We're still going to be there in the 10s of thousands until the end of 2014. I'm not surprised that they're still doing call-ups.

Of course, Karzai is now kicking US troops out of Wardak Province, so I wouldn't be surprised if the post-2014 plans are further revised... :-/

The "military strategy" folks in the Pentagon always seem to be scheming to have our soldiers stay in places like this as long as possible. I expect Obama will do everything he can to have as many US people out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 as possible. Presumably the CIA and others will have a presence, but I expect our footprint in 2015 and later to be small. (NATO and others may still have a non-zero presence.) I think Obama recognizes that there's no upside for us having troops there (and any counter-terrorism stuff can be done with a very small footprint).

If Karzai thinks he can survive without us being there, more power to him. If Pakistan thinks they will be more secure without us being there, more power to them. The people living there need to step up and run their own countries - we're not going to turn Afghanistan into a modern economy and a multi-party democracy unless the people there want us to...

We'll see what happens.

:-(

Cheers,
Scott.