Ticking boxes in Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

Ticking boxes in Afghanistan
By Heather Maher
Dec 17, 2010

WASHINGTON - The Barack Obama administration's long-awaited review of United States strategy in Afghanistan will be released on December 16 and is expected to conclude that while some progress in the country has been made, considerable challenges remain.

President Barack Obama promised to conduct the review one year ago, after he announced that he was sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan with the goal of creating conditions that will allow the transfer of security responsibilities to the Afghans and let US combat troops start coming home in the summer of 2011.

And yet 2010 has been the bloodiest year so far of the nine-year-old war, with some 700 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops - at least 475 of them American - killed in fierce battles with the Taliban aimed at clearing and holding areas under insurgent control.

There are some signs of success, like in Kunar province near the Pakistan border, where some 850 insurgents have been captured or killed by coalition forces since this summer. In Kandahar and Helmand provinces, where much of the area has been cleared of Taliban fighters, the security situation has been mostly stabilized.
But large areas of the country remain under Taliban rule, entrenched corruption remains, governance is poor, and the training of Afghan security forces is proving a bigger challenge than once thought.

Despite that pessimistic narrative, the White House review is not expected to recommend any major strategy changes.