Last year, President Barack Obama had said that the U.S. war in Afghanistan would be brought to a responsible end.
And today, I’d like to update the American people on the way forward in Afghanistan and how, this year, we will bring America’s longest war to a responsible end.
Statement by the President on Afghanistan
At the close of the year, the end of our combat mission was officially announced.
Now, thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.
Statement by the President on the End of the Combat Mission in Afghanistan
Tonight, for the first time since 9/11, our combat mission in Afghanistan is over.
Remarks by the President in State of the Union Address
People in the international law community had mused on what declarations like this would mean for prisoners held by the U.S. in the war.
What does President mean when he states that the “war” in Afghanistan is concluding?
End of (which) war?, Marty Lederman, Just Security
This week, the government said that declarations of the end of the war, by the President, don't mean much.
The war in Afghanistan is not ending, US government attorneys said in court documents unsealed Friday, undercutting statements President Barack Obama made last December and in his State of the Union address a few weeks later when he formally declared that "the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion."
But Obama didn't really mean that the war was over, the government now argues.
"Simply put, the President's statements signify a transition in United States military operations, not a cessation …" Andrew Warden, a Justice Department attorney, wrote. "Although the United States has ended its combat mission in Afghanistan, the fighting there certainly has not stopped."
The Justice Department Just Declared That the War in Afghanistan Is Not Over, Jason Leopold, VICE News
Today, the New York Times reports that the war, which was said to be responsibly ended, is continuing under the guise of training and advising.
Months after President Obama formally declared that the United States’ long war against the Taliban was over in Afghanistan, the American military is regularly conducting airstrikes against low-level insurgent forces and sending Special Operations troops directly into harm’s way under the guise of “training and advising.”
In justifying the continued presence of the American forces in Afghanistan, administration officials have insisted that the troops’ role is relegated to counterterrorism, defined as tracking down the remnants of Al Qaeda and other global terrorist groups, and training and advising the Afghan security forces who have assumed the bulk of the fight.
U.S. Attacks in Afghanistan Go Beyond White House’s Pledges, Azam Ahmed and Joseph Goldstein, New York Times
That the United States might call fighting a war, training and advising instead, would not much surprise anyone. But it might be surprising how much of a war we are fighting in Afghanistan now.
Some Western officials have privately expressed discomfort with the American role and questioned how prolonging the American strategy in Afghanistan would be more effective this year than it had in the past 13.
“I’m not surprised they are continuing in this way,” said one Western diplomat living in Kabul. “What’s surprising is how much of it they’re doing.”
And even under our declared standards for fighting a war which has ended, the fighting we are doing does not make much sense.
Many of the strikes described by officials had no discernible basis for force protection or terrorist hunting. One included an attack in Kunar Province that wounded two miners; another in Ghazni killed several “common Taliban fighters,” and, at most, one Taliban commander, according to the head of the provincial peace council.