Afghanistan Mission Continues Despite Anti-American Violence, Pentagon Says

WASHINGTON -- Despite the murder of two U.S. advisers inside a heavily guarded Afghan ministry building Saturday and waves of violent anti-American protests across the country, the United States and its allies will press ahead with the mission in Afghanistan, Pentagon spokesmen said Monday.

Hundreds of U.S. advisers were withdrawn Saturday from the Afghan ministry buildings where they are assigned, and restricted to the military compound in Kabul. They have not been allowed to return, officials said. All American military personnel and civilians in Kabul have been restricted to the fortified compounds there. Investigations by both U.S. and Afghan authorities are underway after the gunman responsible for Saturday's murders made an escape undetected.

Anti-American demonstrations continued across the country Monday, ignited last week by the burning of Qurans at the U.S. military base at Bagram. Apologies by U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama, emphasized that the Quran burnings were accidental. As violent protests spread across the country last week, two U.S. troops were shot dead by demonstrators on Thursday in Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan.

In a hastily called news conference Monday, Pentagon spokesman George Little said the United States is "unwavering in our commitment'' to Afghanistan. He said the Obama administration's strategy of preparing the Afghan security forces to take over by the end of 2014 is continuing unchanged.

"Anyone who believes they can weaken our resolve through these cowardly attacks is severely mistaken,'' Little declared at the Pentagon briefing.

Navy Capt. John Kirby, a spokesman in Kabul for the top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, said joint U.S.-Afghan military operations continue across the country. He said the U.S. investigation into the burning of the Qurans is not yet completed.

Current U.S. warfighting guidance requires that all ground operations be conducted jointly, pairing U.S. and coalition troops with Afghan army or national police units. In most cases, American and Afghan security forces live on the same bases.

"Trust and confidence are the keys to coalition warfare,'' Kirby told reporters in a video teleconference with Pentagon reporters. "There's going to be issues, some tensions and some disagreements, and these very dreadful, lethal incidents. But at the leadership level, everybody here is focusing on maintaining that trust and confidence."

Saturday's murders were "tragic and a shock to the system," Kirby said. "But everybody wants to continue the mission and get back to work."

Under guidance from the White House, U.S. military operations in Afghanistan are shifting from direct combat to training and advising Afghan security forces. Two U.S. Army brigades are currently training at Fort Polk, La., as the first all-adviser teams to be deployed to Afghanistan. Under the current strategy, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is to be slowly drawn down at least to about 68,000 by this autumn and perhaps further by the end of the year. All U.S. combat troops, under this plan, are to be gone by the end of 2014.

Little, the Pentagon spokesman, said that timetable is still valid. He said no final decisions have been made about the gradual draw-down of troops this year. "The important thing is to sustain the progress we've made," he said.

Little insisted that the rising number of attacks by Afghan soldiers on American and coalition troops, and the nationwide violence set off by the burning of the Qurans, does not mean that the decade-long U.S. effort in Afghanistan has been in vain.

"The fundamentals of the strategy remain sound," he said. "We are making progress; we have put the enemy on its heels in many parts of the country."

"Nothing that has happened over the past week will deter us,'' Little said. "This is temporary."

Comments

[vkmo]

11:06 AM on 03/09/2012

Osama Bin Laden arose from the Sea, still wrapped in his death robes, dripping salt water and caused this violence in Afghanistan. Then, he shot down the drone. And now their poppy growers will rule the world again ...........

[reiz45]

05:10 PM on 03/02/2012

Flashback: Muslims burn Bibles and destroy crosses...
http://www.1776coalition.com/news-heard-around-the-world/flashback-muslims-burn-bibles-and-destroy-crosses

[badwolf62]

05:30 PM on 02/27/2012

The mission should be to get out of afghanistan. they don't want us there, we don't want to be there and after 10 years we are not accomplishing anything there. If the Afghani's want to live like lap dogs under Taliban control more power to them. If the Taliban rebuilds and opens the door to Alqeda fine. We don't need to occupy them or put boots on the ground to eliminate them. Pack it up and go home.

