U.S. GENERAL FIRED

"The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan has fired a senior officer from his job as the No. 2 general in charge of training for making inappropriate public remarks about Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his government... Maj. Gen. Peter Fuller has been relieved of his duties as deputy commander for the Afghan training mission... Fuller characterized Afghan leaders as erratic, ungrateful and isolated from reality.... saying Afghan leaders don't fully recognize America's sacrifices on their country's behalf..."
http://news.yahoo.com/us-general-fired-afghan-training-job-220453969.html

U.S. NIGHT RAIDS KILLED OVER 1,500 AFGAN CIVILIANS

"U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) killed well over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-NATO command reveals... That number would make U.S. night raids by far the largest cause of civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan. ... Except for a relatively few women and children killed by accident, the civilians who died in the raids were all adult males who were counted as insurgents in press releases... (but) have invariably been either close relatives or neighbours who have come out to assist against an armed assault..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105704

KARZAI TO BACK PAKISTAN IF U.S. ATTACKS IT

"Afghanistan would support Pakistan in case of military conflict between Pakistan and the United States... Afghan President Hamid Karzai said... "If ever there is a war between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan"... (also) Karzai said he would cease attempting to reach out to the Afghan Taliban and instead negotiate directly with Pakistan, saying its military and intelligence services could influence the militants to make peace."
http://news.yahoo.com/afghanistan-back-pakistan-wars-u-karzai-023316217.html

1 IN 3 VETS SEE WAR AS WASTE

"... Nearly 4,500 U.S. troops have died in Iraq and about 1,700 in Afghanistan. Combined war costs... have topped $1 trillion.... (now) One in three U.S. veterans of the post-9/11 military believes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not worth fighting, and a majority think that after 10 years of combat America should be focusing less on foreign affairs and more on its own problems.. "
http://news.yahoo.com/poll-1-3-vets-sees-iraq-afghan-wars-040253311.html

MOST IEDs MADE IN PAKISTAN

"Pakistan is the source of explosives in the vast majority of makeshift bombs insurgents in Afghanistan planted this summer to attack U.S. troops... From June through August, U.S. troops detected or were hit by 5,088 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the most for any three-month period since the war began in 2001... More than 80% of the IEDs are homemade explosives using calcium ammonium nitrate fertilizer produced in Pakistan..."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/story/2011-10-02/ieds-traced-to-pakistan/50638686/1

KABUL ATTACK NO BIG DEAL

"... (it was) the longest attack in Kabul since the US-led invasion in 2001. Eleven Afghan civilians were killed, including several children, in the fighting... along with five Afghan policemen and 11 insurgents. At least nine Afghans, including four police officers were killed, and 23 people including civilians were wounded... The US ambassador to Afghanistan has described a 20-hour assault on Kabul's diplomatic and military quarter as "not a very big deal..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/14/kabul-attacks-us-ambassador


20-HOUR INSURGENT ATTACK IN KABUL

"The 20-hour insurgent assault on the heavily guarded Afghan capital left 27 dead - including police, civilians and attackers... This week's strike was the third deadly attack in Kabul since late June..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/14/kabul-attack-ends_n_961447.html

WAR ON TERROR BREEDS NEW TERRORISTS

"... The National Intelligence Estimate on “Trends in Global Terrorism” issued in April 2006 concluded that the war in Iraq was “breeding deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim World and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.” It found that “activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion.” And in a prophetic warning, it said “the operational threat from self-radicalized cells will grow in importance…particularly abroad but also at home.”

"(And) If there is one place on earth where it is obviously irrational to antagonize the male population on a long-term basis, it is the Pashtun region that straddles Afghanistan and Pakistan, with its tribal culture of honor and revenge for the killing of family and friends..."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/12

KARZAI AND HIS GOVERNMENT NOT SEEN AS LEGITIMATE

"... (Karzai's) brothers or high officials were mired in the Da Kabul Bank scandal. The bank appears to have been looted by its own investors and money used to by villas in Dubai. Norway, along with some internaional hosts, has suspended aid to Afghanistan until the mystery of the Bank’s missing funds is resolved...

