Afghanistan summit to plan for withdrawal

Afghanistan summit to plan for withdrawal

Gordon Brown sets out benchmarks for Kabul government to take control of disputed territory

Nicholas Watt and Mark Townsend
The Observer, Sunday 29 November 2009

Brown, who was speaking at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Trinidad and Tobago, was more cautious than the White House, which said last week that Obama's announcement would herald the eventual withdrawal of troops.

But the prime minister set out five benchmarks – the last of which would pave the way for a lengthy process of withdrawal to begin – that the Afghan government will be asked to meet at the conference in London on 28 January:

■ Within three months Kabul must identify additional troops to send to Helmand province for training. So far this year, 98 British soldiers have been killed in the province, the heaviest annual death toll since the conflict began eight years ago. Brown said: "This is part of our idea that we will build up the Afghan army by nearly 50,000 over the course of the next year."

■ Within six months there must be clear plans for police training.

■ Within nine months President Hamid Karzai must have appointed almost 400 provincial and district governors.

■ Within 12 months 5,000 additional Afghan troops will be trained by Britain in Helmand and thousands more in other parts of the country.

■ By the end of 2010 Afghan security forces must be taking the lead in five out of the country's 34 provinces. Control in one or two districts in Helmand will also be handed over.

Brown stressed that the conference, which is expected to be attended by Karzai, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, and foreign ministers of the other 42 countries involved in Afghanistan, would not set a timetable for withdrawal. But he indicated that the process of "Afghanisation", whereby local troops and police assume control, would allow international troops to begin to leave.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/29/afghanistan-withdrawal-summit-gordon-brown

The one which he announces will.

The Afghans are capable of policing themselves. Hell, the Taliban did a better job at suppressing the drug trade than we are doing.

The subtext their is we will pull out when there's a compliant puppet government in place, and if there isn't we'll stay until we are chased out.

government, no matter how corrupt, to look out for our interests which as always, is all about Oil.

This nonsense about the US 'training' an Afghan military is laughable. No one fights better than the Afghans. What arrogance to presume there is anything we could teach them about fighting in that country. What he means is find people you can bribe not to fight against the interests of the US. I keep waiting for one of our so-called journalists to ask why anyone thinks these people, who were born fighting, need the US to train them. Our methods haven't won that war in nearly nine years so I don't think we are exactly qualified to teach anyone anything about fighting over there.

It's all beginning to sound so familiar. I don't know why they don't just tell the truth. The real reason we are there. Why continue the charade that this is about Al Queda or Osama Bin Laden? That is like an old worn out fairy tale by now.