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Remember Afghanistan? The longest war in American history? Ever? When it comes to wars, we Americans have a selective memory. The Afghan war, dating from October 2001, has earned the distinction of having been forgotten while still underway. President Trump’s Inaugural Address included no mention of Afghanistan. Nor did his remarks last month at a joint session of Congress. For the new commander in chief, the war there qualifies at best as an afterthought — assuming, that is, he has thought about it all. A similar attitude prevails on Capitol Hill. Congressional oversight has become pro forma. Last week Gen....

Fifteen years into the war that few Americans talk about any more, conditions in Afghanistan are getting worse, preventing the clean ending that President Barack Obama hoped to impose before leaving office. Violence is on the rise, the Taliban are staging new offensives, the Islamic State group is angling for a foothold and peace prospects are dim. Afghanistan remains a danger zone. It's hobbled by a weak economy that's sapping public confidence in the new government. Afghan police and soldiers are struggling to hold together the country 13 months after the U.S.-led military coalition culled its numbers by 90 percent....

Things are going from bad to worse in Afghanistan, according to a report released Friday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the the largest U.S. oversight organization in Afghanistan. "[I]n this reporting period (October through December 2015), Afghanistan proved even more dangerous than it was a year ago, the report says. "The Taliban now controls more territory than at any time since 2001. Vicious and repeated attacks in Kabul this quarter shook confidence in the national-unity government. A year after the Coalition handed responsibility for Afghan security to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), American...

The Obama administration is considering slowing its planned withdrawal from Afghanistan for the second time, according to U.S. officials, a sign of the significant security challenges that remain despite an end to the U.S. and NATO combat mission there. Under the still-evolving plans, Army Gen. John F. Campbell, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, could be given greater latitude to determine the pace of the drawdown in 2015 as foreign forces scramble to ensure Afghan troops are capable of battling Taliban insurgents on their own, the officials said. The options under discussion would not alter what is...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House and State Department struggled Tuesday to clarify President Barack Obama's suggestion that last month's deadly shooting at a kosher deli in Paris was random, despite the administration's earlier assertions that the attack was anti-Semitic. Obama, in describing terror threats during a lengthy interview with the online news site Vox, said the American people were right to be concerned "when you've got a bunch of violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris." Administration officials at first defended Obama's comments, with White House spokesman Josh...

Fifty-five U.S. servicemen were killed in Afghanistan in 2014, bringing the total number of American fatalities in the 13-year war to 2,232, according to a CNSNews.com database. Of those 2,232 deaths, 1,663—74.5 percent—occurred since President Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009. The deadliest years for U.S. personnel were 2010, when 495 were killed; 2011, when there were 404 casualties; and 2009 when the death toll was 306. Those three years combined accounted for more than half, or 54 percent, of the total U.S. casualties in the war. In 2014, 42 fatalities (76.4 percent) were combat related, attributed to small...

WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) - The frantic search for Bowe Bergdahl began the moment his comrades discovered he was no longer inside the fragile outpost in a rock-strewn valley in one of the most hostile corners of Afghanistan. Exactly why Bergdahl left is subject to intense scrutiny. But accounts by two Taliban sources as well as several U.S. officials and fellow soldiers raise doubt over media reports that he had sought to join the Taliban, and over suggestions that the deaths later that year of six soldiers in his battalion were related to the search for him. His dramatic release on May...

The five men freed in exchange for US soldier Bowe Bergdahl were the highest-ranking Taliban members held at Guantanamo and have almost mythical status among many of the group's fighters. What the men do now could have a meaningful impact on whether there is more war - or peace - in Afghanistan. If they do rejoin the fighting, that will not only embolden and invigorate the existing Taliban fighters, but could well serve to recruit others. The timing of the release is also important. In recent months, major disagreements have emerged at the top of the Taliban leadership. The split...

