Trump boosts US troop contingent by 3 900 in embattled Afghanistan
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has cleared the way for the deployment of thousands more troops to Afghanistan, backtracking on his election promise to rapidly end America’s longest war.
He also pilloried US ally Pakistan for offering safe haven to “agents of chaos”.
In his first formal address to the nation as commander-in-chief, Trump discarded his previous criticism of the 16year-old war as a waste of time and money, admitting things looked different from “behind the desk in the Oval Office”.
“My instinct was to pull out,” Trump said as he spoke of his frustration with a war that has killed thousands of US troops and cost US taxpayers trillions of dollars.
But following months of deliberation, Trump said he had concluded “the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable”, leaving a “vacuum” that terrorists “would instantly fill”.
While Trump refused to offer detailed troop numbers, senior White House officials said he had already authorised his defence secretary to deploy up to 3 900 more troops to Afghanistan.
He said security assistance to Afghanistan was not a blank cheque, warning he would not send the military to “construct democracies in faraway lands or create democracies in our own image”.
The US has grown weary of the conflict that began in October 2001, purportedly as a hunt for the 9/11 attackers, and has turned into a vexed effort to keep Afghanistan’s corruption-hindered democracy alive amid a brutal Taliban insurgency.
The Islamist group later vowed it would make the country a graveyard for the US and would continue its “jihad” as long as American troops remained in the country.
Trump also indicated that the single-minded approach would extend to US relations with troubled ally Pakistan, which consecutive US administrations have criticised for links with the Taliban and for harbouring leading jihadists, including Osama bin Laden.
“We have been paying Pakistan billions and billions of dollars at the same time they are housing the very terrorists that we are fighting,” Trump said, warning that the aid would end.
Ahead of the speech, Pakistan’s military brushed off speculation that Trump could signal a stronger line against Islamabad, insisting the country had done all it could to tackle militancy.
“Let it come,” army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said, referring to Trump’s decision.
Trump for the first time also left the door open to an eventual political deal with the Taliban.
“Someday, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan,” he said.
“But nobody knows if or when that will ever happen,” he added, before vowing that “America will continue its support for the Afghan government and military as they confront the Taliban in the field”.
His secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said the US would stand ready to support peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban without preconditions.
His new policy will raise questions about what, if anything, can be achieved by making further deployments, or repeating the demands of previous administrations in more forceful terms.
In 2010, the United States had upwards of 100 000 US military personnel deployed in Afghanistan.
Today that figure is around 8 400 US troops and the situation is as deadly as ever.
More than 2 500 Afghan police and troops have been killed already this year. Trump’s announcement comes amid a month of serious turmoil for his administration, which has seen several top White House officials fired and revelations that members of Trump’s campaign are being investigated by a federal grand jury.
One of the main voices arguing for withdrawal, Trump’s nationalistic chief strategist Steve Bannon, was removed from his post on Friday.
His strategy did, however, win over national security-focused Republicans with whom he has had strained relations, such as the influential Senator John McCain. — AFP