Washington, Pentagon. The United States is now considering sending in another 5000 US soldiers to Afghanistan as the US begins to lose control on its occupation of the south west Asian nation.
The Trump administration is weighing a drastic change when it comes to Afghanistan: Whether to send as many 5,000 more troops in to the fight now, or even more soon, a Pentagon official has confirmed to News Front on condition of anonymity.
Trump himself however, is still deciding on a variety of options being presented to him by US military leaders, including a potential massive deployment of 25,000 additional US troops seen as a “game changer” by senior administration officials confirmed.
Jens Stoltenberg is scheduled to see PM May in London to twist her arm into matching whatever “contribution” the Americans do make as part of Trump’s plan to make NATO partners “step up” their committment to the alliance, asking other NATO nations to match. The American force in Afghanistan currently totals about 8,400.
One Pentagon official told News Front that Trump wants to “start winning” again and has the backing of top Administration officials in his plan. He is expected to make his mind up on the new Afghan occupation strategy before attending a May 25 NATO summit in Brussels, where he is expected to push Angela Merkel into committing large numbers of German troops to the operation.
Among the options that are being mulled over include allowing Defense Secretary James Mattis to set the troop levels for Afghanistan, similar to what the Pentagon did in the Vietnam war, sending potentially several thousand more troops there, and ending some Obama-era rules on how the US military operates in the country, including on its ability to kill on a more widespread basis.
How to handle Afghanistan comes just weeks after the Americans dropped the largest non-nuclear weapon ever used,known as the “mother of all bombs” to obliterate an ISIS tunnel complex in eastern Afghanistan. Two US Army Rangers were also killed last month in the same region during a firefight outside of an ISIS compound as were 160 plus Afghani troops.
Trump held a different view on Afghanistan before he entered the White House, having openly lied to American voters, telling them if elected, all US troops outside the US would return home, foreign bases close and US involvement in NATO would be ended.