".. (and) Not only were there charges of widespread irregularities in the 2009 presidential election, but the parliamentary elections of a year ago were likewise attended with accusations of ballot fraud...

"... As a result of these financial and electoral scandals, Karzai increasingly lacks legitimacy. This outcome is important because the new Afghan army being trained by NATO can only hope to succeed in counter-insurgency if its troops and officers believe in the government for which they are fighting..."

http://www.juancole.com/2011/09/a-tale-of-two-afghan-leaders-before-and-after-911.html

AL QAEDA SUCCEEDING IN DECLINE OF U.S. POWER

"... Al Qaeda appears to have largely succeeded in its hopes of accelerating the decline of U.S. global power, if not bringing it to the brink of collapse. That appears to be the strong consensus of the foreign-policy elite which... believes that the administration of President George W. Bush badly "over- reacted" to the attacks and that that over-reaction continues to this day... The estimated three to 4.4 trillion dollars Washington has incurred either directly or indirectly in conducting the "global war on terror" account for a substantial portion of the fiscal crisis that transformed the country's politics and brought it to the edge of bankruptcy last month..."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105041

SINCE 9/11 U.S. IS NO SAFER, BUT WEAKER

"... We aren't safer from terrorism than we were a decade ago. Safety, after all, is a product of our defensive capabilities and resiliency measured against an enemy's capacity to attack us. While al-Qaeda's capacity to attack us hasn't increased significantly, the United States has far weaker capabilities than it did 10 years ago: even if al Qaeda has experienced a decline in the past decade, then the U.S. has declined more steeply... (so) it is hard to say that we've grown safer since September 11. The only chance a relatively small and weak actor like al-Qaeda has to beat a strong actor like the U.S. is by turning its strength against it. The group has managed to put the U.S. in a position where many of its offensive and defensive measures -- armies deployed in far-away and hostile places, travel and commerce slowed by cumbersome security theater -- do in fact make the U.S. more vulnerable by exhausting it..."
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/09/al-qaeda-is-winning/244701/

AFGHAN SOLDIERS DESERTING

"At least one in seven Afghan soldiers walked off the job during the first six months of this year... Between January and June, more than 24,000 soldiers walked off the job, more than twice as many as in the same period last year, according to the NATO statistics. In June alone, more than 5,000 soldiers deserted, nearly 3 percent of the 170,000-strong force... At one point this summer, the pace of desertions climbed to an annualized rate of 35 percent..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/more-afghan-soldiers-deserting-the-army/2011/08/31/gIQABxFTvJ_story.html

WAR ON TERROR WAS ABANDONED BY BUSH AGENCIES AS INEFFECTIVE

"... The War on Terror was based on the notion that Islamic terrorism represented a unified, ideologically coherent, and operationally centralized threat, demanding a singular and predominately military response. This notion was rejected by U.S. security officials long before the killing of Bin Laden. Indeed, it was abandoned well before the election of President Obama.

By the latter years of the Bush administration, the exceptional tactics that defined the War on Terror -- preventative detentions, pain-based interrogation, ethnic and religious profiling, and widely expanded domestic surveillance powers -- were either abandoned or dramatically scaled back based on overwhelming evidence that they were ineffective. Meanwhile, the actual wars initiated in the name of the War on Terror, in Afghanistan and Iraq, rapidly evolved into counter-insurgency and then counterterrorism campaigns as military leaders recognized that the U.S. was unable to replace theocrats and autocrats with stable, western-style democracies.

The War on Terror lives on today only as political theater..."

