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Contributors
– The headline on an American Forces Press Service story quoting Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby. Kirby says most of the cases of Afghan troops killing U.S. and allied soldiers — accounting for 15% of allied KIAs so far this year — do so based on individual grievances. “We believe that less than half, somewhere [...]
After years of U.S. officials insisting Afghanistan is not turning into another Vietnam, a two-star U.S. Marine general — just back from a year-long combat tour there — says Afghanistan could well end up resembling the southeast Asian nation. Major General John Toolan insisted Tuesday that while Afghanistan may not be “highly successful” in the [...]
The “spring offensive” that the Haqqani network launched Sunday in Kabul and other points around the Afghan capital was pretty bush league, by all accounts. But while it was military insignificant, its political ramifications could prove far greater. It is disconcerting that the insurgents could launch such simultaneous attacks inside the capital – suggesting local [...]
We’ve had months of depressing news about so-called “green-on-blue” killings in Afghanistan – where Afghan troops kill their purported allies, American and otherwise. Such perfidy has accounted for about a quarter of the 63 U.S. deaths there in 2012. It’s a change, then, to read about what Afghan social-media users have begun calling “black-on-black” killings [...]
– Respectively: the number of controversial U.S. military night-raids involving Afghan forces, the share led by Afghan troops, the percentage without a shot being fired, and those that result in civilian casualties. All this is from Pentagon press secretary George Little as Washington continues to press Kabul to maintain pressure on the Taliban by allowing [...]
Army Lieut. Colonel David Oclander knows a thing about trying to turn lemons into lemonade in Afghanistan: In 2010 I was responsible for the accidental death of two little girls in a remote village in Southern Afghanistan. The events occurred in a village that sat in the middle of a critical valley that the Afghan [...]
