Tag: afghanistan

Afghan Army Soldiers One way of knowing for sure that America has lost a war is when the Pentagon begins navel-gazing.  That’s exactly what the US military is doing now – an autopsy of its dismal performance in Iraq and Afghanistan. Where did America go wrong and when?   In both

Our days babysitting Afghanistan’s unresolved civil war are drawing to a close.   The big question is “what next”?   What will come of Afghanistan after Western forces leave?   According to Gwynne Dyer, it will probably be something close to what it was before we showed up. The “Afghan National Army” is

Germany achieved its war goals on May 7, 1945 when it signed the instruments of surrender at Reims, France.   Germany’s goal at that point was to end the war it had sparked six years earlier with the invasion of Poland. There are countless books detailing Germany’s war goals in 1939,

“When planning a military expedition into Pashtun tribal areas, the first thing you must plan is your retreat. All expeditions into this area sooner or later end in retreat under fire.”   So wrote British general, Andrew Skeen, in the early 1900s in his guide to military operations in the

Afghan security forces seem to have derailed a major terror attack against civilians in Kabul.   They intercepted a truck laden with 10-tonnes of explosives hidden underneath a load of potatoes.  They also nabbed five insurgents, three from Pakistan. The prisoners were “interrogated” and it’s said they confessed the attack was

 “As long as Afghanistan is not able to ensure  by itself the security in the country,  the artificial timelines of withdrawal are not correct  and they should not be set”  – Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Russia says Western forces have no business getting out of Afghanistan by 2014.   No, we

Afghan farmers are on target to produce a bumper crop of opium in 2012. Opium farming will increase across Afghanistan in 2012, driven by insecurity, massive corruption and economic fears for the future, and spreading to more areas than it has in the past four to five years, the United

Okay, according to America’s own counter-insurgency doctrine, Western forces in Afghanistan have long passed the point where, in Afghan eyes, they transformed from liberator/defender to occupier/oppressor.  And, okay, the drone attacks aren’t helping nor the burning of the Korans or that video of Marines pissing on Afghan corpses and that

One mid-level Taliban commander turned himself in to Afghan authorities in order to collect the reward mentioned on the BOLO poster local authorities issued for him. According to the Washington Post: When U.S. troops went to confirm that Ashan had in fact come forward to claim the finder’s fee, they