.
Trump said “that “every expert that I have and speak to says if we don’t go there, they’re going to be fighting over here.”"… We’re told Trump “tries to do the right thing, like get the US out of Afghanistan and Syria, but then is overruled by “experts” who are his nominal subordinates.…His administration’s foreign policy bears almost no resemblance to his 2016 America First platform....The Swamp-critters to whom he’s entrusted his administration dance along their merry way as though Mitt Romney or ¡Jeb! Bush were president, with little or no interference from their nominal boss.”…
12/17/2018, “An austere base in Afghanistan rapidly expands for more US troops," Stars and Stripes, JP Lawrence, Camp Dahlke West, Afghanistan
“At the entrance of the base cafeteria here is a sign stating a simple rule: if you want to eat, you’ll have to fill two sandbags.
Expansion at Camp Dahlke West, 60 miles south of Kabul, has been so fast that everyone on base has had to pitch in to keep up and keep fed.
The buildup is a visible result of the Trump administration’s strategy in Afghanistan, which called for a modest surge of troops into the country
four years after the military spent billions closing bases there.
It also comes as the U.S. sends more newly created units that specialize in aiding Afghanistan’s security forces, which have sustained heavy casualties as the Taliban and other insurgents continue to launch offensives throughout the country.
Camp Dahlke West has been built almost from scratch during the past year [2018]. It’s just south of the former Forward Operating Base Shank, which was given to the Afghan military during the 2014 military drawdown.
An influx of troops in the spring [2018] brought soldiers from the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade, a cavalry unit
Since then, the base has quintupled in population.
The soldiers who first arrived found only a few buildings around an airstrip. Soldiers waited in line for shared work computers, slept 12 to a room and used gym equipment built from scrap lumber.
The base now is bustling, with new buildings, including offices, a chapel, a recreation room, a laundromat and a gym. Engineers are building enough housing for 800 soldiers, including for the 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade, which will arrive next year [2019].
“By the time the second SFAB arrives, they should be out of tents and into better housing,” said Lt. Col. Gerald Law, 50, an engineer with Area Support Group-Afghanistan, the command responsible for base support throughout the country. Law oversaw construction as garrison commander at Dahlke over the summer. The goal, he said, is to ensure soldiers are not working on construction and can focus on advising and assisting government troops.
Expanding the base was until recently a small part of each soldier’s duty each day.
“It just sucks when you’re trying to get a meal and you remember, ‘oh I have to fill a sandbag,’” recalled executive officer 1st Lt. Matthew Moher, 27, from Apache Troop, 2nd Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment.
“The alternative is to go hungry,” said 1st Lt. Tom Kopec, 26, executive officer of Eagle Troop, 2-1 Cavalry.
The base continues to be a target of insurgents, with 83 mortar and rocket attacks since April, and sandbags provide another layer of protection for the base’s bunkers, Kopec said.
The two officers spoke at a cafeteria they helped build and furnish, over a meal of beef kebab, baked salmon, asparagus spears and strawberry cheesecake.
Moher found tables and chairs for the cafeteria, and Kopec flew all over Afghanistan in search of supplies to build up the base’s defenses.
To provide a sense of the expansion’s scale, Kopec said almost $6 million has been spent just on miles of Hesco barriers — the wire frames that are filled with sand and serve as walls. Meanwhile, trucks hauled in more than 700 sections of blast wall.
Every few weeks, some soldiers would also go to the former FOB Shank on “zombie runs,” named because of the eeriness of walking through a mostly empty base.
The soldiers carried memos to Afghans operating on a small piece of the former Shank, requesting supplies owned by the Afghans that the Americans had previously turned over.
Many of the generators now at Dahlke West belonged to the Americans, then the Afghans and then the Americans again. The housing containers being shipped in, the two soldiers noted, are in ample supply across the wire.
“There’s a village like that a hundred yards north of the wall, and no one lives there, there’s stray dogs there,” Kopec said.
“There are villages of tents just rotting away,” Moher said. “You think about how hard it is to get stuff here, and you look over the fence, and everything is right there.”
The base should be “mature” in early 2019, which means major projects will be completed and the camp will look similar to other bases in Afghanistan.
Current projects include bringing in a post exchange for soldiers to shop and building tents so fire trucks on the flight line don’t sit in the open air, where their water may freeze, said Brian Wilhelm, 56, the base’s mayor with Area Support Group-Afghanistan.
“When the guys first got here, there was nothing,” Wilhelm said. “The buildup so far has been incredible.””
Added: “Trump’s claims that all the experts he’s hearing are telling him the same thing suggests his administration is limiting his access to dissenters. The war is plainly going disastrously, and it wouldn’t be hard to find people who would tell the president as much.”
11/29/2018, “Trump: Experts All Say US Troops Need to Stay in Afghanistan," Jason Ditz, Anti-War.com
“With three US troops killed in Afghanistan earlier this week [Nov. 2018], President Trump was pressed on the matter of why, 17+ years in, the US military remains in the country. He told interviewers that “every expert that I have and speak to says if we don’t go there, they’re going to be fighting over here. And I’ve heard it over and over again.”
When Trump announced his escalation of the [Afghanistan] war last year [2017], he said his first impulse was to pull out, but that the experts had assured him the war was still winnable. In recent months, officials have been very public about trying to convince Trump to stay in the war despite how poorly its going.
Trump’s claims that all the experts he’s hearing are telling him the same thing suggests his administration is limiting his access to dissenters. The war is plainly going disastrously, and it wouldn’t be hard to find people who would tell the president as much.”...
………………………………
3 among comments to this article:
…………………………….
That’s why Trump was elected, right? To implement what the the “experts” are saying. They are the same “experts” that got in America into the Afghanistan occupation in the first place.
This nearly two decades war is one long festering taxpayer funded boondoggle. And all the Trumpkins will say is ” At least he is not Hillary!””
…………………………………..
What has happened to Trump? Why does he who claims to know everything better than every expert in the World suddenly listens to them?"…
……………………………………
My comment: Why would anyone listen to one word from a vicious liar who used the most powerless Americans to get elected then immediately sold them out? Not that there was anyone else to vote for, but why is it legal to lie to get elected?
“We have to fight them over there so we won’t have to fight them over here.” So-called anti-war, America first Trump spouting the exact same tired neocon BS we had to hear from GWB? God almighty.”
……………………………………….