The war in Afghanistan is nearing an end – the American part, at any rate – but there is no letup in the fighting and dying of Afghan soldiers. Time, quoting from a Wall Street Journal story, reports that:
More than 4,000 Afghan troops died in combat in 2014, a record high since the U.S.-led invasion began in 2001, according to new casualty figures released by the Afghan defense ministry.
In addition to its military effort to subdue the Taliban, the U.S. has been conducting a campaign to reduce the cultivation in Afghanistan of poppies for the production of heroin. That, according to an AP report carried by ABC, hasn’t been going so well, either:
Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan grew to an all-time high in 2013 despite America spending more than $7 billion to fight it over the past decade, a U.S. report showed on Tuesday.
Afghanistan, it seems, is no longer the “war of necessity.” And in danger of becoming a lost cause.
