Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but the US has no plans whatsoever of ending its war against Afghanistan. The official Pentagon estimates of US troops deployed there is 14,000 of which Trump intends to draw down only 7,000. The Pentagon does not report the number of mercenaries, special forces, or CIA operatives it deploys there but the numbers are considerable. NATO ended its Afghan combat operations in December 2014 but nine countries (Italy, Germany, the UK, Georgia, Romania, Australia, Poland, Turkey, & the Czech Republic) still have a total of 13,000 troops in the country. What about them?
Obama’s so-called ‘withdrawal’ from Iraq is instructive for what the US means by withdrawal. There was great fanfare in October 2011 about the full withdrawal of US troops but the Pentagon left over 20,000 personnel in the Baghdad embassy which is walled off from the rest of the city. What the hell are they doing there? How many are mercenaries, special forces, CIA? One year ago it was reported that there are 5,200 US troops in Iraq (not counting mercenaries, special forces, & CIA). When were they re-deployed to Iraq?
But it isn’t just a matter of troop numbers in an age of high-tech slaughter by drones, robots, bombers. Most of the siege of Mosul in 2016 was by US bombers. The number of US troops involved is not reported because they are called trainers for the Iraqi military just as the remaining troops will be in Afghanistan.
The photo is a US Air force B-52 bomber dropping a load of 750-pound bombs. B-52s & stealth bombers are some of the aircraft used in attacks on Afghanistan. The C-130 Hercules military transport plane was used to drop the Mother of all Bombs on Afghanistan in April 2017.
US & all foreign troops out of Afghanistan!
(Photo from Reuters/USAF handout)