Senate Armed Services Committee Enters Fantasyland in Hearing on Afghanistan...
Yesterday, while much of the world’s attention was focused on emerging details relating to the Boston Marathon bombings on Monday (along with a tiny bit of attention on the Constitution Center’s report...
View ArticleFor Nobel Peace Prize Winner Obama, Diplomacy Still Afterthought in Afghanistan
The central point argued in Vali Nasr’s book “The Dispensable Nation” is that for the Obama administration, diplomacy took a back seat to the military as the administration took control of the war in...
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CIA Bags O’ Cash Total Tens of Millions of Dollars, But Over $4.5 Billion...
Today’s New York Times carries a frank exposure of blatant moves by the CIA to curry favor with Hamid Karzai and high ranking members of Afghanistan’s government through direct cash payments brazenly...
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Even With Non-Validated Afghan Self-Reporting, SIGAR Finds ANSF Falls Short...
A central tenet of DoD dogma regarding withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan rests on Afghan National Security Forces reaching a force size of 352,000 and taking over full responsibility for...
View ArticleNYTimes Carefully Transcribes Dubious Denials of US Role in Wardak Province...
As evidence from investigations carried out by Afghan officials continues to mount that a figure now named (although it seems quite likely to me that this is not a real name) Zakaria Kandahari is at...
View ArticleGroup Behind Deadly Kabul Blast Upset by Negotiations on US Troops Remaining...
There was a deadly blast in Kabul yesterday, shattering what had been several months of relative peace in the capitol. The suicide blast targeted a convoy of US vehicles. From the New York Times:...
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State Department, US Press Hide Important Karzai Statement on Bilateral...
Karzai addressing his cabinet. Photo is from the web posting of Karzai’s statement on the Bilateral Security Agreement. Although there really is only one controlling issue in the quest to sign a new...
View ArticleAfghan Situation So Bad Propagandists Only Speak Of “Something That Could...
Back in April, I ridiculed the Senate Armed Services Committee and especially ISAF Commander Joseph Dunford for continuing to hold on to the delusion that the US can still “win” in Afghanistan. As the...
View ArticlePost-2014 NATO Mission in Afghanistan Has a Name, But No Enabling Agreement
In a complete repeat of the process the Obama administration used to get NATO to be the entity to propose extending the mythical 352,000 Afghan National Security Force size through 2018 instead of...
View ArticleNATO Supply Convoy Attacked in Pakistan Again
The last time I addressed the transit of NATO goods through Pakistan, I noted that NATO is now facing similar problems with convoys as goods are removed from Afghanistan to those seen previously while...
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Car Bomb Targeting Afghan Supreme Court Employees Kills at Least 14
Screen capture of the location of Kabul’s Supreme Court building, showing both the US Embassy and ISAF headquarters nearby. A very large bomb set off near the Supreme Court building in Kabul has killed...
View ArticleWar Criminal Afghan Army Chief of Staff Dostum Opens Fire on Member of Own...
As Afghanistan careens toward presidential elections next April and the end of authorized NATO presence in Afghanistan at the end of next year, we are beginning to see jockeying for position among the...
View ArticleModerate Faction of Afghan Taliban Gains Visibility
As the New York Times notes, the Taliban took steps over the weekend to remove some of the more provocative aspects of its office in Qatar from which representatives may enter into negotiations on the...
View ArticleTaliban Attack CIA Headquarters in Kabul
Yesterday, I noted that the more moderate faction of the Taliban in Afghanistan was beginning to gain more visibility in the wake of moves to decrease inflammatory aspects of the Taliban office...
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Defense Department Ignores SIGAR, Orders Russian Helicopters in End-Run...
An Mi-17 undergoing maintenance. Most maintenance within SMW is carried out by contractors because SMW lacks the expertise. (SIGAR photo). The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction,...
View ArticleServing the Truth
Writing yesterday in the Daily Beast, Lt. Col. Daniel Davis provides a moving tribute to the late Michael Hastings. In the piece, we learn that Hastings didn’t merely help Davis by publishing Davis’...
View ArticleAfghanistan Claims Zakaria Kandahari Arrested Six Weeks Ago
The continuing saga of Zakaria Kandahari, who has been at the heart of the torture and murder cases that prompted Hamid Karzai to ban US Special Forces troops from the Nerkh District of Maidan Wardak...
View ArticleMcKeon Too Low For Zero Option
Late Saturday, the New York Times posted an article with the misleading headline “US Considers Faster Pullout in Afghanistan”. In a classic case of burying the lede, the article contained the important...
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Dempsey Photo-Op With Karzai Illustrates Futility of SOFA Negotiations
Dempsey and Karzai pose for the cameras while their countries come no closer to an agreement keeping US troops in Afghanistan. (Defense Department photo) As the Afghanistan disaster careens closer to...
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SIGAR’s Sopko re $50 Million Sole Source Rule of Law Contract: “You Can’t...
John Sopko The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has discovered that the State Department has awarded a sole source contract for nearly $50 million to provide training on...
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