[cdhj12000]

05:11 PM on 02/27/2012

I thought the "everybody" spoken of in this article that wants to continue the mission in Afghanistan have spoken and said they don't want to continue the mission. The "everybody" I refer to are the American people! For what it's worth, doesn't about every statistic report that most Americans want to the United States to end these wars? There must be some hidden (or not so hidden) agenda that those in power in the world are promoting through these wars. I don't know if anyone has said it yet, but the war(s) that the US and other countries are involved in may as well be called a world war. Why not? Some countries on one side, some countries on the other = world war, right?

[Dan Lavry]

05:06 PM on 02/27/2012

Kirby told reporters: "There's going to be issues, some tensions and some disagreements, and these very dreadful, lethal incidents. But at the leadership level, everybody here is focusing on maintaining that trust and confidence."

Clearly what happens "at the leadership level" does not matter much, because the "leadership" is not leading. The “leadership” is reacting to unforeseen events in a place where a slight error blows up into big events.

In Afghanistan, the leadership is unable to control the hair trigger religious fanatics. In the US, the leadership is busy catering the MIC (a tool for Wall Street money machine).

“Focusing on trust and confidence?” You can trust and be confident that the slightest religious provocation will ignite murder and violence.

I recall the case (a few years back) when a Danish cartoonist had to run and hide to protect his life. He was not an occupier, and Denmark is not an oppressor country. The issue was about religious fanatics going bunkers willing to kill over a cartoon. This time, the trigger was an accidental burning of holy books.

I can understand some low level anger over a burning of books (accidental or not), but killing people?

One cannot make such an environment into that of trust and confidence. The administration wants to train the Afghan military and police to protect us against the Taliban, while the Afghans rather kill US personal. What is wrong with that picture?

So why? Wall Street makes money (they own the MIC).

[brklynivn]

04:57 PM on 02/27/2012

What the hell is their resolve for? What does the Pentagon hope to accomplish there? I don't get it. What the hell is the goal for their mission?

[frank adam]

04:56 PM on 02/27/2012

Afghanistan: Where empires go to die. Ignore history and you are doomed to repeat it. Has any empire been able to defeat those guys?

[Andythelawyer]

04:49 PM on 02/27/2012

My best guess = The troops have been trying to provoke this sort of hatred and rioting so the US government would be forced to send them home.

Photographing one another urinating on Afghan corpses a few weeks ago dind't work. But this sure did.

[Deanna Klosterman]

04:53 PM on 03/02/2012

idiot

[Andythelawyer]

04:45 PM on 02/27/2012

We need new and better troops. Not only are they incapable of winning a war against a ragtag bunch of primitive mountain tribesmen in 10 years -- now they've proven themselves too ifgnorant to avoid insulting them in the most obvious way.

Last fall the Afghans similarly rioted just based on Rev. Terry Jones' threat to burn a quran. Did the troops think they wouldn't get madder by an order of magnitude if they actually burned some?

[Karma2U]

04:25 PM on 02/27/2012

Get out of this hell hole.

[barbarianatthegate]

04:24 PM on 02/27/2012

If you want to see how this movie ends just substitute "Vietnam" for Afganistan.

[Bogey907]

04:20 PM on 02/27/2012

"We call it riding the gravy traaaaaaaaiiiiiinn"

[Reg Corleonis]

03:56 PM on 02/27/2012

The fact they felt it necessary to make this statement shows just how jittery everyone is. The campaign has been an unutterable failure and disaster from get go. Get outta there!! FFS

[harmlesstree]

03:49 PM on 02/27/2012

Afghan mission continues, despite anti-Soviet violence, Politburo says...oh wait I just had a flash back to my elementary school days!

[harmlesstree]

03:52 PM on 02/27/2012

flashback

[Bogey907]

04:21 PM on 02/27/2012

Deja vu all over again.

[I am Ironman]

03:48 PM on 02/27/2012

Who is the idiot that gave the authorization to burn the Quran? I think that any given 1st grader would know that this is insensitive to our mission. In a world full of propaganda, where fringe groups are just waiting for this type of incident to occur so that they can make political gains and have an open season on our citizens, why would we allow the burn to take place. Could'nt they have just boxed the items up and shipped them to a secure location for storage or better yet, turn them over to the Taliban along with the names of the prisioners the wrote in them, a clear violation of sharia law, and let them deal with it. Who is running this show and where is the leadership. It appears that this was done with willful intent to garner the reaction, but why?