Trump weighs US troops – Taleban making gains: Coats

15/05/2017

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In this photograph taken on April 27, 2017, a mentally ill Afghan patient prays as he is chained at the Mia Ali Baba holy shrine in the village of Samar Khel on the outskirts of Jalalabad. The Mia Ali Baba shrine is thought to cure addicts and the mentally ill ‘Inmates’ who spend 40 days chained up and confined to a small ‘cell’. They are allowed only water, bread and black pepper to eat. Patients are only allowed to bathe their faces, hands and feet, cannot change their clothes or use soap or shampoo, Their hair and nails must be left uncut. With fourteen small windowless rooms, The shrine, located about 30 kms east of Jalalabad, has been in existence for more than 300 years, treating the mentally ill as well as people possessed by djinns, or spirits. Desperate Afghan families from across the country, who are unable to afford healthcare bring their family members to the shrine, because they believe the treatment will be effective, or because they have no alternative. The shrine was founded by Mia Sayed Ali Shah, known as Mia Ali Baba, who was born in 1625. He is venerated as a holy man, and the treatment he prescribed has been handed down from generation to generation. It follows the Chishti school of Sufism, the mystical strand within Islam. The shrine is still run by about 70 family members, who care for patients in shifts. It also attracts daily visitors who come for help with personal problems and illnesses. (AFP)

WASHINGTON, May 14, (AFP): Hanging in a corridor outside the Pentagon press office, a blow-up of a Time magazine cover shows a weary US soldier drawing deeply on his cigarette. Barbed wire and snowy foothills loom behind him. The headline: “How Not to Lose in Afghanistan.” The date: April 20, 2009. More than eight years later, the Pentagon finds itself in the same quandary. Again. This time round, it is President Donald Trump looking for answers, just as Barack Obama and George W. Bush did before him. Having given Afghanistan little more than a passing mention as president, he is now being forced to confront the issue by a grim drumbeat of bad news and warnings from his generals. Almost any year from its turbulent recent past can serve as a showcase for Afghanistan’s dire predicament. Take 2016, which marked 15 years since the US-led invasion. Nearly 11,500 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded, according to the United Nations.

Security
Adding to the carnage, local officials say, the Taleban and other insurgent groups killed about 7,000 Afghan security force members — many of whom had been trained and supported by US and NATO experts. Dan Coats, Trump’s director of national intelligence, hammered home the depressing point this week, warning that the political and security situation will “almost certainly” continue to worsen. “Meanwhile, we assess that the Taleban is likely to continue to make gains, especially in rural areas,” he said.

Trump, who campaigned on an “America First” platform and a pledge to reduce US overseas involvement, must now decide whether to approve expected requests from the military’s top brass to send thousands more US troops back to Afghanistan. Administration advisers are reportedly urging him to green light some 3,000 to 5,000 additional troops, adding to the 8,400 already there. The president is expected to make the decision this month, and Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said his own recommendation would come “very shortly.” US troop levels peaked at around 100,000 under Obama, who later embarked on a steady drawdown aiming to completely end America’s combat role in the country.

Outcome
The United States and NATO handed security responsibility over to Afghan forces at the start of 2015, but the outcome has been brutal. Local troops have been slain in their thousands, corruption remains endemic and as the Taleban continues to gain ground, even US commanders concede the situation is a stalemate at best. “Unless we change something … the situation will continue to deteriorate and we’ll lose all the gains that we’ve invested in over the last several years,” Defense Intelligence Agency chief General Vincent Stewart told lawmakers this week.

However, a new troop commitment would stir resentment in America, which has seen about 2,400 troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001 and another 20,000 wounded. Plus the US government has already spent around $1 trillion on fighting and rebuilding, much of which has been squandered on wasteful projects. Trump is expected to announce a decision while he travels to NATO in Brussels and a G7 summit in Sicily later this month. He will need to outline a coherent Afghanistan policy and explain how a few thousand extra troops will win — or at least not lose — there, when 100,000 troops could not.

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15/05/2017