Timetable Abandoned: U.S. And NATO To Wage Endless War In Afghanistan
Rick Rozoff
The mainstream news media and alternative sources alike have seized on a recent revelation though it is hardly such published by McClatchy Newspapers that "The Obama administration has decided to begin publicly walking away from what it once touted as key deadlines in the war in Afghanistan in an effort to remove emphasis from Barack Obama's pledge that he would begin withdrawing US forces in July 2011." [1]
An article in this series of over a month earlier, U.S. And NATO To Wage War 15-Year War In Afghanistan And Pakistan [2], documented that much and more, and any attentive reader of news on the Internet during the preceding weeks would not have been surprised by the McClatchy feature.
On October 25 Edmund Whiteside, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Council Secretary, spoke at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and according to the local press said, "Expect the war in Afghanistan -- the longest military engagement in both Canadian and American history -- to continue for a "very long' time." In his exact words, "Afghanistan will be a very long military venture."
His position will be confirmed at the NATO summit in Lisbon, Portugal next week, as will a major commitment demanded by the U.S.-dominated military bloc's new Strategic Concept to be adopted at the meeting: The retention of nuclear arms in NATO's arsenal and the continued stationing of American nuclear bombs in Europe. Whiteside also argued: "Canada says that it doesn't need ballistic missiles. But Canada is part of a nuclear policy alliance. There's no getting around that"." [3]
B61 nuclear gravity bombs of the sort stored at NATO bases in Europe
On November 8, the day before the McClatchy article appeared, the spokesman for the 152,000-troop, 50-nation, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, German Brigadier-General Josef Blotz, stated that "no timetable has been set for withdrawal of coalition troops from Afghanistan."
Blotz confirmed that "There has been no timetable yet."
In regard to transferring security control to Afghan forces, he said, "We will not [proceed] according to a fixed timetable, it will be carried out based on conditions to be achieved over the next couple of years." [4]
On November 11, Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada spoke on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Seoul, South Korea and said that "he's decided"to keep troops in Afghanistan in a noncombat training role after Canada's combat mission ends in 2011."
Associated Press cited a senior Canadian government official verifying that his nation "will keep 750 military trainers and 250 support staff in Afghanistan until 2014"." [5]
Canadian troops in Afghanistan
A similarly bleak perspective on any withdrawal or beginning of one next year was offered on the preceding day by the commander of British forces in southern Afghanistan, Major General Nick Carter, who "gave a devastating assessment of the war effort in Afghanistan."
Carter admitted that "In my tour I lost 302 soldiers. Most of them American. The cost in blood and treasure has been enormous." He added that NATO wouldn't know if it was winning whatever that word signifies in a war already in its tenth year and escalating to new heights by the day until June of 2011, "when the fighting season begins again" and the Atlantic Alliance and the Pentagon can "compare Taliban attacks with this year." [6]
The U.S. and NATO the distinction is merely formal as recent estimates are that 140,000 of the 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan now serve under NATO command have lost 633 troops in the war as of November 11. That compares to 521 for all of last year and 295 in 2008. 1,184 of the total 2,203 Western military deaths in the country have occurred in the past 22 months.
Citing U.S. Air Force statistics, an ABC News report of November 10, "Number of Afghan Air Strikes Highest Ever," disclosed that the amount of air strikes conducted in Afghanistan in October approximately 1,000 was the highest monthly total in the war that began in 2001, up from 700 the previous month, which itself marked a 172 per cent increase over September of 2009.
