I heard General Keane on Fox this morning trying to school the Trumpster on the error of his ways. Seems that Trump is going to bring home the folk in Afghanistan by Christmas. Keane kept touting a ‘conditions based withdrawal’. He said that the leverage we have over the Taliban goes away with a unilateral withdrawal. He kept saying that we would not be able to get them to agree to several things that we want if we withdraw.
Here is some late breaking news. When you adhere to a ‘conditions based withdrawal’ scheme it gives the Taliban the ability to control your actions (not the other way around). In other words they would now control when we left because they controlled the conditions. Because they are the aggressors, it also puts them in the position of deciding where/when we had to fight and at what level of intensity. Finally, because we were dumping truck-loads of cash into the country they became more interested in keeping us in the country and collecting the cash than in ending the violence.
I can’t believe that our senior military leaders are so friggin stupid. But then again, they make their bucks by fighting wars not bringing peace.