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I hate agreeing with Donald Trump. We made a terrible mistake getting involved in the first place, he told CNN in October, referring to the war in Afghanistan, which he called a mess. I would leave the troops there begrudgingly, the then-presidential candidate added. Believe me, Im not happy about it.

You remember Afghanistan, right? The longest war in U.S. history and the most unpopular one, too? The ongoing conflict thats been ignored by politicians and pundits alike, despite 2,400 U.S. dead and a whopping $1 trillion price tag?

Afghanistan hardly got a look in during the election campaign. The decade-and-a-half-long war was mentioned only once in the three presidential debates in the form of a passing reference by Hillary Clinton. Trump, however, might want to put down the golf clubs and start paying attention to the forgotten struggle against the Taliban, which was supposed to have formally ended in December 2014. His generals, backed by GOP hawks in Congress, want to drag it out for a few more years. Their unspoken mantra? When in doubt, double down.

But even Hamid Karzai, former president of Afghanistan and one-time ally of the United States, believes that enough is enough. We dont want [more] foreign forces bombing our villages, arresting our people, destroying our homes and causing more war in Afghanistan, he tells me. Such violence, he adds, in a nod to the Taliban insurgency, naturally causes resentment and legitimizes any resistance to it.

Yet last month, while all eyes were on Jeff Sessionss confirmation as attorney general on the floor of the Senate, Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to ask for a few thousand more U.S. troops. Last week, his boss, Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, echoed Nicholsons request, telling senators that a new strategy for Afghanistan had to involve additional forces. And this week, Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and John McCain, who never met a Muslim-majority nation they did not want to bomb, invade, or occupy, used a Washington Post op-ed to call for surprise, surprise additional U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, including special operations forces and close air support.

It is imperative that we see our mission through to success, they declaimed.

What was that definition of insanity again? Lest we forget, Trumps predecessor was also asked by his generals for more troops in his first year in office: Barack Obama surged 30,000 extra soldiers into Afghanistan, against the advice of his vice president, only to see the Taliban grow stronger, not weaker. So why it is anything other than a fantasy to suggest that 20,000 or even 30,000 troops in Afghanistan under Trump as opposed to the 8,400 U.S. troops currently deployed there as part of a NATO support mission will be able to achieve the victory denied to 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan under Obama in 2010?

During his Senate testimony, Nicholson was asked by McCain whether the U.S. was winning or losing in Afghanistan. I believe we are in a stalemate, replied the general.

This is pure delusion. Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary for President George W. Bush, may have claimed that we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror, but we dont lack those metrics for the war against the Taliban. Since 2001, the hawks have cited a dizzying array of measures, from nation-building to counterterrorism to the war on drugs, all of which have resulted in mission failed rather than mission accomplished.

U.S. soldiers arrive at the site of a suicide car bombing that targeted an Afghan police district headquarters building as a gun battle continued between Taliban and Afghan security forces in Kabul on March 1, 2017.

Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images

Supporting a stable, democratic Afghan government? The U.S.-backed president and his chief executive are in the midst of a bitter power struggle; the vice president is a vicious warlord; parliamentary elections have been postponed; and corruption runs rampant Afghanistan ranks 169 out of 176 countries in Transparency Internationals latest corruption league table.

Protecting the population? Civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2016 reached their highest level since the U.N. first began recording them in 2009. Last month, on Trumps watch, U.S. airstrikes in Helmand province were reported to have caused the deaths of at least 18 civilians, mostly women and children.

Reducing drug trafficking? Afghanistan continues to supply around 90 percent of the worlds illicit opium, with production having risen by an astonishing 43 percentin 2016. Meanwhile, more than a million Afghans are now addicted to drugs.

Preventing the spread of ISIS? Last week, ISIS gunmen dressed as doctors launched a brazen attack on a military hospital in the heart of the capital, Kabul, killing more than 30 people.

Defeating the Taliban? The insurgents have been on the offensive over the past year or so and now hold more Afghan territory than in any year since 2001. As Politico reported, The Afghan government controlled 57 percent of the countrys districts in November, which is a 6 percent loss since August and a 15 percent drop compared with November 2015.

Does any of that sound like a draw to you? Nicholson and Votel might be of the view that neither side has the upper hand (hence stalemate) yet as Henry Kissinger once remarked, The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose. (Yes, I hate agreeing with Kissinger, too.)

