Megalextoria

Monday marks 12 years since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, and for a conflict that’s been seemingly forgotten by most Americans who’ve grown weary of war, it seems fitting that the anniversary should be overshadowed by a domestic story: the federal government shutdown.

More than a decade since the U.S. launched Operation Enduring Freedom on Oct. 7, 2001, there are still 54,000 American troops in Afghanistan. That is more, by far, than at any time during the first seven years of the war, yet these days, they garner scant news coverage. Most recently, Syria’s civil war and the use of chemical weapons as well as the federal government shutdown have buried Afghanistan news, even as Americans continue to die — four were killed within a week in so-called insider attacks just at the end of September.

“There is a bloody war happening, and no one is talking about it,” said Ahmad Majidyar, an Afghanistan expert at the American Enterprise Institute and a frequent adviser to the U.S. Army.

via With little fanfare, Afghanistan War drags into 13th year

When a two-star general visited the new 64,000-square-foot US military headquarters building at Camp Leatherneck in southern Afghanistan, he was impressed. It’s “better appointed than any Marine headquarters anywhere in the world,” he tells the Washington Post, before adding, “What the hell were they thinking?” That disgust comes because the gigantic $34 million building sits pretty much unused, making it a giant, lavish, laughing stock for the troops, and perhaps the signature boondoggle of the war in Afghanistan.

A top Marine commander warned the Pentagon that the building was unnecessary three years ago, but his concerns were ignored. The building was originally commissioned for the 2009 surge, but by the time construction began that push was over, and with the US now withdrawing, commanders don’t intend to move in. “This is an example of what is wrong with military construction in general,” the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction told Chuck Hagel in a letter this week.

Full article: http://www.newser.co … fghanistan-base.html