We are killing their leadership on a regular basis. That is why attacks are up.

Previous to President Obama taking office there was little to no war in Afghanistan that amounted to anything. Afghanistan was abandoned for Iraq's oil.

During that time, Bush never acted in Afghanistan to kill Osama bin Laden or destroy the Taliban, they were reconstituting.

This report, while significant, can't stand alone as the only analysis of the dynamics of Afghanistan. 

The reason there are more civilian deaths is two fold, really. One, there are more attacks period. So, with fighting increasing there the result is more civilian deaths. Two, al Qaeda are using civilians as human shields to protect themselves why Karzai is screaming at NATO that they are killing civilians.

At this point, with Afghanistan, one has to assess the gains made and the national securities of NATO. Were there significant gains made to justify the ongoing occupation of Afghanistan? To some extent that can be subjective and political, too. Oddly though, even though Karzai is screaming citizens are being killed, he hasn't kicked NATO out regardless of having trained 325,000 sovereign troops. So, when is Afghanistan going to be able to stand on its own?

Then there are the drone attacks which is the primary vehicle of enemy deaths. But, while they are killing the enemy, they are also killing the human shields used for protection.

The real question and the ONLY justification for remaining in Afghanistan to continue the training mission is, "Will the USA be safe once NATO has finished its mission?" If the answer is no, then we don't belong there anymore. The only purpose for a war in Afghanistan is to increase national security of member nations. If that is not happening and our troops are dying there is no reason to be there.

Homeland Security has to take over the role of protections against these attacks.


By THOMAS JOSCELYNSeptember 25, 2012

NATO's (click here) International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has released its monthly data trends report for August. ISAF's data show that while the number of enemy-initiated attacks (EIAs) thus far this year has decreased slightly, as compared to the first eight months of 2011, the number of civilian casualties increased dramatically. And the overall level of violence in Afghanistan, as measured by ISAF, remains worse than prior to the 2010 surge of American forces....