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/who-killed-the-war-on-terror/244273/

U.S. Troops May Stay In Afghanistan Until 2024

"America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024... Afghan and American officials said that they hoped to sign the pact before the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan in December. Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai agreed last week to escalate the negotiations and their national security advisers will meet in Washington in September... "
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8712701/US-troops-may-stay-in-Afghanistan-until-2024.html

$360 MILLION LOST TO TALIBAN

"... the U.S military estimates $360 million in U.S. tax dollars has ended up in the hands of... the Taliban, criminals and power brokers with ties to both... payments from the U.S. pass through companies hired by the military for transportation, construction, power projects, fuel and other services to businesses and individuals with ties to the insurgency or criminal networks..."
http://news.yahoo.com/360m-lost-insurgents-criminals-afghanistan-150450640.html

TRUE COST OF WAR

"... Congress has allotted $1.3 trillion for war spending through fiscal year 2011 just to the Defense Department... the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq... and their ripple effects have cost the United States $3.7 trillion, or more than $12,000 per American... "
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/15/120758/true-cost-of-afghan-iraq-wars.html

EFFECT OF DRONE STRIKES

"... far more civilians are being injured or dying than the Americans and Pakistanis admit... the strikes not only kill the innocent but injure untold numbers and radicalise the population. "There are just pieces of flesh lying around after a strike. You can't find bodies. So the locals pick up the flesh and curse America. They say that America is killing us inside our own country, inside our own homes, and only because we are Muslims. The youth in the area surrounding a strike gets crazed. Hatred builds up inside those who have seen a drone attack. The Americans think it is working, but the damage they're doing is far greater."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/17/us-drone-strikes-pakistan-waziristan

U.S. TO KEEP CONTROL OF PARWAN PRISON

"The United States will remain in control of Afghanistan’s highest-profile prison well beyond January 2012, missing a key milestone in the plan to transfer judicial and detention operations to Afghans... over the past three years, the number of detainees has tripled. Parwan now holds 2,600 inmates... the Taliban has successfully used the prison for propaganda to galvanize insurgents, drawing on reports of harsh interrogation methods... U.S. officials decided that the Afghan legal system is still too weak to permit the hand-over of the Parwan Detention Center, even after the United States spent millions attempting to improve the country’s judiciary... U.S. officials say that giving Afghans control over the fates of suspected insurgents would allow dangerous Taliban fighters to slip through the cracks of an undeveloped legal system..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/afghan-prison-transfer-delayed/2011/08/12/gIQApCGMBJ_story.html?hpid=z2

AFGHAN GUARD KILLS 2 NATO PERSONNEL

"An Afghan guard opened fire at a NATO-escorted reconstruction convoy... killing a service member and a civilian working for the coalition.. (the guard) worked as a bodyguard for the second-ranking official in Afghanistan's intelligence service — Gen. Assam Din Assam, the deputy director for National Directorate for Security..."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/afghanistan/2011-07-09-afghanistan-nato-troops-killed_n.htm

U.S. SURGE FAILING, PEACE DEAL NEEDED

"... a new quarterly report from the United Nations... (shows) the American troop surge appears to be dangerously close to flunking... violence is up 51 percent since this time last year... Compared to the spring of 2010, civilian deaths and injuries are up 20 percent, with 1,090 dead and 1,860 wounded. Over 435,000 Afghans are displaced by the war, a 4 percent rise... the U.S. military’s biggest effort to rescue Afghanistan — the troop surge — failed. Now that the surge is ending, the best the U.S. can do is hope that drones, commando raids, trained Afghan soldiers and some sort of peace deal can end the war."
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/u-n-report-shreds-militarys-claim-of-afghanistan-progress/

U. S. HAS LOST THE AFGHANISTAN WAR

"... the United States has lost the ten-year Afghan conflict, its longest war. Afghanistan remains the “graveyard of empires.” The US has failed to install an obedient regime in Kabul that controls Afghanistan. It has made foes of the Pashtun majority, and, in pursuing this war, gravely undermined Pakistan... America, for all its B-1 heavy bombers, strike fighters, missiles, helicopter gunships and drones, armor, super electronics, spies in the sky and all the other high tech weapons of modern war has failed to defeat some 30,000 tribal fighters with nothing more than small arms and legendary valor. The US has lost the all important military initiative in Afghanistan. It may linger there, but it cannot win."
http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/a-real-pullout-or-a-shell-game.aspx

