President Obama went to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey yesterday to, inter alia, mark the end of what he called America’s combat mission in Afghanistan:
“Even as our combat mission ends, our commitment to Afghanistan endures. We’ll continue to have a limited military presence there because we’ve got to keep training and equipping Afghan forces, and we’ve got to conduct counterterrorism missions because there are still remnants of al Qaeda there.”
This is not accurate. We are going to still have a combat mission in Afghanistan, and the President knows that because he approved it. This is from The New York Times on November 21, 20141:
“President Obama decided in recent weeks to authorize a more expansive mission for the military in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned, a move that ensures American troops will have a direct role in fighting in the war-ravaged country for at least another year.
Mr. Obama’s order allows American forces to carry out missions against the Taliban and other militant groups threatening American troops or the Afghan government, a broader mission than the president described to the public earlier this year, according to several administration, military and congressional officials with knowledge of the decision. The new authorization also allows American jets, bombers and drones to support Afghan troops on combat missions. …
Mr. Obama’s decision, made during a White House meeting in recent weeks with his senior national security advisers, came over the objection of some of his top civilian aides, who argued that American lives should not be put at risk next year in any operations against the Taliban – and that they should have only a narrow counterterrorism mission against Al Qaeda. …
The president’s order under certain circumstances would also authorize American airstrikes to support Afghan military operations in the country and ground troops to occasionally accompany Afghan troops on operations against the Taliban.”
As The New York Times reports, and in spite of what the President said, our troops in Afghanistan will not be limited to training, equipping and counterterrorism. We will be carrying out missions against Taliban forces that threaten the Afghan government. That’s a combat mission. We will be providing air support for Afghan military operations. That’s a combat mission. American ground troops may even accompany Afghan troops in operations against the Taliban. That’s a combat mission.
I don’t object to the U.S. doing these things. In fact, we should probably do more – or at least have more troops doing them. The point is that these things are combat missions, and we are doing them. So why is President Obama saying our combat mission in Afghanistan has ended, when it hasn’t?
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1 I previously linked to this article and discussed in this post a week ago.
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