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"Nearly two dozen generals have commanded troops from the United States and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, since the American invasion in late 2001 - with five U.S. generals running both commands in the past five years alone."

"As the media frantically investigates the alleged improprieties of the U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, generals Petraeus and Allen, is this brouhaha distracting us from the real question: Have these generals been effective? Have any of the eleven U.S. commanders over the last eleven years been effective?"

"On May 20, 2010, General Stanley McChrystal, then the American commander in Afghanistan, referred to the operation in Marjah, Helmand-an operation earlier touted as a potential turning point for U.S. Afghan counterinsurgency (COIN)-as a "bleeding ulcer." [1] Immediately, we were reminded of a similar expression from an earlier Afghan War. On February 1986, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev speaking to the 27th General Congress of the Communist Party posited that the Soviet war in Afghanistan had become a "bleeding wound." Was McChrystal's comment just an unfortunate choice of words or a harbinger that the United States faced a Soviet-style disaster in Afghanistan?"

"The CIA director's resignation over a sex scandal has obscured how badly his counterinsurgency strategy failed in Afghanistan"

"WASHINGTON: A congressional oversight body has sent a letter to the US State Department, saying that some American-funded companies and individuals are actively supporting the insurgency in Afghanistan. In the letter, which was also copied to the US Agency for International Development, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction urged the US government to immediately stop disbursement of federal funds to these companies and individuals."

Bin Laden has been dead for a year, but his strategy continues to work in Afghanistan. Well over a decade after he first formulated his economic "bleed until bankrupt" strategy, the United States continues to spend hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars in Afghanistan on generally fruitless counterinsurgency operations"

"The Army inspector general is conducting a system-wide review of mental health facilities to determine whether psychiatrists overturned diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder to save money, a move that comes as the case of a U.S. soldier suspected of killing 16 Afghan civilians has brought fresh attention to the strains of war."

"Amlaqullah Patyani, a tall mustachioed general in charge of all Afghan army training, fears a bumpy road ahead even for his most courageous recruits. "We have no clue how to operate the weapons that NATO gives us. And even if we did, will the weapons keep coming after 2014?" he asked Reuters at the ceremony, raising a key question about the sustainability of expensive Western efforts to build up Afghan security forces."