KARZAI CONFIRMS PEACE TALKS

"President Hamid Karzai acknowledged that the U.S. and Afghan governments have held talks with Taliban emissaries in a bid to end the nation's nearly 10-year war..."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-06-18-karzai-taliban-us_n.htm

KARZAI SAYS U.S. USING AFGHANISTAN

"... Much of Mr. Karzai’s speech, an address to the Afghanistan Youth International Conference, was devoted to broad criticisms of coalition forces in Afghanistan, saying their motives were suspect and their weapons were polluting his country... “They’re here for their own purposes, for their own goals, and they’re using our soil for that,” Mr. Karzai said..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/world/asia/19afghanistan.html?_r=2

U.S. IN SECRET TALKS ON STAYING FOR DECADES

"American and Afghan officials are locked in increasingly acrimonious secret talks about a long-term security agreement which is likely to see US troops, spies and air power based in the troubled country for decades..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/06/13-8

U.S. STRIKE KILLS 14 CIVILIANS

"... 10 children, two women and two men were killed in a strike in the southern province of Helmand... President Hamid Karza... said such operations amounted to the "murdering of Afghanistan's children and women"... scolded the US military for "arbitrary and unnecessary" missions that kill Afghan civilians, saying it was his last warning on the issue...".
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110529/ts_afp/afghanistanunrestcivilians

U. S. MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN WAR NOW OBSOLETE

"... The world's most important terrorist safe haven is visibly not Afghanistan, but instead next-door Pakistan. (And) Because the U.S. presence in Afghanistan requires cooperation from Pakistan, the Afghanistan mission perversely inhibits the United States from taking more decisive action against Pakistan's harboring of terrorism..."

"The less committed we are to Afghanistan, the more independent we are of Pakistan. The more independent we are of Pakistan, the more leverage we have over Pakistan. The more leverage we have over Pakistan, the more clout we have to shut down Pakistan's long, vicious, and now not credibly deniable state support for terrorism."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/05/09/frum.pakistan.trap/index.html?iphoneemail

BIN LADEN -- WE ENABLED ONE MAN TO COST U.S. $3 TRILLION

"... bin Laden cost the United States at least $3 trillion over the past 15 years, counting the disruptions he wrought on the domestic economy, the wars and heightened security triggered by the terrorist attacks he engineered, and the direct efforts to hunt him down... What do we have to show for that tab? Two wars that continue to occupy 150,000 troops and tie up a quarter of our defense budget; a bloated homeland-security apparatus that has at times pushed the bounds of civil liberty; soaring oil prices partially attributable to the global war on bin Laden's terrorist network; and a chunk of our mounting national debt, which threatens to hobble the economy..."

"The... expense we can attribute to bin Laden comes from policymakers' response to 9/11. The invasion of Afghanistan was clearly a reaction to al-Qaida's attacks. It is unlikely that the Bush administration would have invaded Iraq if 9/11 had not ushered in a debate about Islamic extremism and weapons of mass destruction. Those two wars grew into a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign that cost $1.4 trillion in the past decade—and will cost hundreds of billions more. The government borrowed the money for those wars, adding hundreds of billions in interest charges to the U.S. debt..."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20110506/pl_yblog_exclusive/the-cost-of-bin-laden-3-trillion-over-15-years

