On Wednesday the Secretary of State, John Kerry, announced that he and Afghan president Hamid Karzai have agreed upon the Bilateral Security Agreement. The Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) lays out the support that the US will provide Afghanistan from 2015-2024, covering financial support, military support, troop numbers and roles. Obviously this is a very big deal to me, because it will directly impact my future. This should also be a big deal to every US citizen because it impacts where your tax dollars, and more importantly the men and women in your military go.
Although the president and secretary reached an agreement it is not official yet. In order to become official it has to be approved by the Afghan people. That is why the Afghan parliamentarians and leaders have organized a Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) that will take place over the next few days. At the Loya Jirga they will go over the BSA section by section and decide to approve, revise, or reject each part. They also have the option of rejecting the entire thing. As Kerry stated in an interview, the Afghan people have the power to completely throw out the agreement that they have been working on for the last few months.
What does this mean for us? Well, according to the Secretary of State, if approved, this means that the US will have a structured, formal support role in Afghanistan until 2024 (unless both countries decide to withdraw, which requires a 2 year notice). It also means that we will continue funding the Afghan government, although I wasn't able to find a figure to go along with that assurance.
Yes, yes, we all know that President Obama has told the people that he is reducing the number of troops to Afghanistan and that he will end the combat mission in 2014. Please pay attention to wording, not just in my blog but in life. Words have meaning; look into what someone is really saying and don't let yourself fall into the trap of assuming they are telling you what you want to hear. Yes, he has told us that he will reduce the number of troops and end the combat mission. No, that does not mean we will all be coming home. The BSA ensures that we will have US boots on Afghanistan soil for many years to come. How can this be? Our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines will still be here, they just won't be here with a "Combat Mission". They will be here to train Afghan forces and they will have an "advise and assist mission".
A White House spokesman told Huffington Press that our forces would have a "limited" role. They also confirmed that we would not conduct combat operations. . . Unless (pay attention to words like unless) it is mutually agreed upon. Now let's take a minute to dissect that statement: 'unless' means that there is still an option to conduct combat operations and all it requires is mutual agreement. He didn't say what level of authority was required for that mutual agreement. Does that mean that both presidents have to agree to send out one US combat patrol? It's possible, but highly unlikely. It's more likely that it just takes the local commander for each country to agree. So how many combat operations will occur? If you listen to the statement without dissecting it you might think none will occur, but when you dig deep you realize that it's really not clear. On top of that, let's go back to the new US mission again. It's to advise and assist. Neither Kerry, nor the spokesman laid out exactly what they would be assisting with; so it is quite possible that the 'assist' portion has always meant to assist them in their combat operations.
It's a nice arrangement of words, that sound positively peaceful but are ambiguous enough to continue on with a good portion of what we are already doing, don't you think?
Before you accuse me of weaseling my opinion in here please realize that I'm not attacking any person, party, or government. I am simply begging each and every one of you to read between the lines with everything! Politicians have a job to do. We all would like that job to be "What ever is best for America" but anyone over the age of 11 (the age generally accepted by the psychology community that children begin to understand cognition and ideals) should know that things aren't always as easy as we want them to be. All politicians (good, bad and indifferent) are faced with doing what they think is best for their country, state, county etc, but they also have to try to please enough of the public to get reelected (to continue to do what they believe is the best thing for the area). Then they have to worry about pleasing their party to maintain standing, support and funding and they have to worry about alliances with others; they give their vote on some things to gain votes on things they deem more important.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying that things are almost never as simple as they seem at face value. Don't take something at face value and act like you understand it; take the time to do your research.
If you didn't know any of that, now you do and I hope you'll continue to follow this and other current events. The information I just presented didn't come from any privileged military sources, it came from Huffington Post, Fox News, The New York Times and a healthy dose of common sense.
Your turn.
3 comments:
Well written, I totally agree. What our current government is saying, doing and what they want you to think, do not line up.
I love seeing you question everything! Maybe if everybody else started questioning things, digging deeper, the American people might have a chance to get ourself out of this current complacent ideology that has lead to our current social predicament.
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