Will Trump, obsessed as he is with winning, recognize that there is no decisive military victory to be had in the killing fields of Afghanistan? Or is the proud author of The Art of the Deal willing to strike some form of bargain with the loathsome Taliban to try and end the Afghan debacle, once and for all? A study published in January by academics Michael Semple and Theo Farrell, based on their direct conversations with former Taliban ministers and commanders, concluded that the boost to [Taliban] morale from 2016 battlefield successes has been dampened by the high cost at which they were gained and also by a weak new leader, which has opened the door to insurgent peacemaking. There is, they say, a deal to be done.

However, as Farrell has since noted, Ramping up the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan risks re-injecting a sense of purpose into the Taliban war effort. From the very beginning of the conflict, the U.S. military presence has been part of the problem, not the solution. It is a recruiting tool for a nationalist, not just Islamist, insurgency.

Karzai has shifted from enthusiastic supporter of the initial U.S. intervention in Afghanistan to outspoken critic and opponent of U.S. combat forces. Before the new U.S. president approves his own surge in Afghanistan, Karzai wants him to explain to the Afghan people why, after more than 15 years, with so much blood and treasure spent, so much loss of life, the country is not secure. Why is there more extremism? Why did [ISIS] emerge in Afghanistan while the U.S. [military] was here?

Yet I suspect the belligerent Trump, who promised to bomb the shit out of ISIS and who, since coming to office, has escalated U.S. military action in Yemen and deployed U.S. ground forces to Syria, will find it difficult to resist the siren calls of more troops, more bombs, more war.

Like Obama before him, Trump will escalate in Afghanistan. Like Obama before him, Trump will lose in Afghanistan. And the rest of us, shamefully, will continue to look the other way.

Top photo: U.S. soldiers board a military aircraft at the U.S. base in Bagram, north of Kabul, as they leave Afghanistan in 2011.

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Trump Has Called the Afghan War a Mess. His Generals Want to Escalate It. - The Intercept

Khalida Popal made her way to an asylum centre in Denmark but says: I was not the woman I used to be. I missed my team. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

Khalida Popal has paid a high price for becoming the face of the Afghanistan womens football team. Sometimes I still have nightmares, she says quietly. Those men are standing and looking at me and laughing or there is the fear that they will rape me.

It is six years since Khalida had to leave her family and her homeland, terrified for her life and personal safety, after pioneering womens football in a country that has been described as one of the most dangerous places to be female.

Khalida had been taught to play the sport as a young girl by her PE teacher mother, who instilled the belief that football and sport were not only fun but empowering and good for her. That, however, was not a view many shared in a country that had until recently been run by the Taliban. From opposition in schools to name-calling in streets, Khalida saw early on the challenges she was facing.

As her campaign for more girls to be allowed to play grew she faced objections from across the board. Some were fathers and sons, who did not think their daughters and sisters should be playing football and called those who did prostitutes and bitches for compromising the honour of their family and their culture. Other critics were more highly connected.

With the growth of her profile, the success of the team and a position in the national football association she became an increasingly visible target. Garbage was thrown at her as she walked down the street, violent threats snarled in her face as well as sinister phone calls compromising not only her own safety but those close to her.

She recalls: My problem was not the Taliban with the gun, it was also the Taliban with the tie, the suit and the boots, people with the mentality of the Taliban who were against women and their voice.

Eventually she knew she had no choice. I thought I have to leave otherwise I would be shot. I decided overnight. I didnt tell anyone I was going, just my father and my mother. It was a very tough time. I didnt know what to pack. I didnt know when I would come back or where I would end up. I just took my bag with my computer and one picture of the team. I didnt take my football kit. I took nothing else.

I didnt have time to get in touch with my team-mates, they didnt know why I suddenly disappeared

I didnt have time to get in touch with my team-mates, they didnt know why I suddenly disappeared. I didnt tell them exactly what had happened to me for a very long time, I didnt want them to feel scared, I didnt want them to give up because they always saw me as a leader, a powerful person who stood up for them.

She left Kabul and made her way to India, where she lived under the radar for months: constantly on the move and terrified of being found and sent back to Afghanistan as she had no visa. Incredibly she still managed to organise a match for the national team, reassuring them that everything was fine, despite her sudden disappearance.

Eventually she managed to make her way to an asylum centre in Norway and from there to another centre in Denmark, where after nearly a year in a camp she was finally granted residency.