EXPENSIVE HIGHWAY, FUNDS FUNNELED TO TALIBAN

"... the Gardez-Khost Highway... The 64-mile highway, which has yet to be completed, has cost about $121 million so far, with the final price tag expected to reach $176 million — or about $2.8 million a mile ... Security alone has cost $43.5 million so far... Despite the expense, a stretch of the highway completed just six months ago is already falling apart and remains treacherous. The unfinished portion runs through Taliban territory, raising questions about how it can be completed. Cost overruns are already more than 100 percent... the failures have financed the very insurgents that NATO and Afghan forces are struggling to defeat. Some American officials and contractors involved in the project suspect that at least some of the money... made its way to the Haqqani group, a particularly brutal offshoot of the Taliban..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/world/asia/01road.html?_r=1

AFGHAN OFFICER KILLS 8 AMERICAN TROOPS

"Eight American troops and a U.S. contractor died Wednesday after an Afghan military pilot opened fire during a meeting at Kabul airport... He served his country for years. He loved his people and his country. He had no link with Taliban or al-Qaeda... It was the seventh time so far this year that members of the Afghan security forces, or insurgents impersonating them, have killed coalition soldiers or members of the Afghan security forces..."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-04-27-afghanistan-attack_n.htm?csp=usat.me

FAILING IN AFGHANISTAN

"Despite hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of troops, the US is unable to conclude its longest war... hard news from the ground tell a story of US fatigue, backtracking and tactical withdrawals or redeployments which do not bode well for defeating the Taliban or forcing them to the negotiations' table... news from the war front show the Taliban unrelenting, mounting counterattacks and escalating the war especially in areas where the US has "surged" its troops. And while the majority of the 400 Afghan districts are "calmer", they remain mostly out of Kabul's control... The mere fact that the world's mightiest superpower cannot win over the poorly armed Taliban after a long decade of fighting, means it has already failed..."
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/20113718714585594.html#

KARZAI REJECTS U.S. APOLOGY FOR KILLING 9 BOYS

"... Hamid Karzai told Gen. David Petraeus... that expressing regret was not sufficient in last week's killing of the boys, ages 12 and under, by coalition helicopters... Regrets and condemnations of the incident cannot heal the wounds of the people..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/06/karzai-rejects-us-apology-afghanistan-boys-killed_n_831972.html

NATO APOLOGIZES FOR KILLING 9 CHILDREN

" NATO has apologized for killing nine civilians in Kunar province... nine boys, ages 12 and under, were killed as they were gathering firewood... four of the nine boys killed were age 7, three were age 8, one was nine years old and one was 12. Also, one child was wounded..."
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/03/02/world/asia/AP-AS-Afghanistan.html?hp

WAR MONEY NEEDED BY STATES

"The U.S. is spending about $2 billion a week in Afghanistan alone. That’s about $104 billion a year — and that is not including Iraq. Compare that with the state budget shortfalls. According to a recent report by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “some 45 states and the District of Columbia are projecting budget shortfalls totaling $125 billion for fiscal year 2012.” The math is simple: The money should be poured back into the states, rather than into a state of war..."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_battle_of_the_budgets_new_fronts_in_the_afghan_and_iraq_wars_20110301/

U.S. USED PSY-OPS ON LAWMAKERS VISTING AFGHANISTAN

"... military personnel deployed to win Afghan hearts and minds were instructed over their own objections to carry out “psychological operations” to help convince visiting members of Congress to increase support for the training mission there... Psychological operations and deception... are understood as being aimed at adversarial or neutral audiences — not at Americans."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/world/asia/25military.html

PETRAEUS: AFGHANS BURNED THEIR OWN CHILDREN

"To the shock of President Hamid Karzai's aides, Gen. David H. Petraeus suggested Sunday at the presidential palace that Afghans caught up in a coalition attack in northeastern Afghanistan might have burned their own children to exaggerate claims of civilian casualties... (Petraeus is quoted as saying) that in the midst of the [operation] some pro-Taliban parents in contact with a government official decided to create a civilian casualty claim to pressure international forces to cease the [operation]. They burned hands and legs of some of their children and sent them to the hospital."

