Hamid Karzai asks Barack Obama not to order steep withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan this year

[tekisui]

Source: The Telegraph

Mr Karzai’s cabinet ministers and security aides are deeply concerned by reports that the United States will pull out tens of thousands of troops of its 100,000 troops in the country, ahead of the US presidential election in autumn 2012.

Mr Obama held a monthly videoconference with the Afghan president yesterday as US security advisers and generals continued to debate the scale and pace of the withdrawal, which the US president has promised will begin next month.

Despite Mr Karzai’s outspoken denunciations of Nato tactics, he and senior cabinet ministers are urging Washington to give them more time to strengthen their government and military capability.

A senior Western official in Kabul said: “Afghan ministers are quite afraid of a massive early withdrawal”, while a senior aide to Mr Karzai warned that a precipitous withdrawal would abandon several provinces to Taliban control.

more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8564357/Hamid-Karzai-asks-Barack-Obama-not-to-order-steep-withdrawal-of-US-troops-from-Afghanistan-this-year.html

[Poll_Blind]

1. Whether this is true or not, I don't give a shit: We have to get out of there.

We have a greater emergency at home. We do not have unlimited resources to do this military adventurism ad infinitium.

What's going to kill more people in America, this year? Al Qaeda or a bridge collapse because we have let our infrastructure crumble?

PB

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. The MIC agrees with Karzai. Lots of profit still to be made in that lost war.

[postulater]

3. “Afghan ministers are quite afraid of a massive early withdrawal”

Sure they are, they won't get their orgasm.

Get us out!

[snappyturtle]

4. How many years have we been in Afghanistan? Karzai hasn't had enough time?

Baloney. Bring 'em home!

[Bandit]

5. Who would guard the oil pipelines if the USA pulls out?

:shrug: And protect the poppy/opium fields as well