While she was waiting in the camp, not knowing what her future held, the enormity of everything she had been through finally caught up with her.

I was not the woman I used to be. I said to myself so many times, I didnt risk my life to end up in an asylum centre in Denmark; it was not the goal. I felt like a bird in a cage. I was very depressed. I stopped talking to anyone, I had those dreams where someone is coming, I was dreaming that they sent me back. I missed my team those girls I could hear their voices calling my name and laughing. It was really tough for me.

The opportunity to play for a local team failed to be the breakthrough she had hoped for when she suffered a career-ending knee injury. Suddenly I was losing everything. Id lost my country, my identity, I was in an asylum centre, Id lost my family, I couldnt play. I felt like a doll hanging in the air. I could not fly in the sky and I could not come to the ground.

With the help of a psychiatrist and antidepressants she gradually came to terms with the changes in her life. She started swimming and cycling. Working with other women in the camps she encouraged them to use sport to make themselves feel better, to have a focus and to try to think of something other than the situation they were in. As a result she set up her own organisation Girl Power.

Even when I was sick in the asylum centre I saw women who had worse situations than me and I wanted to save them. I was taking them out for walks and I had a football and told them: Just kick the ball. They would be running after the ball, kicking it with bare legs and sandals.

Girl Power finds volunteer instructors in all sports to work with the refugees and to build a bridge between them and the local Danish residents. Sport is a great tool to break the ice and to help women gain self-confidence, she explains.

My message for rewriting the code is women are not for being at home or washing dishes they can play football

Khalidas new life has helped her spot talent from refugee camps for the Afghanistan football team that she still helps run. She has also recruited American coaches who have played at the top level of womens football and until recently they trained in the US. We cannot continue in America because the president is against Muslims and refugees, she says, unfazed. If those people inside my country, those haters, couldnt stop me, Donald Trump or [even] a hundred Trumps will never stop me, she says with a defiant smile. So she is already organising a training session in Asia for later in the year.

Last year she worked with Hummel, the Danish sportswear manufacturer that supports the Afghan teams, to design the first hijab that could be worn to play football. It was to change the mindset, sport is not against any religion or culture. It is a way to tell families that we respect your beliefs, it was to give an opportunity to girls who want to wear a hijab and play football.

Last week, to mark International Womens Day, her work was acknowledged by Theirworld, the global education charity founded by Sarah Brown, as part of their campaign #RewritingTheCode. Khalida, now 29, was given the 2017 Challenge Award. The aim of the campaign is to challenge all the embedded prejudices that prevent women and girls from achieving equality.

My message for rewriting the code is women are not for being at home or washing dishes, she smiles. They can play football. It should be a choice.

There really is no stopping her. Her eyes glow as she talks about how she felt wearing her national shirt, touching the badge and hearing the anthem knowing the struggle she and her team faced to get there. I am happy that I am still involved in womens football and happy that I can still do something for my country miles away. I played as a defender. That is my thing, my personality to defend women, to defend my team, to defend my gender.

Meanwhile, she is about to start a degree course in sports management and has set her sights on a job with the UN or Fifa. She has already told the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, how she believes equality could be brought to the international arena.

I think pay should be equal for male and female players. That is what I told the president. I looked into his eyes and said: Whenever you take a decision think about the father who has a son and a daughter when he is out shopping for his kids. He always wants to buy the same-value thing for both of them because he knows otherwise there will be a fight at home. Think like a father. He was laughing and said: Yes, I will do that.

Having been supported by her own parents at every stage of her incredible journey Khalidas love and respect for her mother and father, who have now joined her in Denmark, is immense. I dont know ifI will ever have children but if I have a daughter I will let her decide what she wants to be. I will buy the toys she wants. I will not tell her you are a girl this toy belongs to you, this one doesnt. I will give her a football and a doll and let her decide.

I am a woman, I have to be proud of being a woman. This is my identity. In order to make people respect you, you have to understand and respect who you are and what you are.

The unstoppable force of Khalida Popal.

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Khalida Popal, Afghanistan football pioneer: 'If the haters couldn't stop me, Trump can't' - The Guardian

ISLAMABAD

A meeting Britain is hosting Wednesday is expected to resolve the tense border dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials told VOA hours before the talks.

Pakistan closed its border with landlocked Afghanistan to all traffic nearly a month ago, after a string of terrorist attacks killed scores of people. Authorities in Pakistan blame the violence on fugitive militants Islamabad says are sheltering in Afghan territory.