Are we at war? I remember the Congress voting to authorize GWB to go into Iraq, but I’ll be hornswaggled if I can remember any authorization for Afghanistan. If not, how can Bergdhal be a POW? I’m confused. Can anyone explain the nitty-gritty here?

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — President Barack Obama on Tuesday defended his decision to release five Afghan detainees from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for an American soldier's freedom, saying his administration had consulted with Congress "for some time" about that possibility. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff left open the possibility of desertion charges against the soldier.

From Yahoo News: Bagram (Afghanistan) (AFP) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai was offered a meeting with President Barack Obama at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul but declined, a US official said Sunday. The official said that Washington was not surprised that the meeting did not work out at short notice, after Obama arrived at the base on a surprise visit after night fell on Sunday. "As we said, we weren't planning for a bilateral meeting with President Karzai or a trip to the palace, as this trip is focused on thanking our troops," the official said. "We did offer him...

President Barack Obama is promising U.S. forces in Afghanistan that America’s longest war will come to a close at the end of the year. The president made a surprise visit Sunday to Bagram Air Field to celebrate the Memorial Day holiday weekend with troops. He says the war is at a pivotal moment, with Afghan forces taking over primary responsibility for the security of their country. …

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) says it’s time to “rebuild America, not Afghanistan.” He and three other senators want Congress to debate a continued U.S. military presence in that country after 12-plus years of war: “If military might or money would change that part of the world, we’d have changed it by now,” Manchin told a news conference on Thursday. […] Manchin on Thursday joined fellow Democrat Jeff Merkeley (Ore.) and Republicans Mike Lee (Utah) and Rand Paul (Ky.) in introducing a resolution that says Congress should vote on the Obama administration’s reported plan to keep 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan...

Afghanistan Gains Will Be Lost Quickly After Drawdown, U.S. Intelligence Estimate Warns By Ernesto Londoño, Karen DeYoung and Greg Miller December 28 A new American intelligence assessment on the Afghan war predicts that the gains the United States and its allies have made during the past three years are likely to have been significantly eroded by 2017, even if Washington leaves behind a few thousand troops and continues bankrolling the impoverished nation, according to officials familiar with the report. The National Intelligence Estimate, which includes input from the country’s 16 intelligence agencies, predicts that the Taliban and other power brokers...

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said the United States does have plans to draw down its military personnel from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, but that the United States is “not departing Afghanistan.” “Well, first and foremost, we’re not departing Afghanistan. We are going to maintain an enduring presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014,” Panetta said at a Wednesday press conference alongside Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul, Afghanistan. …

A man wearing Afghan police uniform shot dead three British soldiers at a checkpoint in Afghanistan on Sunday, Britain's Defence Ministry said on Monday. The soldiers were serving with an Afghan police advisory team and were killed after a meeting at the checkpoint at Nahr-e-Saraj in southern Helmand province. The assailant was injured and detained, a Defence Ministry spokesman said. … Britain has about 9,500 troops in Afghanistan and is due to withdraw 500 by the end of the year. It plans to bring home all its combat troops by the end of 2014. …

President Barack Obama said on Monday the massacre of 16 villagers by a U.S. soldier raises his determination to get American troops out of Afghanistan, while a U.S. official said the accused staff sergeant previously had suffered traumatic brain injury. Sunday's shootings triggered angry calls from Afghans for an immediate American exit. Obama said there should not be a "rush to the exits" for U.S. forces who have been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001 and that the drawdown must be carried out in a responsible way. The accused U.S. Army staff sergeant walked off his base in the southern province...

A secret U.S. military report says that the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control over Afghanistan after NATO-led forces withdraw from the country, The Times newspaper reported on Wednesday. Lt Col Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), confirmed the document's existence but said it was not a strategic study of operations. "The classified document in question is a compilation of Taliban detainee opinions," he said. "It's not an analysis, nor is it meant to be considered an analysis." Nevertheless, it could be interpreted as a damning assessment of the war, now...