UK Signals Retreat…

Something slipped in during the July 4th holiday season.

DAVID Cameron yesterday spelt out his five-year exit strategy for British forces in Afghanistan.

While the Prime Minister said combat troops should be out by 2015, he said there would continue to be a diplomatic presence in the war-stricken country.

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Speaking to Christina Schmid, whose husband, Staff Sergeant Olaf Schmid, was killed by a blast last October, he said Afghanistan represented the “biggest challenge” of his job and “the thing I think about the most”.

“We’ve been there since 2001 and in Helmand since 2006,” he said. “I’ve said that by 2015 we shouldn’t have our troops there – but we may.

With the Dutch leaving as we speak, Canada following next year – and the epic STRATCOM fail that is the President Obama’s July 2011 culmination date; we have another nation playing the role of the Elector of Bavaria at Blenheim.

The 4th Anglo-Afghan was is coming to a close.

Mr Cameron insists he is not setting a hard timetable for withdrawal, but last week, the Prime Minister told MPs: “The plan that we have envisages our ensuring that we will not be in Afghanistan in 2015.” Barack Obama has said US forces will start withdrawing next July, and other Nato countries have also set out plans to leave.

Under his leadership as their Prime Minister before he became the head of NATO, Denmark has, along with the Estonia, been one of the great smaller powers in AFG during this war – fighting relatively caveat-free in the South.

Rasmussen has been good and right on AFG from the start – and is exactly right now as well.

But he insisted that whatever the “hopes and expectations” expressed by politicians like Mr Cameron, Nato must only leave Afghanistan when the conditions allow.”We can have our hopes, we can have our expectations, but I cannot give any guarantee as far as an exact date or year is concerned,” he said. “All statements from all politicians have been based on the condition that the Afghans can actually take responsibility themselves.”

Leaving Afghanistan too quickly would leave the West facing both a renewed terrorist threat from al-Qaeda and the risk of instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

He said: “If we were to leave Afghanistan prematurely, the Taliban would return to Afghanistan and Afghanistan would once again become a safe have for terrorist groups who would use it as a launch pad for terrorist attacks on North America and Europe.

“There would also be a risk of destabilising a neighbouring country, Pakistan, a nuclear power. That would be very dangerous.”

The Netherlands and Canada signaled their desire to leave before the Obama Administration …. and there was always a concern that other nations would follow as they headed for the door. Most thought that it would be Italy and Spain or other smaller powers. But our greatest ally, the UK?

This you can put on Obama. Between his continual insults to the British from Churchill’s bust to the Queen’s gift and on, to his weak-horse speech from West Point signaling our July 2011 culmination date – there should be no real shock here.

Watch close through the new year if this “2015 and home” sticks. Italy, Germany, and Spain will signal retreat as well, and most smaller powers will join them.

Once again – we will find America alone. This time, you can’t blame Bush.