Trump to Address Nation on ‘Path Forward’ in Afghanistan on Monday Night

President Donald Trump will discuss the "path forward"
in Afghanistan in a speech on Monday night, the White
House said in a statement Sunday.
The speech, to be delivered at the Fort Myer military
base in Arlington, Virginia, at 9 p.m. ET, will "provide an
update on the path forward for America’s engagement
in Afghanistan and South Asia," the statement said.
The address comes after a lengthy strategy review in
which White House and Pentagon officials mulled a
more aggressive role for the American military in
Afghanistan.
The cost of Afghanistan 7:42
The review, which was led by National Security Adviser
Lt. Gen H.R. McMaster, looked at whether several
thousand more troops should be deployed to the
country, U.S. defense officials told NBC News last
month.
The troops would be assigned to counter-terrorism and
NATO training missions, the officials said, and would
expand the American military’s current footprint of
roughly 8,400 troops.
Related: 3 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Eastern Afghanistan
After Afghan Soldier Opens Fire
Military forces have been in Afghanistan since 2001,
making it America's longest war .
In 2014, President Barack Obama ended the United
States’ combat mission in the country, though two
years later he authorized American airstrikes that
supported the Afghan military’s offensive. Six months
later, Obama also authorized the targeting of an ISIS
affiliate that had grown in eastern Afghanistan.
We should leave Afghanistan immediately. No
more wasted lives. If we have to go back in, we
go in hard & quick. Rebuild the US first.
8:10 PM - Mar 1, 2013
209 578 380
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
As a private citizen, Trump advocated for the
immediate withdrawal of American troops from
Afghanistan. As president, he declared that he wanted
“to start winning” there — and during a meeting last
month he reportedly repeatedly suggested that top
military officials should fire the four-star general who
commands U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
“We aren't winning," Trump said, according to senior
administration officials. "We are losing."
Republicans and Democrats alike have criticized a
possible troop expansion. Earlier this year, former
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said that it “made
no sense” to expand the military’s presence without a
new strategy, while Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin put it
this way:
"We’ve tried this before, we’ve tried to fortify our effort
in Afghanistan under Republican and Democratic
presidents, and the fact is we’re still in a situation
where the Taliban controls a massive part of the
territory," Durbin told MSNBC in May. "We need to have
an honest answer to the question: Will the Afghans
ever be in a position where there is less corruption and
there is less incompetence and they’re able to stand
up and defend their own nation? It’s time for some
honest answers."

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