Image credit theBRIGADE.com, here.
Just in case you thought we were going to leave Afghanistan anytime soon, you ought to check out this post on 26 August 2011 from William Rivers Pitt at The Smirking Chimp:
A pair of vitally important news reports were lost recently amid a blizzard of stories about the gyrating stock market and a rogue East Coast earthquake. The first came from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who announced that a deal had been struck to keep US forces in Iraq beyond the oft-publicized December 31st withdrawal deadline and into 2012, contrary to Mr. Obama's promises...A few days after this announcement came a report from the UK Telegraph that is nothing short of staggering:
America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The agreement would allow not only military trainers to stay to build up the Afghan army and police, but also American special forces soldiers and air power to remain.
Both Afghan and American officials said that they hoped to sign the pact before the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan in December. Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai agreed last week to escalate the negotiations and their national security advisers will meet in Washington in September.
Pitt is dumbfounded, writing:
2024. More than twelve years from now. Seven congressional elections and three presidential elections from now.
I, too, am struck speechless. We never are going to leave, are we?
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