NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump is praising the combat efforts to drive the Taliban and terror groups out of Afghanistan.
Trump met with Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.
He said that joint Afghan-U.S. forces were making headway against their opposition, “hitting them hard and hitting them effectively.”
Ghani saluted Trump’s recent decision to bolster U.S. forces by sending up to 3,900 more troops on top of the roughly 8,400 Americans currently there.
He also stressed that Afghan forces were leading the fight and said he did not want “a blank check” offering unlimited American help.
Ghani said earlier in the week that the Trump administration has a four-year objective to bring 80 percent of the country back under the government’s control.
Am I the only one watching Ken Burns/Lynn Novick Vietnam documentary and getting a sick deja vu feeling?
I mean I’ve long know the parallels to Afghanistan and Iraq but this is just a nightly dose hitting me over the head, complete with multiple presidents feeling powerless before the generals.
“I understand you have a lot of minerals there. I’ve so many friends going to your country, trying to get rich,” Trump told President Ghani over a ham dinner in the White House Blue Room. “I congratulate you. They’re spending a lot of money, a lot of money. This I can tell you. Believe me,” he said.
Afghanistan has a president and a CEO. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think South Vietnam was ever that dysfunctional.
Trump doesn’t feel powerless before the generals, he simply doesn’t care that much. He only wants a “win” so he can brag. He gave up an enormous amount of authority to the Pentagon very early on.
We’ve also been in Afghanistan much, much longer. Which is what makes this President’s stance even more troubling. Because the Pentagon will never leave Afghanistan if they are not pressured politically to do so. And the WH and Congress are the only political pressure to which they respond. Congress just gave them a $700B budget, so there isn’t any pressure there, and the WH green lighted them to do whatever they want, as long as they can call it a win.
We are easily there for another 5-10 years, sadly.
South Vietnam was never functional. In one 18 month period in the from 63 to 64 there were something like 8 South Vietnam governments and one general after another took over and fell two months later.