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"U.S. Special Operations Forces have a brand new home in Afghanistan. It's owned and operated by the security company formerly known as Blackwater, thanks to a no-bid deal worth $22 million"

"Afghan experts said Monday that the country's armed forces would struggle to lead the unpopular military special operations, with one analyst describing yesterday's deal with the US as "propaganda"."

"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 only people thinking long-term appear to be the Taliban. "The Americans are going and the Taliban need the people's support, so they are trying to avoid attacks that result in civilian casualties," said Noor Agha Mujahid, a member of the Taliban shadow government for Kandahar province, where he oversees operations in a rural district. "After 2014 ... it will not take a month to take every place back.""

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"

"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."

" United States officials modified their narrative on Osama bin Laden's killing, saying that the Pakistanis had little involvement. However, well-placed security sources maintain that the operation was without a doubt a joint Pakistan-US effort and that all logistics were arranged inside Pakistan. "