the number he introduced in Afghanistan when he took over the office. He introduced 66,000 additional troops and the drawdown plan will lessen the number of troops by 33,000.
7. However, Leon Panetta, the Defense Secretary of USA, did comment that the withdrawal plan is speeding up and it could be complete by the year 2013. To make this confusion clear, U.S administration reiterated that the original plan will be followed i.e., by the end of year 2014.
6. Don’t think that ‘support mission’ means that there will be a significant reduction in troops as is evident by the Iraq scenario. War in Iraq ended on August 2010 and at that time the number of troops were around 50,000; whereas a year later on October 2011, the troops were still 45,000. So, same pattern of troop’s deployment is expected in Afghanistan scenario.
5. According to some reports from Pentagon, it is expected that the U.S administration wish to maintain the troop level around 25,000 by the end of 2024, the same as was way back in 2007. For this purpose, U.S is currently in negotiations with the Afghan establishment. Let us see what shows up!
4. Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier of the University of Massachusetts estimated the net effect of the spending done in the military section due to ongoing war. According to that, shifting one billion dollar from domestic economy to military is tantamount to destroying 2224 jobs. I have got one more interesting calculation for you guys. If the U.S establishment actually withdraws all the troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, then it can save around US$ 200 billion from 2012 – 2021.
3. Taliban group is not willing to take a back seat rather they are showing an unabated propensity towards resistance because USA has not yet been able to come up with a timetable of withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. This doesn’t make the Taliban happy and they stringently wish the US troops to leave.
2. Can you imagine by how much margin the Taliban forces are outnumbered in Afghanistan? There are over 700,000 international forces to fight just 100 Taliban members. Woo! Are they that much deadly Uncle Sam?
1. Now the voice to end the war is emanating from the American public as well and they vehemently favor the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan within one to two years. According to a CBS poll, 62% of Americans want the withdrawal on priority basis.
