The lead American negotiator in talks over a long-term security agreement with Afghanistan has privately warned the Obama administration that its efforts to persuade President Hamid Karzai to sign the document on the U.S. timetable are likely to fail, according to officials. The assessment, if borne out, could raise the chances of a hasty and messy troop withdrawal by the end of the year and would leave the administration with little time to assemble a military coalition to remain in Afghanistan after the pullout.
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No immunity from Afghan law, no coninuing presence. IMO the administration released this cable to the press for the purpose of preparing the public for a total US withdrawal. pl
Have any other countries pledged to remain in the “coalition”? Some, the Germans I believe, accelerated their withdrawal. Our nine hundred trainers are out this year even if all our containers are not.
How much withdrawal prep does the public need anyway, aside from setting up blame for the the impending chaos before during and after w/d?
Will the Elephant Party actually attempt to make hay from the fact soldiers are home from that hole?
Col: Why won’t Karzai sign? Does he believe he will survive without the USA?
Matthew
Karzai correctly believes That if he signs he will have a life much like that of Salman Rushdi. pl
Pete
It isn’t like that at all. Karzai, like Maliki before him feels perfectly safe in telling us to go screw ourselves. pl
It is politically impossible to allow US troops to face foreign national laws. Especially so if those laws are based on Islamic codes of justice. Bringing all of them home even in as hasty a departure as Saigon in 75 is electorally preferable to having one trooper face a foreign court and foreign legal system and foreign punishment.
CK
Once again, by 1975 there were only 2,000 military in SVN and they were all trainers, etc. Everyone else had left by the spring of 1973 when I left. I left on an airliner from the commercial airport. Withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 would not be all that difficult if they make a decision soon. pl
Colonel
Not disagreeing with the facts of Saigon 1973. The troops returning from Saigon in 1973 on civilian flights were not memorable TV fare, rarely shown. The embassy evacuation of April 30, 1975 is the defining image of the end of US military involvement in SE Asia. It was a hasty, unedifying spectacle.
That and the Mayaquez incident two weeks later.
My point was that American exceptionalism requires that American troops be excepted from other nations laws, mores, and justice systems.