Upon assessing the remaining terrorist threat from Afghanistan, the US president’s national security adviser former Marine Gen. James Jones said, “The al-Qaida presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.”

If the US were to go by the advice of its national security adviser who had presumably based his conclusion upon tons of top-grade intelligence reports, it can be said that the al-Qaeda practically no longer exists in Afghanistan, and should no longer be a threat to the US. Therefore, if they have relocated somewhere else, there should be no use to grant the US generals’ request for a 40,000-troop surge in Afghanistan.

Just who exactly are the US enemies in Afghanistan, anyway? The Taliban are preoccupied with the future of Afghanistan to be run by their Sharia law. And, according to the official statement, the Arab militants have practically left the country. Plus, there are also some indications that the Taliban, run by cliquish tribal warlords, are not exactly hospitable to the al-Qaeda, and are really not interested in bringing them back. ‘Even in neighboring Pakistan, the remnants of al-Qaida are barely hanging on.’

According to a Wall Street Journal report, “Hunted by U.S. drones, beset by money problems and finding it tougher to lure young Arabs to the bleak mountains of Pakistan, al Qaeda is seeing its role shrink there and in Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports and Pakistan and U.S. officials. … For Arab youths who are al-Qaeda’s primary recruits, ‘it’s not romantic to be cold and hungry and hiding,’ said a senior U.S. official in South Asia.”

So, if the war on terror specifically targeted the now-diminished and dissipated al-Qaeda, the erstwhile enemy may already be deemed a non-enemy, and that the US should leave Afghanistan posthaste and not further waste precious US taxpayers’ money that subsidizes a war which even US soldiers are confused about.

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Via truthdig