"... U.S. and Afghan officials are investigating what happened during the three- to four-day operation in the mountains of Ghaziabad district... U.S. military officials said there is no evidence that civilians died. The governor of Konar, Fazlullah Wahidi, disagreed, citing reports from villagers that dozens of women and children perished. Karzai's office placed the civilian death toll at 50..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/21/AR2011022104514.html

NATO KILLS 22 WOMEN AND 26 YOUNG BOYS

"The governor of Afghanistan's Kunar province said Sunday that 64 people, including some civilians, were killed in a joint operation by NATO's International Security Assistance Force and Afghan security forces over the past few days.... the dead included 16 insurgents, 22 women, and 26 young boys..."
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/02/20/afghanistan.civilians.killed/index.html?iphoneemail

DID CONGRESS APPROVE THIS LONGEST WAR?

"Obama... doesn't assert that the constitution gives him the unilateral power to make war and peace. Nevertheless... Obama is not simply winding up a war he did not start; he has expanded it – bringing in more troops than ever before. Meanwhile, Congress is nowhere to be found.

"... almost all the insurgent leaders... are in the tribal areas of Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Is this really the basis of Obama's right to determine the future conduct of America's longest war?... When Congress responded to the tragedy of the twin towers, it was authorising a limited war in Afghanistan – not a 100-year struggle against terrorism-in-all-its-forms. By pretending otherwise, we are speeding down a slippery slope that cuts future Congresses out of all serious participation in the big decisions on war and peace..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/27/afghanistan-congress

MONEY FOR AFGHAN SECURITY FACILITIES AT RISK OF WASTE

"... the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction concluded that the... United States is at risk of wasting roughly $11.4 billion unless it comes up with a plan for constructing and maintaining nearly 900 Afghan National Security Forces facilities... the money is "at risk" because of "inadequate planning" and the lack of a "long-range construction plan" for the facilities... (the investigation began because) the NATO mission in Afghanistan was unable to provide documents "describing the size, location or use of Afghan National Security Force facilities, such as Afghan National Army garrisons."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/27/sigar-afghan-aid-security-waste_n_814733.html

BASE CONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS DELAY NATO WITHDRAWAL

"... Building Afghanistan's security forces almost from scratch is the cornerstone of allied plans for a gradual withdrawal from the country.... (but) hundreds of new Afghan outposts, barracks and garrisons are "seriously behind schedule, making it doubtful that the construction efforts would keep pace with recruitment and training." Of 884 projects for completion over the next two years, only 133 are finished. Another 78 are under way, but 673 have not begun... Poor planning, weak management and corruption were behind the delays..."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8281330/Plans-for-Nato-withdrawal-could-be-hit-by-base-construction-delays.html

WAR IN AFGHANISTAN UNWINNABLE

"... the Obama administration has to decide what 'winning' is. If winning is denying al-Qaeda to Afghanistan, we have won. That's according to the CIA, which says no more than 50 al-Qaeda are ever in Afghanistan.

"If it's defeating the Taliban, then we need to know who the Taliban is. The CIA estimates there are 17,000 Afghan Taliban, mostly farmers who get paid $10 a day to shoot at U.S. and NATO forces. In opposition to the 17,000 'Taliban' are 550,000 international and Afghan personnel working to provide security in Afghanistan—100,000 U.S. military, 40,000 NATO, 60,000 U.S. contractors, 175,000 Afghan National Army, 175,000 Afghan National police. If it is a military 'win' the U.S. is looking for, then with that overwhelming number challenging the Taliban, we have to be winning—and if we're not, why?

"The answer is that there is no military solution, as expressed by virtually all the leaders of the countries that have been a part of the international coalition—except U.S. leaders..."

--Retired Colonel Ann Wright Discusses Why the War in Afghanistan is Unwinnable, Maui Times, January 19, 2011
http://www.mauitime.com/Articles-i-2011-01-20-75645.113117-Retired-Colonel-Ann-Wright-Discusses-Why-the-War-in-Afghanistan-is-Unwinnable.html