Press TV August 23, 2017 US President Donald Trump has unveiled his administration’s new strategy in Afghanistan, saying he would continue the military intervention in the South Asian country. However, he did not provide details about the exact number of troops or the cost of a prolonged presence there. Press TV has talked to member of the ANSWER
Michael Hughes: The Taliban’s public relations stunt to flatter President Donald Trump into withdrawing troops from Afghanistan is crazy enough to work in light of the commander-in-chief’s long documented history of reacting positively to anyone – including rivals – who say anything positive about him. The Taliban in their “open letter” to Trump also lay out
Michael Hughes: Revelations that the U.S. Defense Department wasted more than $457 million on a failed intelligence program in Afghanistan surfaced at the wrong time for war hawks that want to boost troop levels by another 4,000, especially considering the sitting U.S. president promised voters that he would reduce the costs of overseas commitments in order
The National Interest: A contractor-led role in Afghanistan would confirm the narrative that America wants perpetual warfare and to rob the country of its riches. The leading American proponent of a resource-driven war in Afghanistan is Blackwater founder Erik Prince. Inspired by the British East India Company, Prince has called for replacing U.S. and coalition forces in
Forbes: The point being that there are a lot of rocks in Afghanistan, those rocks contain metals and if the metals were out of the rocks and out of Afghanistan then they’d be valuable. But they’re not out and out, the metals are still in the rocks in Afghanistan and thus aren’t valuable. As we can
The Washington Post: Before he entered the White House, President Trump looked at the American war effort in Iraq and came away with a simple solution: “Take the oil.” Thankfully, this campaign-trail suggestion has not carried over to his presidency. But it was an early warning sign of Trump’s own capacity for grand strategy. He sees everything,
Michael Hughes: Afghanistan’s High Peace Council (HPC) is tasked with trying to budge the country towards some kind of peace process with a headless Taliban movement while the body faces an existential struggle against Afghan lawmakers. Moreover, President Ashraf Ghani believes negotiations must start not with the Taliban but with the group’s benefactors, although that is
The Washington Post: The New York Times reported July 10 on meetings between President Trump, his top advisers and private military and security company (PMSC) magnates, Erik Prince (founder of Blackwater) and Stephen A. Feinberg (owner of DynCorp International) to discuss plans for having contractors take over U.S. operations in Afghanistan. The plans are said to
Michael Hughes: Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz claimed that war was simply a continuation of state policy – an instrument to be applied with other means – be they diplomatic, economic or otherwise. It was partly a caution against making military conflict an end in itself, although that is exactly what the United States appears to be
Los Angeles Times: We cannot say for certain why the president has chosen to distance himself from this war that he inherited. But one possibility is this: Having learned through painful experience to recognize a losing proposition, he has no intention of being left holding the bag for this one. The savvy Mattis must suspect that