Afghanistan Weekly Reader: The $50 Billion Afghan Security Force
Looking for ways to address recent attacks by Afghan troops on their ISAF trainers, the U.S.military suspended training for some 1,000 Afghan forces this weekend while it conducts more extensive background checks. Afghan officials, who had attributed the attacks to infiltration by foreign spies, said more recently that inadequate vetting and links to insurgents may be the cause. In light of the high costs of the war – the U.S. has spent approximately $50 billion on the Afghan security forces alone – some are wondering how long U.S. policymakers will stay silent on Afghanistan.
From ASG
9/4/12
Still the forgotten war
Afghanistan Study Group by Mary Kaszynski
90,000 U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan. The war costs U.S. taxpayers $2 billion each week. Policymakers’ silence on Afghanistan is inexcusable.
ARTICLES
9/2/12
U.S Halts Training Of Some Afghanistan Forces In Light Of Green-On-Blue Violence
AP by Heidi Vogt
The move only puts about 1,000 Afghan trainees into limbo, a small fraction of the country’s security forces. But it shows how these attacks have the potential to derail the U.S.-Afghan handover of security so essential to the international drawdown strategy.
9/5/12
Afghanistan acknowledges wider causes of ‘insider’ attacks on NATO troops
The Washington Post by Richard Leiby
As fatal attacks on U.S. and NATO troops by their Afghan partners kept up at an alarming rate this year, Afghan officials largely blamed infiltrators they said had been sent by foreign spy agencies. But on Wednesday, the Afghan army acknowledged far wider causes, saying hundreds of its soldiers have been expelled or arrested because of deficient vetting and links to insurgents.
OPINION
9/3/12
No Way Out? Fear of Dying Among Afghanistan’s Professional Class
The Washington Note by Steve Clemons
President Obama’s decision to surge troop levels in Afghanistan was a strategic mistake and only deepened the black hole of costs in blood and treasure that the US had already invested and raised expectations in Afghanistan of an equilibrium in their lives that that would tilt more toward jobs and hope than toward despair and political disappointment.
8/31/12
COIN’s Failure in Afghanistan
The National Interest by Oleg Svet
The political decision to implement the COIN strategy failed to recognize that more people with more guns on foreign territory cannot win the battle for hearts and minds.
9/5/12
Afghanistan’s Base Bonanza
Guernica by Nick Turse
Afghanistan may turn out to be one of the great misbegotten “stimulus packages” of the modern era, a construction boom in the middle of nowhere with materials largely shipped in at enormous expense to no lasting purpose whatsoever.
