Publish dateTuesday 22 August 2017 - 08:55
Story Code : 148586
Trump Unveils ‘Path Forward’ on Afghanistan
After years of deriding the U.S. war in Afghanistan as a “complete waste,” President Donald Trump on Monday explained why he now believes it is in the U.S. interest to remain committed to the South Asian country.

AVA- In an evening address from a military base outside Washington, Trump unveiled, without going into detail, a “condition-based approach” to defeating terrorism in the country and said the United States will no longer use its military to construct democracies or rebuild other countries in its own image.

His goal, he said, is to stop the re-emergence of safe havens for terrorists to threaten America and make sure they do not get their hands on nuclear weapons.

We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities,” Trump told about 2,000 service members at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall. “Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out. I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will.”

US Troop Levels

The president has approved up to 4,000 more U.S. troops in Afghanistan, according to sources here speaking on condition they not be named.

Currently, there are about 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Most are advising Afghan forces, though some are tasked with carrying out counterterrorism operations against groups such as the Taliban or the Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate.

That number is down significantly from the height of former President Barack Obama’s troop surge, which saw nearly 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in August 2010.
FILE - A U.S. military helicopter flies over the site of a suicide bomb attack on a NATO convoy in Kandahar, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 2, 2017.
FILE - A U.S. military helicopter flies over the site of a suicide bomb attack on a NATO convoy in Kandahar, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 2, 2017.

Immediately following the president’s speech, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson released a statement saying: “We stand ready to support peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban without preconditions. We look to the international community, particularly Afghanistan’s neighbors, to join us in supporting an Afghan peace process.”

Trump, in his address, however, very publicly and directly put Pakistan on notice.

“We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists they are fighting. But that will have to change and that will change immediately,” Trump vowed.

The president’s address received mixed initial reviews.

“The president failed to define the goals or objectives that would direct the actions of the whole of government approach. The only thing he demonstrated was that his original belief that you can rip troops out of a combat zone without considering the fallout of that action was, in fact, wrong,” said Moira Whelan, a partner of BlueDot Strategies and former senior State Department official.

“Trump repealed his original Afghanistan position, but he failed to replace it with something that will make America safer,” Whelan told VOA.

Longest US War

The conflict in Afghanistan — with a factionalized unity government and riddled with systemic corruption — has dragged on for 16 years, becoming the longest U.S. war ever, since the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on the United States.

Expressing frustration Trump informed Afghanistan that the commitment by the United States is not unlimited and America’s support not a blank check.

The American people, he warned, expect “to see real reforms and real results.”

Trump’s policy announcement follows a monthslong review.

Source : Afghan Voice Agency(AVA)
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