This article appeared in Agence France Press today. France has a large number of people that are against the war, according to recent polls. Hopefully, the countries of Europe can come together and enact some pressure to remove troops from this part of the world.


U.S. may stay in Afghanistan after 2014, Biden says


By Katherine Haddon, Agence France-Presse January 12, 2011



The United States is not in Afghanistan to "govern," but will offer support beyond a 2014 security handover if Afghans wanted, visiting U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden told President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday.

Speaking after talks with the president in Kabul, Biden said: "We're not leaving if you (Afghans) don't want us to leave."

However, he also emphasized that the planned handover of responsibility for security from international troops to Afghan forces in four years, agreed at a NATO summit in November, was on track.

"It's not our intention to govern or to nation-build. As President Karzai often points out, this is the responsibility of the Afghan people," Biden told reporters at a news conference.

"We stand ready to help you in that effort and we'll continue to stand ready to help you in that effort after 2014."

A senior White House official said Biden was not announcing a change in policy.

"The vice-president was simply restating for the public what he had said to the president (Karzai), which was that the United States wants an enduring partnership with Afghanistan," the official said.

There are about 97,000 United States troops serving in Afghanistan as part of an international force of some 140,000. Limited, conditions-based withdrawals are due to start in July ahead of the scheduled 2014 transition.

Biden said Afghanistan was in a "new phase" and insisted that Taliban momentum had been "largely arrested" in key areas such as the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. His comments came despite several recent attacks in the south, seen as the focus of the war, including a suicide bombing at a bath house in Kandahar province last week which killed 17 people.

A U.S. official travelling with Biden said the vice-president's trip came at a "pivot point" for the U.S. in Afghanistan, adding it would allow Biden to review progress toward handing responsibility for security to Afghan forces.

Biden's trip comes four days after the U.S. announced it was sending an extra 1,400 Marines to southern Afghanistan, seen as the heart of the Taliban insurgency, in a bid to preempt an expected spring offensive in April or May.
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