Obama Announces Afghanistan Troop Drawdown
Wednesday night at the White House, President Barack Obama announced the phased withdrawal of 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, with a target of removing the rest of a 33,000 surge force by next year.
There are now some 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting a war that is nearly 10 years old.
The president said it is time to bring some of them home. He cited the strengthened position of U.S. and NATO forces and momentum achieved against the Taliban.
Pressuring al-Qaida
At the same time, Obama said al-Qaida in Pakistan is under more pressure than at any time since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, including the loss of its leader Osama bin Laden.
"Starting next month, we will be able to remove 10,000 of our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year, and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops by next summer, fully recovering the surge I announced at West Point. After this initial reduction, our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan Security forces move into the lead," Obama explained.
Obama said Afghan forces have already assumed security responsibility in some areas.
He reiterated that the Taliban, now in talks with the government, must break ties with al-Qaida, abandon violence and abide by the Afghan Constitution.
Responsibility
Obama called the objective of an Afghanistan that is not an al-Qaida safe haven achievable, but he said the Afghan people must ultimately secure their own nation.
"We will not try to make Afghanistan a perfect place. We will not police its streets or patrol its mountains indefinitely. That is the responsibility of the Afghan government, which must step up its ability to protect its people; and move from an economy shaped by war to one that can sustain a lasting peace," Obama said.
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen offered quick praise of the president's announcement and the efforts of U.S. and other NATO forces in Afghanistan.
"The tide is turning. The Taliban are under pressure. The Afghan security forces are getting stronger every day," said Rasmussen.
Mixed reaction
Here in Washington, reaction is mixed, with some lawmakers criticizing the president for withdrawing too many troops and others calling for a larger reduction of troops.
VOA Senior News Analyst Gary Thomas says Obama's decision needed to achieve two main objectives.
"The president needed a troop drawdown that was not going to be seen as pulling the rug out from under President Karzai, but still enough military pressure on the Taliban that they will come to the table," Thomas said.
Middle ground
Obama addressed the rising sentiment in the United States against the Afghan war amid a difficult economic recovery. But he urged a middle ground between isolationist tendencies and over-extending abroad.
"We must chart a more centered course. Like generations before, we must embrace America's singular role in the course of human events. But we must be as pragmatic as we are passionate; as strategic as we are resolute," stated Obama.
That resolve, the president said, will allow Afghan forces to take over full security of their country by 2014. The president said he will host a NATO summit in Chicago next May to discuss the road to that transfer.
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Obama Announces Afghanistan Troop Drawdown
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US will rely on Afghanistan to tackle PakWASHINGTON: The US will be relying on Afghanistan's help to tackle threats emerging from Pakistan , said the New York Times following President Barack Obama's announement on troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
A news analysis in the New York Times said that though the president could not say so directly, "one of the constraints on America's retreat from a hard and bloody decade is the recognition that, more than ever, the United States will be relying on Afghanistan's help to deal with the threats emerging from Pakistan".
It added that Pakistan's angry reaction to the raid against Osama bin Laden "makes it more urgent than ever that the United States maintain sites outside the country to launch drone and commando raids against the militant networks that remain in Pakistan, and to make sure that Pakistan's fast-growing nuclear arsenal never falls into the wrong hands".
There are reasons as to why the American planners hope to negotiate with Hamid Karzai government to keep upward of 25,000 American forces in Afghanistan, even after the 30,000 "surge" troops are withdrawn over the next 14 months.
"Their first is to assure that Afghanistan never again becomes a base for attacks on the United States. But the more urgent reason is Pakistan."
"Pakistan has already made it clear, however, that it will never allow American forces to be based there."
Administration officials see Pakistan's harbouring of terrorist groups as the more urgent problem.
The Times went on to say that over the last 10 years, the Afghans have heard many promises from Washington.
Obama in 2009 spoke of a surge of "agricultural specialists and educators, engineers and lawyers" who would train Afghans how to create a modern country. The results have been limited.
