The South African Civil Society Information Service

Obama Plan for Afghan War Withdrawal Will Leave Troop Size at Pre-Surge Levels

25 Jun 2011

US President, Barack Obama’s plan to draw down US troops in Afghanistan still leaves more in the country than when he came into office. In a televised address, Obama said he will also bring home another 23,000 troops by the end of summer in 2012, leaving around 70,000 military forces, plus thousands of contractors.

Democracy Now discusses the longest war in US history with Gareth Porter, an investigative journalist and historian specializing in US national security policy.

“There is an effort here to create a narrative that, as he put it, the war is receding, the tide of war is receding, when in fact nothing of the sort is happening,” contends Porter.

He says, "I think there are two major story-lines here about his speech. First, he made it clear that he had leaned very sharply in favour of the interests of the Pentagon and the military, as opposed to the interests or the views of those in his own administration who believe that we needed to save a lot more money from this war by withdrawing troops much faster, particularly the increment called the surge starting in 2010. He basically gave General Petraeus most of what he wanted, despite the fact that you’re going to hear cries of pain from supporters of the military that he didn’t get everything. He wanted two full years of combat against the Taliban with the vast majority of the surge troops. He got one year and eight months, which, obviously, is roughly 80 percent of what he asked for. On the other hand, I think the—what I call the domestic faction of the Obama administration really lost out. They had hoped that the full increment, the surge increment of troops, 33,000, would be withdrawn this year, before the end of the year. And that was clearly a very major disappointment."

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