Digging in: Why US won't leave Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Digging-in-Why-US-won-t-l-by-Pepe-Escobar-Afghanistan_Afghanistan-Drawdown_Occupation_Taliban-131122-159.html



US soldiers stand guard near the site of a suicide attack in Maidan Shar, the capital city of Wardak province south of Kabul on September 8, 2013.

Digging in: Why US won't leave Afghanistan
OpEdNews Op Eds 11/22/2013 at 18:57:40
By Pepe Escobar

We came, we saw, we stayed. Forever. That's the essence of the so-called Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) to be struck between the Obama administration and Afghanistan -- over 12 years after the start of the never-ending War on Terror.

President Obama and US Secretary of State John Kerry define it as a "strategic partnership." If that's the case, it's one of the most lopsided in history; Afghan President Hamid Karzai is no more than a sartorially impeccable American puppet.

Kerry announced the so-called BSA in Washington on Wednesday even before a Loya Jirga ("Grand Council," in Pashto) of 2,500 Afghan tribal leaders, clerics, members of parliament and merchants started their four-day deliberations in a tent on the grounds of the Polytechnical University in Kabul on Thursday.

But then Karzai, probably in his last major speech as president, pulled off a fabulous stunt. He knows he is, and will be, accused of selling Afghanistan down the (Panjshir) river. He knows he is sacrificing Afghan sovereignty for years to come -- and there will be nasty blowback for it.



unhappycamper comment: This camper thinks we may be getting into the end stage of our Afghanistan occupation. Finally.