Panetta: U.S. combat role in Afghanistan to end as early as 2013

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Wednesday that American forces would step back from a combat role there as early as mid-2013, more than a year before all American troops are scheduled to come home, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

Promising the end of the American combat mission in Afghanistan next year would... give Mr. Obama a certain applause line in his re-election stump speech this year.

Mr. Panetta said no decisions had been made about the number of American troops to be withdrawn in 2013, and he made clear that substantial fighting lies ahead. “It doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be combat-ready; we will be, because we always have to be in order to defend ourselves,” he said.

Question: If 'substantial fighting lies ahead', why is he declaring a premature ending to the U.S. combat mission?

At the same time, Mr. Panetta said the NATO discussions would also focus on a potential downsizing of Afghan security forces from 350,000 troops, largely because of the expense of maintaining such a large army.

The situation in Afghanistan is dire, as evidenced by the Telegraph-UK report, cited in the previous post. Afghan soldiers, cognizant of the fact that U.S. troops will soon be departing the country - as part of Obama's re-election strategy - are selling their weapons and vehicles to the Taliban, and sharing intelligence information with them, according to a U.S. military report.

Indeed, the Afghans are keenly aware that U.S. troops are on their way out of the country and that the Taliban will soon return to power, hence they have little choice but to befriend the Taliban. Afghan security forces, at times, have even been incorporated in Taliban operations.

Additionally, the U.S. military report notes that Taliban fighters believe that victory and their return to power is "inevitable" and that they can easily subdue President Hamid Karzai's forces once they take charge of security in 2014.

And yet, Mr. Panetta is not only setting a premature deadline for the end of the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan, he is also 'focusing on a potential downsizing of Afghan security forces'?!!

This is the same Panetta who boldly proclaimed in 2007 that the U.S. troop surge in Iraq would not succeed, and who openly mocked George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for ordering the troop surge.

And now, this left-wing ideologue, who shares Obama's self destructive view of the world, is cutting and running from Afghanistan?

These people are the most irresponsible, negligent and reckless people ever to set foot in the White House; but sadly, the mainstream media won't even acknowledge this obvious fact.