Reactions mixed to Obama keeping GIs in Afghanistan

The Government has welcomed Barack Obama’s commitment to keep thousands of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“The narrative that we’re leaving Afghanistan is self-defeating”, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday during a speech at the Association of the U.S. Army. USA forces trained and American defense contractors armed Afghan national forces.

“We are adjusting our presence based on conditions on the ground to give the United States and our allies the capability to sustain a robust counterterrorism platform, denying a safe haven for terrorists and violent extremist organizations”.

Announcing the plan on Thursday, President Obama said the troop extension could “make a real difference” for Afghanistan and Afghan security forces, which he acknowledged were “not as strong” as they needed to be.

“This announcement in no way changes the fact that our combat mission in Afghanistan has ended, and we will continue to undertake only two narrow missions: counter-terrorism and training, advising, and assisting our Afghan partners”, the official said.

“The nature of the mission has not changed and the cessation of our combat role has not changed”, Obama said.

In announcing his slowdown of the troop drawdown, Obama said there was only one way all USA troops could eventually be withdrawn from Afghanistan.

“Most of these conflicts end by one side winning and the other side losing”, says Harvey Weinbaum, a scholar at the Middle East Institute and a former State Department Afghanistan analyst.

Keeping USA troops exposed and continuing to incur high US financial costs in Afghanistan and Iraq for domestic political reasons are irresponsible.

Until now, Afghanistan has barely factored into campaign discussions on foreign policy and was not mentioned in Tuesday’s Democratic debate.

Just this week the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation coalition said USA and Afghan forces had carried out one of their largest joint operations in southern Kandahar province, dismantling a major Al-Qaeda sanctuary in the Taliban’s historic heartland.

The president has succeeded in vastly reducing the USA military presence in both countries, but the United States has returned a modest force to Iraq to help Baghdad in its fight against the Islamic State.

That means the 2015 fighting season was the first time Afghanistan’s troops were officially tasked with defending their country with significantly reduced help from the U.S.

The decision to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan also comes as the country sees an upswing in violence, with recent United Nations report noting that the war in Afghanistan is killing or wounding increasing numbers of civilians, with women and children showing the sharpest rise in casualties.

The president’s revamped plan was welcomed by several Republican presidential candidates, but a few said 5,500 troops would not be enough.

Afghan forces ultimately recaptured the city with the support of USA advisers and airstrikes. And earlier this month an American gunship inexplicably opened fire on a hospital near Kunduz as U.S. Green Berets were helping Afghan troops retake the city.

That’s also the year a new president will inherit this war.

Earnest, the White House spokesman, said Thursday that “politics plays absolutely no role in the president’s decision-making here”. “We always said that we’d continue to have a presence there”, she added.

Only a swift response by Afghan security forces, backed by U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops, led to an eventual Taliban retreat.

USA troops were due to return home by the end of 2016, ending a 15-year mission to topple the Taliban and prop up a democracy that began in October 2001.