The border closure fueled bilateral tensions, prompting Britain to intervene and facilitate Wednesdays meeting.

We expect as a results of the talks in London and the recent contacts that we have had within the government and with the government of Afghanistan we expect this issue [border talks] to be resolved in the coming week, Pakistani Trade Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan told VOA in Islamabad.

He said that efforts are under way to open the Afghan border with heightened security procedures so that trading resumes as soon as possible.

That should be an immediate result of it for sure, a senior Afghan official told VOA when asked if Kabul expected London talks to lead to opening the border. The official requested anonymity because he is directly involved in diplomatic engagements that paved the ground for Wednesdays meeting.

Drivers of Afghanistan-bound trucks wait for the opening of Pakistan Afghanistan border outside Peshawar, Pakistan, March 14, 2017.

Both Minister Khan and the Afghan official spoke hours before British National Security Adviser Mark Lyall Grant was to mediate talks between Afghan National Security Adviser Hanif Atmar and Pakistani foreign policy chief Sartaj Aziz.

Khan underscored the need for Pakistan and Afghanistan to separate political and security issues from trade-related activities.

He added that Pakistan sent a proposed draft on preferential trade agreement to Kabul several years ago but it has since been awaiting approval by the Afghan National Security Council, making it difficult for his government to meet traders demands for separating economics from security issues.

The government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif agrees completely, provided the same understanding is on the other side and whatever hurdles that were present before the recent border closure were because the government of Afghanistan insisted to take both tracks together, said the minister.

He acknowledged that the decision to close the border has inflicted heavy financial losses on traders in both countries but said he was not in a position to immediately provide estimates.

They [traders] say it is somewhere around $40-50 million; some people say it is up to $100 million because there is a very large number of traders who deal in perishables. Those numbers take a while to come to us, he said.

Last week, Islamabad opened the border for only two days to allow tens of thousands of stranded Afghans to return to their country.

Pakistani soldiers check the identity of citizens returning from Afghanistan at the border town of Chaman, Pakistan, March 7, 2017.

Afghanistan depends on Pakistani seaports for international trade, which is considered the war-torn countrys economic lifeline. The border closure has stranded thousands of shipping containers after having left Pakistans southern port of Karachi on the Arabian Sea.

The rest is here:
Pakistani, Afghan Officials Expect London Talks to Resolve Border Dispute - Voice of America

In order to further identify the specific education needs and priorities of undocumented returnee children, the NRC Afghanistan education team in the East and South with support from the Education Unit in the capital office, Kabul, conducted a rapid needs assessment in high return areas and IDP settlements of Nangarhar, Laghman, Kunar and Kandahar Provinces. Using a mix of structured questionnaires, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and field observations, the team collected quantitative and qualitative data to better inform the design of EiE interventions in Eastern and Southern Afghanistan.

Eastern Region:

1. Focus Group Discussions (FGDs): A total number of 25 FGDs in high returned areas and IDP settlements of Nangarhar, Laghman and Kunar provinces have been conducted by the professional education staff each FGD was participated by at least 8 persons including community members, youths, head of shuras (CDCs), maliks, mullah imams, head masters and principals.

The key findings from FGDs in Nangarhar province are that 3,800 returnees and 2,508 IDP families are located in the areas the assessment has been conducted in including Jalalabad City, Behsud, Kama, Kuz Kunar, Surkhrood and Rodat districts from these returnee and IDP families, 8,289 children (4308 boys & 3981 girls) of different age categories attend schools while 18,309 children (8714 boys & 9591 girls) of different education categories are deprived of education opportunities to lack of access to formal schools because of long distance and overcrowded classes, poor economic conditions, early marriages (specially for girls), lack of proper documentation and fear of violence.

The key findings from FGDs in Laghman province are that 370 returnees and 920 IDP families are located in the areas the assessment has been conducted in including Mihterlam City and Qarghayi districts from these returnee and IDP families, 455 children (328 boys & 127 girls) of different age categories attend schools while 3,075 children (1,470 boys & 1,606 girls) of different education categories are deprived of education opportunities to lack of access to formal schools because of long distance and overcrowded classes, poor economic conditions, early marriages (specially for girls), lack of proper documentation and fear of violence.

