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– The amount the State Department spent – per student, per day – on anti-terror training in North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia in 2010 under its Anti-Terrorism Assistance (ATA) program. But the State Department has not “developed specific, measurable, and outcome-oriented program objectives or implemented a mechanism for program evaluation,” [...]
Marine General John Allen, commander of forces in Afghanistan, is planning for the end – the withdrawal of U.S. forces, expecting to leave behind a small training force, but saddling the U.S. taxpayers with at least $2 billion a year to pay for the Afghan security force. Better deal than we have now, at roughly [...]
The U.S. has abandoned its just-finished consulate in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif after spending $80 million outfitting the former hotel as a symbol of U.S. resoluteness. This is the kind of fiasco that tends to occur below the radar screen, but in hindsight clearly stands as an omen. The Washington Post reports [...]
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared Wednesday that “our strategy is right, our strategy is working, and if we stick to it, we can achieve the mission of establishing an Afghanistan that can secure and govern itself, and never again become a safe haven for terrorists to plan attacks on our country or any other country.” [...]
…announced Wednesday morning are familiar to Battleland readers: Time has former defense secretary Robert Gates writing about his ex-colleague, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And retired Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells us about military mental-health mobilizer Barbara van Dahlen, founder of the non-profit Give an Hour, which links up [...]
The Garden of Eden, some say, was located somewhere inside modern-day Iraq. So it’s no surprise that the U.S. is trying to improve on God’s work, seeking “gardening services” at the U.S. Consulate in Erbil. The overview of the contract solicitation, posted Monday, notes: Maintenance and appearance of the grass, shrubbery, garden areas, trees, and [...]
The latest New York Times-CBS poll confirms what has become increasingly clear: nearly seven of 10 Americans want out of Afghanistan. This should come as no surprise. What comes as a surprise is the FDA-approved sugar coating that persists:
Once government officials leave the stage, they often write memoirs in hopes of shaping how history will remember their tenure. Over at Small Wars Journal, Caleb S. Cage, a veteran of the Iraq war, helpfully reviews the recent books by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld. The 2002 West Point graduate [...]
Bored sitting around your desk? Want some action for a change? Well, the Agency for International Development has just the gig for you: AID is seeking a “senior press liaison” for its Afghanistan outpost to “ensure the production of clear, powerful news advisories and releases.” You’ll be expected to “tell the USAID story eloquently and [...]
The State Department inspector general has just issued a report concluding that the Emergency Action Plans for the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad are adequate. There’s a lot that’s blacked out, but you can still check out the list of EAP annexes: Sweet dreams…
