[Iran Press TV Latest] Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt hints that the US and its European allies, with thousands of troops in Afghanistan, have no "exit strategy."
"There is no time line, it is clear that no one has an exit strategy, because we have a transition strategy," Bildt said before leaving Kabul after a two-day visit to Afghanistan. "It is vital that Afghans have the confidence that we will stay," Bildt added.
So why would an exit strategy be needed if it's vital we stay?
Remind me how much skin Sweden has in the game?
However, the top diplomat expressed concerns over the deteriorating situation in the war-ravaged country, adding that there appears to be no military solution to a decade long conflict.
"This is not a conflict that can be won by military means alone," said the Swedish official, whose country currently holds the presidency of the European Union.
| Which is precisely not what the expensively educated journalist wrote. |
There are currently more than 101,000 international soldiers in Afghanistan. The US-led force lost 77 more troops there during August, setting a new monthly casualty record since the occupation began in 2001.
| I do wish that death rates would be reported as X deaths per thousand troops per number of enemy contacts... or however the military types report such things. There are considerably more troops there now, and we are being much more aggressive, so it would be reasonable to expect more casualties as a raw number. It's the perspective that matters. What I'd really love to see is the number of our deaths per enemy deaths, but I know I won't get to see that particular ratio until a generation or two has passed. |
The previous record was set just a month before in July when 76 soldiers of the so-called International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) perished, reflecting the rapidly worsening conditions in the country.
The insurgency has skyrocketed in the eastern and western provinces where the foreign troops have lost several grounds to the Taliban-linked militants over the past months.
| Has it skyrocketed, or is it just that we've wandered into territory they thought was theirs? |
US launched military operations to overthrow the Taliban regime in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the United States. The occupation was labeled "the war against terror," reportedly leading to more terror and insecurity in the conflict-torn country.
Pressure is mounting on the US and its western allies to pull out troops from the violence-wracked country amid growing troops causalities.
| Pressure wouldn't be mounting if little journalist idiots didn't invent that pressure out of whole cloth in the hope of making it come true. After all, it worked in Viet Nam. |
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