An official said the administration's primary focus now was "a much larger, and more dangerous, presence of insurgents remaining in Pakistan".Karzai, Europe applaud Obama's plan for troop withdrawals
BERLIN — America's European allies welcomed President Obama's announcement of troop reductions in Afghanistan with their own withdrawal promises Thursday, while the reaction of political leaders in Afghanistan ranged from enthusiasm to disdain.
President Hamid Karzai said Afghanistan would be ready to take responsibility for its own security by 2014, when the drawdown would be complete. The country will "always be thankful" to the international community for its help, he added.
"This soil can only by protected by the Afghan sons, and it has to be protected," Karzai said at a news conference. "The people of Afghanistan, by help of their sons and youths, will protect their soil and people."
But Abdullah Abdullah, a political opponent of Karzai's and a former Afghan foreign minister, voiced concern over the ability of Karzai's government to stave off extremist groups.
"The presence of a leader without a vision, without a sense of direction, without a sense of purpose ... [has] prevented most of the goals of the Afghan people to be achieved," Abdullah said. "Our concern is that in the coming few years, [with] less resources, less troops available, we might miss further opportunities."
The Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan and provided sanctuary to al-Qaeda before the U.S.-led invasion, dismissed Obama's speech as symbolic, and said "our armed struggle will increase from day to day" until the international coalition is gone.
"The solution for the Afghan crisis lies in the full withdrawal of all foreign troops immediately," the Taliban's English-language statement said.
In Europe, France and Germany announced that they, too, would reduce their deployments in Afghanistan, with France planning to accelerate its pullout from the country.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced in that France's troops would engage in a "phased withdrawal" mirroring that of the United States. France has about 4,000 soldiers in Afghanistan.
German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle praised the American plans for holding to a "clear commitment to the internationally agreed strategy," and he said he hoped to begin a withdrawal by the end of the year.
He said that the country had not settled on a strategy for the pullback.
Germany's involvement has long been controversial domestically, with voters and many politicians uncomfortable with the notion that German troops would be engaged in combat. Defense officials are still leery of acknowledging that Germany has participated in anything but a strict peacekeeping role. The decision to contribute to the NATO effort was difficult; the decision to withdraw may be less so.
Westerwelle had pushed for a reduction in Germany's troop levels in Afghanistan once the situation allowed it. The country has about 5,000 military personnel in Afghanistan, mostly in the north.
Wilgoren reported from Washington. Special correspondents Sayed Salahuddin and Javed Hamdard in Kabul contributed to this report.
Soviet commander: U.S. faces similar Afghan fate
June 23, 2011 -- Updated 1022 GMT (1822 HKT)Message from Moscow for ObamaSTORY HIGHLIGHTS- President Obama announces plans to withdraw 30,000 troops from Afghanistan
- Gen. Victor Yermakov commanded the Soviet Union's 40th army in Afghanistan
- Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and occupied country for nine years
(CNN) -- When U.S. President Barack Obama first announced plans for a U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan in 2009, a former commander of Soviet forces in the war-ravaged country warned that history was in danger of being repeated.
He said the United States and its allies were becoming mired in an "unwinnable war," despite the presence of more than 100,000 U.S. troops.
Two years on and Obama has announced plans to withdraw 30,000 troops from what has been a hugely costly conflict, both politically and in terms of lives lost. With the Taliban still a huge threat, this earlier warning now seems chillingly prescient.
Obama outlines troop withdrawal
Gen. Victor Yermakov commanded the Soviet Union's 40th army in Afghanistan from May 1982 to November 1983, one of six commanders to preside over the Soviet task force after its 1979 invasion.
The Kremlin's bloody nine-year campaign to support the Marxist government in Kabul cost the lives of more than 15,000 troops and brought the Soviet economy to its knees before its 100,000-strong army was forced into a humiliating withdrawal.
The strategy of imposing its will on Afghanistan militarily had failed in the face of an unyielding guerilla insurgency, backed ironically by U.S. money and weapons. Afghanistan had become Moscow's "Vietnam War."
