Dotard giving up on ALL HIS LOSING WARS against Allah! Pulling out from Syria & Afghan! MAGA! MAGA!

[Ang4MohTrump]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...withdrawal-u-s-troops-afghanistan/2381666002/



Trump considering withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan
Tom Vanden Brook, John Fritze and David Jackson, USA TODAY Published 9:05 p.m. ET Dec. 20, 2018 | Updated 9:30 p.m. ET Dec. 20, 2018

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is stepping down from his post, President Donald Trump announced Thursday, after the retired Marine general clashed with the president over a troop drawdown in Syria and Trump’s go-it-alone stance in world affairs. Time

(Photo: SHAH MARAI, AFP/Getty Images)
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WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is considering a major withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, the latest in a series of abrupt changes to U.S. military policy the president is either eyeing or has executed over the past 24 hours.
Trump is weighing the decision to pull back from the 17-year-old conflict, a senior U.S. official told USA TODAY.
The revelation comes as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, widely seen as a steadying figure in the administration, cited differing opinions with the president on Thursday to explain his decision to leave his post.
Taken together with Trump's announcement he is withdrawing roughly 2,000 troops from Syria, the moves appeared to represent a reshuffling of the administration's military strategy that more closely aligns with what Trump promised during his campaign but that has been opposed by Mattis and others inside the Pentagon.
The idea of pulling back from Afghanistan drew a sharp rebuke from Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he recently returned from Afghanistan and maintained that ISIS remains a threat there.
More: Defense Secretary Mattis leaving his job after clash with Trump over Syria
More: Read Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' resignation letter
“Our Afghan partners are incapable of subduing the threat posed by ISIS-K alone," Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.
"The conditions in Afghanistan – at the present moment – make American troop withdrawals a high-risk strategy," he said. "If we continue on our present course we are setting in motion the loss of all our gains and paving the way toward a second 9/11."
Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told USA TODAY Thursday night that the decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan is not tethered to a strategy for the war there.
The decision to remove U.S. forces will complicate negotiations with the Taliban over reconciliation with the Afghan government, Reed said.

“The message to the Taliban, especially the most difficult elements of the Taliban, is just to wait a little bit longer,” Reed said.
It's not clear how many troops could be withdrawn, or even if Trump will follow through on the idea. The Wall Street Journal, citing an anonymous source, suggested the number could be as high as 7,000 troops, roughly half the current U.S. force deployed in Afghanistan.
Spokespeople at the White House and the Pentagon declined to comment.
The Trump administration increased the U.S. commitment to the country more than a year ago by authorizing nearly 4,000 additional troops for what war commanders described at the time as a stalemate. Trump detailed his Afghanistan strategy last summer in a prime-time address. Speaking at Joint Base Myer–Henderson Hall in Virginia, he described his approach as a retreat from nation-building in favor of what he called "principled realism."
"My original instinct was to pull out and, historically, I like following my instincts," Trump said at the time. "But all my life I’ve heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office."
But that decision represented a break from the rhetoric Trump embraced during his 2016 campaign. Trump, at the time, frequently questioned the nation's involvement in Afghanistan, at one point describing it as "a complete waste." Before he became president, Trump had called for an end to the war for years.
The roughly 14,000 U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan are training local military forces and fighting terrorist groups, including ISIS.
The U.S. began military operations in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks in 2001. President George W. Bush demanded the Taliban turn over Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and launched Operation Enduring Freedom when its leaders declined. There have been 2,400 U.S. military personnel killed in Afghanistan.
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https://www.rt.com/news/447093-us-troops-withdrawl-afghanistan/


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Trump mulling mass pullout of troops from Afghanistan – reports
Published time: 21 Dec, 2018 01:34 Edited time: 21 Dec, 2018 05:23
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FILE PHOTO: U.S. soldiers in the Laghman province of Afghanistan, December 15, 2014 © REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

