Obama to Withdraw all U.S. Troops from Afghanistan by 2013?

Or so says Mark Thompson at Time Magazine, reporting that the President’s goal at the NATO summit in Chicago over the last 2 days was to “wrap up U.S. troops’ combat role over the coming year, and get the allies to pay more money to enable the Afghan military to fill the gap.”

The coming year to me indicates either from this day to a year hence, which would be May 21, 2013, or, if you want to gve the Administration and our allies more flexibility, “in the coming year” would mean all of 2013, so that we can have all of our troops out by December 31, 2013. This is earlier than the planned withdrawal dates in 2014. Which I like.

How is the President faring in his goal at the summit?

All signs are that NATO will agree to the first of those two goals [the coming year part] Monday in Chicago.

That will permit NATO to withdraw most – perhaps the overwhelming majority — of the 130,000 troops still fighting in Afghanistan. The pullout will come more than a decade after the U.S. led a post-9/11 invasion of the country that gave sanctuary to Osama bin Laden. The U.S. currently has 90,000 troops in Afghanistan, a number slated to fall to 68,000 by this fall.

Washington also is seeking allied help in paying the estimated $4.1 billion bill to support the Afghan military beyond 2013. It is seeking $1.3 billion in annual pledges, but that is going to prove difficult amid Europe’s economic woes.

Americans want out. Europeans want out. The only ones wanting us to stay is Mitt Romney and his neofascist neoconservative Republicans. Once again, Mitt Romney and the Republicans are on the wrong side of the issue. It is going to be funny to see them sell the need for more war in more places this fall.