RELATED TOPICS"We too entered Afghanistan with a large force," Yermakov told CNN in 2009. "We came there not to conquer Afghanistan but to render international assistance to stabilize the situation there.
"But you cannot impose democracy by using force. An Afghan has agreed with you today, at gunpoint, that American democracy is the best thing in the world, just as he was once saying that the Soviet system was the best.
"But as soon as you turn around, he'll shoot you in the back and immediately forget what he was just saying.
"I would like to remind you what the first man to unite the Afghan tribes, Czar Babur, said: 'Afghanistan has not been and never will be conquered, and will never surrender to anyone.' Afghans are a very freedom-loving and proud people."
Babur was a descendent of Genghis Khan who founded the Mughal dynasty which conquered much of central Asia in the 1500s.
Asked what difference he though Obama's troop surge would make, the 74-year-old former deputy defense minister said, "I can see only one: Obama will be more often going to the airport to pay his last respects to the [airlifted U.S.] soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
"That's the only difference that I can see, whatever the size of the task force."
The U.S.-led coalition first invaded Afghanistan in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon by al Qaeda. The invasion overthrew the ruling Taliban, which had allowed al Qaeda to operate from its territory -- but most of the top al Qaeda and Taliban leadership escaped the onslaught.
As it had been with the Soviets, the mission was to stabilize the country with a government it favors. But Taliban fighters regrouped in the mountainous region along Afghanistan's border, taking advantage of ethnic ties with sympathetic local tribes to fight against another foreign invader.
Thousands of coalition troops have died in the ensuing conflict, with many of these casualties coming from roadside bombs, known as IEDs (improvised explosive devices), planted by Taliban fighters employing the same guerilla tactics as Mujahideen fighters used against the Soviets.
Is Afghanistan Obama's Vietnam?
But even when the U.S.-led forces managed to achieve their objective of re-taking a village or town from the Taliban, Yermakov claimed they repeated Soviet mistakes.
"Whether it's Tora Bora or Kandahar we would deploy troops, establish order, place a popular government there and render our assistance to it. But when we leave that government or leadership runs away.
"After all who is the leader of a province? If he's not part of the local tribe then nobody's going to pay attention to him."
Afghans regard war only as an attempt to enslave them
--General YermatovHe pointed out how much of Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation was under government control during the day but at night the power shifted to the Mujahideen. "A similar thing is happening presently with the Taliban," he says.
Asked what lessons the coalition could learn from the bitter Soviet experience, the retired general advised western governments to transfer the money being spent on financing troops to the restoration of Afghanistan itself.
"Restoring Afghanistan's economy, its industrial enterprises, its education system, schools and mosques will increase your authority. War can only evoke resistance. Afghans regard war only as an attempt to enslave them."
According to White House estimates, it costs about $1 million per year to send just one soldier to Afghanistan. That figure includes the cost of the equipment the soldier would need, the fuel to transport the soldier to the theater and move him/her around during their deployment, and food, housing, combat pay, ammunition and other miscellaneous costs.
With a hint of defiance, Yermakov claimed the Soviet Army did enjoy some success.
"We didn't leave [Afghanistan] as a defeated force, he said. "We didn't leave with disgrace. It was our government who decided that we should withdraw, and we accepted that decision -- that the Afghan people should develop independently.
"If we are to speak about what we needed badly, it was fence-mending with the local population. We were expanding those ties, we had met with their religious leaders, mullahs and so on.
"We tried to assist, to persuade -- and it yielded results. And I should tell you that we understood this after about four years of our presence there."
CNN's Maxim Tkachenko contributed to this report.
Afghanistan Crossroads is where CNN's reporting converges, bringing you a diversity of voices, stunning images and video and global perspectives
Explore the different historic events that have made Afghanistan a crossroads of history
"Today we welcome the announcement by the president of the United States," Karzai told reporters. "We term it as a good step in their favour, and in favour of Afghanistan and we support it."more by Hamid Karzai - 1 hour ago - NDTV.com (10 occurrences)
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