5,000 more troops means US is to stay put in Afghanistan, activist says

Despite numerous atrocities including the recent hospital attack, the US military appears not to be “leaving Afghanistan ever”, says an activist with the United National Antiwar Committee.

US President Barack Obama is seriously weighing a proposal to keep as many as 5,000 US troops in Afghanistan beyond 2016, a move that would end his plans to bring American troops home before he leaves office, according to a report published by the Stars and Stripes on Tuesday.

"Obama did what all politicians do,"Joe Iosbaker told Press TV in a Tuesday interview. "It's the corporate ruling class the president of the US government serves."

Iosbaker further blamed the Afghan army for lacking "unity of command," saying "the real command in is Washington."

He compared it with the Syrian army, in which "patriots are in the lead."

"The US military is murderous. Their occupation of Afghanistan will include keeping open their torture chamber in Kandahar and it will include atrocities by air bombing of the hospital run by Doctors Without Borders.”

On Saturday, US forces struck an Afghan hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), an international medical charity group based in Geneva, Switzerland.

The attack killed 12 medical staff members and at least 10 patients, three of them children, and injured at least 37 people, according to the medical aid organization.

The American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, US Army General John Campbell, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in Congress earlier in the day that the move was a "mistake."

"Make no mistake about that either," Iosbaker argued, questioning Campbell's statement. "The US military prides itself on precision."

Obama has not yet made a final decision in regard to deploying the 5,000 into Afghanistan.

The proposal had originally been posited by Army General Martin Dempsey, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, back in August.

The US and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but after 14 years, the foreign troops have still not been able to establish security in the country.

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