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US President Donald Trump has reportedly "lost all patience" and ordered the Pentagon to look into options to reduce the 14,000-strong US contingent in Afghanistan, defying his generals' advice, according to multiple media.
Trump has grown increasingly frustrated over the Afghan stalemate, pushing for the end of the 17-year-long US campaign in the country over the past several weeks, ABC News reported, citing a US official.
Read more
Military action results in growing terrorism, US should pull out of Afghanistan – US veteran
"What are we doing there? We've been there all these years," Trump reportedly told an ally at a meeting on Wednesday, Reuters reported. On the same day, Trump is said to have discussed the potential pullout or a considerable reduction of the US force with his outgoing Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and his hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton.
The commander-in-chief, however, has not found support for his withdrawal plan, according to ABC. Hours before the deliberations were reported by US media, Mattis handed in his resignation letter, citing differences of views with the president.
There have been conflicting reports regarding when the potential pullout could take place.
While ABC News, citing a US official, reported that troops might leave the war-torn country "in the coming weeks," NBC News, citing two other defense officials, said no concrete decision has yet been made and that the Pentagon is likely to present its report "shortly after the new year."
The reports come at a time when part of the American public and even Trump's allies in the Republican Party have been incensed over his decision to withdraw some 2,000 American troops from Syria after declaring "victory" over Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) there.
The possible scale-down in the American war on terror in Afghanistan, which has dragged on since 2001, has caught many off-guard and elicited cautious praise from some of Trump's usual opponents, like Hillary Clinton’s former foreign policy spokesman Jesse Lehrich, who called it “a lot less stupid” than withdrawing 2,000 troops from Syria.

One of Trump’s most vocal critics, Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu, gave Trump a rare thumbs-up, tweeting: “I don’t care who the President is; if @POTUS gets out of endless wars, I will support that action.”

The apparent steps away from years of militaristic US policy risk alienating many of Trump’s steadfast allies, baffled by his recent decisions.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who sparred with Trump over the Syrian pullout, warned that an abrupt withdrawal is “a high-risk strategy” that could pave the way to “a second 9/11.”


The rumors of an imminent Afghan withdrawal come shortly after General Joseph F. Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that another 9/11-scale attack on American people would be possible if US forces leave Afghanistan.
The general said that US troops are essential to containing the Taliban, which is believed to control or have a presence in 44 percent of the country’s territory.
Over 2,400 US soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, a number that is now comparable to the death toll from the actual 9/11 attacks.

 

[Ang4MohTrump]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/us/politics/afghanistan-troop-withdrawal.html

U.S. to Withdraw About 7,000 Troops From Afghanistan, Officials Say

United States Air Force personnel training Afghan Air Force members in Logar Province, Afghanistan.CreditBryan Denton for The New York Times

Image

United States Air Force personnel training Afghan Air Force members in Logar Province, Afghanistan.CreditCreditBryan Denton for The New York Times
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Mujib Mashal

• Dec. 20, 2018

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has ordered the military to start withdrawing roughly 7,000 troops from Afghanistan in the coming months, two defense officials said Thursday, an abrupt shift in the 17-year-old war there and a decision that stunned Afghan officials, who said they had not been briefed on the plans.
President Trump made the decision to pull the troops — about half the number the United States has in Afghanistan now — at the same time he decided to pull American forces out of Syria, one official said.
The announcement came hours after Jim Mattis, the secretary of defense, said that he would resign from his position at the end of February after disagreeing with the president over his approach to policy in the Middle East.
The whirlwind of troop withdrawals and the resignation of Mr. Mattis leave a murky picture for what is next in the United States’ longest war, and they come as Afghanistan has been troubled by spasms of violence afflicting the capital, Kabul, and other important areas. The United States has also been conducting talks with representatives of the Taliban, in what officials have described as discussions that could lead to formal talks to end the conflict.
Senior Afghan officials and Western diplomats in Kabul woke up to the shock of the news on Friday morning, and many of them braced for chaos ahead. Several Afghan officials, often in the loop on security planning and decision-making, said they had received no indication in recent days that the Americans would pull troops out. The fear that Mr. Trump might take impulsive actions, however, often loomed in the background of discussions with the United States, they said.
They saw the abrupt decision as a further sign that voices from the ground were lacking in the debate over the war and that with Mr. Mattis’s resignation, Afghanistan had lost one of the last influential voices in Washington who channeled the reality of the conflict into the White House’s deliberations.