The key findings from FGDs in Kunar province are that 80 returnees and 160 IDP families are located in the areas the assessment has been conducted in including Asadabad, Khas Kunar and Sawki district from these returnee and IDP families, 300 children (135 boys & 165 girls) of different age categories attend schools while 422 boys and girls of different education categories are deprived of education opportunities to lack of access to formal schools because of long distance and overcrowded classes, lack of gendered facilities, poor economic conditions, early marriages (specially for girls), lack of proper documentation and fear of violence.

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Afghanistan: Initial Rapid Assessment Report: Education in Emergencies for Undocumented Returnees (8 March 2017) - ReliefWeb

By John McCain and Lindsey Graham By John McCain and Lindsey Graham March 13

John McCain (R-Ariz.) is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is a member of the committee.

On Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists murdered 3,000 innocent civilians on American soil while under the sanctuary of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. In response to that attack, U.S. and NATO forces deployed to Afghanistan to hunt down those responsible and ensure that Afghanistan would never again be a haven for terrorists. Since then, more than 2,000 Americans and more than 1,000 troops from our NATO allies have given their lives to that mission.

But after more than a decade-and-a-half of war, Gen. John W. Nicholson, commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that the war in Afghanistan is in a stalemate. President Trump and his administration must treat Afghanistan with the same urgency as the fight against the Islamic State, or this stalemate risks sliding into strategic failure.

This month, two simultaneous suicide attacks by the Taliban in Kabul killed at least 16 people and wounded more than 40. In northern Afghanistan, the Taliban overran another district. These setbacks came on the heels of disturbing losses across the country. Nicholson recently confirmed an inspector general report that the Afghan government controls or influences just 57 percent of the countrys districts, down from 72percent just over a year ago.

Make no mistake: Afghans are fighting ferociously to defend their country from our common enemies. At the same time, we must recognize that the United States is still at war in Afghanistan against the terrorist enemies who attacked our nation on Sept. 11 and their ideological heirs. We must act accordingly.

Unfortunately, in recent years, we have tied the hands of our military in Afghanistan. Instead of trying to win, we have settled for just trying not to lose.

Time and time again, we saw troop withdrawals that seemed to have more to do with U.S. politics than conditions on the ground. The fixation with force management levels in Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq and Syria, seemed more about measuring troop counts than measuring success.

Authorities were also tightly restricted. Until last summer, our military was prohibited from targeting the Taliban, except in the most extreme circumstances, taking the pressure off the militants and allowing them to rebuild and reattack. Indeed, while we were fighting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, authorities in Afghanistan were so restrictive that it took an entire year before U.S. forces were finally given authority to strike the groups fighters in Afghanistan.

While we have settled for a dont lose strategy, the risk to U.S. and Afghan forces has only grown worse as the terrorist threat has intensified.

The Taliban has grown more lethal, expanded its territorial control and inflicted heavy casualties on Afghan forces. And it is reportedly doing so with help from Iran and Russia, who want nothing more than to see the United States fail in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network continue to threaten our interests in Afghanistan and beyond.

The Islamic State is trying to carve out another haven from which it can plan and execute attacks.

Moreover, U.S. efforts to confront these terrorist threats are continually frustrated by terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan used to attack across its border and kill U.S. forces. Deteriorating relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan only make this problem more difficult.

Trump has an important opportunity to turn the page, seize the initiative and take the fight to our terrorist enemies. To do this, the United States must align ends, ways and means in Afghanistan.

The U.S. objective in Afghanistan is the same now as it was in 2001: to prevent terrorists from using the countrys territory to attack our homeland.

We seek to achieve this objective by supporting Afghan governance and security institutions as they become capable of standing on their own, defending their country and defeating our common terrorist enemies with less U.S. assistance over time.

Doing this successfully requires the right number of people in the right places with the right authorities and the right capabilities. Our assessment, based on our conversations with commanders on the ground, is that a strategy for success will require additional U.S. and coalition forces and more flexible authorities. It will also require sustained support of the Afghan security forces as they develop key capabilities, especially offensive capabilities such as special operations forces and close air support needed to break the stalemate.

The United States has been at war in Afghanistan for nearly 16 years. Weary as some Americans may be of this long conflict, it is imperative that we see our mission through to success. We have seen what happens when we fail to be vigilant. The threats we face are real. And the stakes are high not just for the lives of the Afghan people and the stability of the region, but for Americas national security.

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John McCain and Lindsey Graham: Why we need more forces to end the stalemate in Afghanistan - Washington Post