AFGHANISTAN: Debate Rages over U.S. Withdrawal

IPS Thursday 9th June, 2011

WASHINGTON, Jun 8, 2011 (IPS) - With only three weeks left before U.S. military forces are scheduled to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan, the debate over the size and pace of that withdrawal has become increasingly intense.On one hand, the Pentagon, backed by prominent neo-conservatives and other hawks, insists that the 18-month-old "surge" of 30,000 U.S. troops has turned the strategic tide against the Taliban. Anything more than a "modest" drawdown of a few thousand of the nearly 100,000 soldiers and marines there through the end of the year, they argue, risks losing all that has been gained. "I would hope that (the withdrawal) is very small," the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, told the Financial Times this week. "I would hope that it is 3,000. We ...

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