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The reduction of American forces in Afghanistan, one American official said, is an effort to make Afghan forces more reliant on their own troops and not Western support.
But some fear the move could only imperil the Afghan troops, who have struggled in the field against the Taliban and have suffered high casualty rates, even with the current level of American support.
Cmdr. Rebecca Rebarich, a Pentagon spokeswoman, declined to comment on the plan to remove troops from Afghanistan.
The president long campaigned on bringing troops home, but in 2017, at the request of Mr. Mattis, he begrudgingly pledged an additional 4,000 troops to the Afghan campaign to try to hasten an end to the conflict.
Though Pentagon officials have said the influx of forces — coupled with a more aggressive air campaign — was helping the war effort, Afghan forces continued to take nearly unsustainable levels of casualties and lose ground to the Taliban.
The renewed American effort in 2017 was the first step in ensuring Afghan forces could become more independent without a set timeline for a withdrawal. But with plans to quickly reduce the number of American troops in the country, it is unclear if the Afghans can hold their own against an increasingly aggressive Taliban.
Currently, American airstrikes are at levels not seen since the height of the war, when tens of thousands of American troops were spread throughout the country. That air support, officials say, consists mostly of propping up Afghan troops while they try to hold territory from a resurgent Taliban.
Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr. of the Marines, the incoming commander of Central Command, told lawmakers during his confirmation hearings this month that the Afghan military would dissolve if not for American support.
“If we left precipitously right now, I do not believe they would be able to successfully defend their country,” he said. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take. I think that one of the things that would actually provide the most damage to them would be if we put a timeline on it and we said we were going out at a certain point in time.”
One silver lining that some saw in Trump’s decision to draw down troops from Afghanistan is that it could be coordinated with the peace talks as a trust-building measure. But many officials suggested that was unlikely, given the impulsive nature of the announcement and its timing.
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On Thursday, before the pullout had been announced, Zalmay Khalilzad, the Trump administration’s special representative in charge of the talks for Afghan reconciliation, said he had made it clear to the Taliban that the United States was committed to Afghanistan.
“If they want to fight or continue fighting, we assured them that the United States will stand with the government and the people of Afghanistan,” he said.
When announcing a new Afghan strategy last year, Mr. Trump was critical of the Obama administration for openly signaling to the Taliban its plans for a drawdown. The military establishment welcomed an open-ended commitment based on conditions on the ground, although they remained wary of an impulsive president.
The plan to reduce American forces in the country comes just days after the United Arab Emirates hosted two days of talks between the United States and the Taliban. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the decision to withdraw troops.
Mr. Khalilzad, in discussing progress in the negotiations, said the Taliban’s demand remained an agreement over the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, while the United States has sought assurances from the militant group that Afghanistan would not become a haven for terrorists.
It remains unclear how the newly planned troop drawdown could affect the administration’s negotiations with the Taliban.
Besides the current contingent of roughly 14,000 American troops, there are also 8,000 NATO and allied troops deployed in Afghanistan tasked primarily with training and advising the Afghan forces.
If American troop levels drop to around 7,000, they will be at their lowest since March 2002, when the largest ground assault of the war at that time began during Operation Anaconda.
The American troops currently in Afghanistan are divided between training and advising Afghan forces and a counterterror mission against groups like the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. Those who are part of the 7,000-troop withdrawal will be a mixture of forces from both of those missions.
More than 2,400 Americans have died in Afghanistan since 2001, and this year 13 were killed in combat. Since the end of 2014, when the Pentagon declared an end to combat operations in the country, more than 25,000 Afghan soldiers and police have been killed.
Correction: December 21, 2018
An earlier version of this article misstated the number of NATO troop deployed in Afghanistan. It is 8,000, not 16,000.
Thomas Gibbons-Neff reported from Washington and Mujib Mashal from Kabul, Afghanistan.
A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 21, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: In Abrupt Shift, Trump Halves Size of U.S. Force in Afghanistan. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

 

[steffychun]

You are a mental retard.

 

[congo9]

Book of Allah said USA WILL eventually pull out of Syria.

Bible, also said that there will be great war. Ezk 38.

I keep Hearing people saying this.

 

[syed putra]

So soon after they dropped mother of all bombs in afghanistan.

 

[Ang4MohTrump]

You are a mental retard.

Fucking Dotard got to go to mosque to Kowtow and appologize to Allah or else he will be punished brutally and suffer for eternity.

 

[whoami]

Book of Allah said USA WILL eventually pull out of Syria.

Bible, also said that there will be great war. Ezk 38.

I keep Hearing people saying this.

We already witnessed millions and millions of Muslims suffering now. Muslims will be fitnah and persecuted everywhere. Its mentioned in the Quran. But Allah do hear their cries. They plan. But Allah the best planner. When is the Final Day, wa'allahu alam...Allah Know Best!

Just like in most movies. Evil ones win in the beginning. But Good ones prevail in the end.

The Final day is not a movie. It is real.

And We have not created the heaven and earth and what is between them in vain. That is the opinion of those who disbelieve. And woe to such disbelievers, because of the Fire. Shall we treat those who believe and do good deeds as those who spread corruption on the earth? Or shall we treat the pious as sinners?
[Quran 38:27-8]

 

[frenchbriefs]

"Historically I like following my instincts".....when has that ever worked out for Trump?