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Army Gen. John Nicholson testifies in the Senate on Feb. 9, 2017.(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)

The war in Afghanistan is not going well. At best, it's a stalemate. At worst, it's a war seemingly without end the longest in U.S.history that is now shifting slowly in favor of the enemy, the Taliban and other Islamic extremists.

Afghan security forces are fighting harder than ever, but an average of20 police or soldiers are beingkilled each day. The government in Kabul is barely able to gather enough new recruits to make up for the mounting dead and wounded. Last month, amother in Kabul lost three sons, all police officers, to a single attack.Territory is slipping from the government's grasp, withjust 57% of districts nationwide controlled by Kabul, down 15% from November2015.

Americans have sacrificed a lot since the war began in 2001in retaliation forthe 9/11 terror attacks plotted byal-Qaeda leaders, who had safe harborin Taliban-controlledAfghanistan. Beyond the 2,247 U.S. military deaths and 20,000 wounded, the U.S. has spent more in inflation-adjusted dollars to reconstruct Afghanistan than it did to rebuild Europe after World War II, and the nation remainsfar from self-sustaining.

The mainupsideis that the U.S. has successfully preventedAfghanistan from being used as a base for another 9/11-styleattack on American soil. "We believe ... that our operations in Afghanistan directly protect the homeland," Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the U.S.-led international military force in Afghanistan, told senators this month.Other accomplishments include shrinking territory held by the Islamic State's Afghan affiliate down to a few districts and, in October, killing an al-Qaeda leader who was planning an attack on the United States.

Nicholson concedes the war is a stalemate.He'd like to add perhaps 1,400 U.S. troops to the 8,400 already in Afghanistan,with maybe2,000 morecontributed from NATO and other coalition allies who already have 5,000 on the ground. Theadditional manpower would improve battlefield surveillance and move trained advisers further down into Afghan forces to bolsterleadership.

Enough already for Afghanistan: Opposing view

Nicholson's request for more U.S. troops appearsreasonable, but troop levels have to reflect abroader strategy.America needs to know President Trump'sposition on Afghanistan.More than amonth into his administration, there's silence on the issue. Trump has offered conflicting views in the past, arguing against nation-buildingbut telling Fox News last year, albeit rather reluctantly, that he'd stay in Afghanistan. Trump has ordered his generals to come up with a plan to defeat radical Islamic terrorism.

President Obama was moving toward a complete withdrawal, which might have successfully pressured Kabul into assumingmore responsibilities.But by announcing troops levels well into the future,divorced from the situation onthe ground, he also left the Taliban and other terrorist groups to bidetheir time until the U.S. was gone.

The White House needs toconduct a major policy review of Afghanistan, reach a fundamental decision and then make its case tothe American people. The U.S. troops serving valiantly in Afghanistan deserve clarity of purpose.

The choice is whether the U.S. is staying in Afghanistan with an active counterterrorism role and assisting the government's fight against its enemies orwhether it is leaving. Only when the Taliban realizes that the U.S. commitment is unwavering, and that itcannot retake Kabul, will this longest war come to a resolution.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by itsEditorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view a unique USA TODAY feature.

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In Afghanistan, what's the plan?: Our view - USA TODAY

U.S. Border Patrol agents patrol the area on June 4, 2013, in Niagara Falls, New York.

John Moore/Getty Images

Sardar Ahmad was born in Afghanistan but got a ticket out of the war-torn country when he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship through the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Ahmad, now a 43-year-old doctor, moved to the U.S. for his Fulbright before relocating to Canada a decade ago where he finished his residency last year. Recently, Ahmad, who now works in Sarnia, a small Ontario town along the border between Canada and Michigan, got an email that, without warning, announced that his Nexus card had been revoked.

Ahmad was presumably not considered a security risk when he was granted a Nexus card, a Homeland Security program that allows low-risk, pre-screened travelers expedited processing when entering the United States and Canada. Ahmad decided to visit the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office during his lunch break from seeing patients to see what the problem was. So Sardar drove to the nearby border crossing at the Blue Water Bridge on Friday where U.S. officials promptly detained the doctor and Canadian citizen for five hours.

Heres more on what happened from the Observer:

It was frustrating for me because I was worried, I was scared, I didn't know what was going to happen next, Ahmad said Monday. You never know. They could put you in jail. You could lose your careereverythingall overnight.

Excerpt from:
Canadian doctor from Afghanistan detained for hours at U.S. border. - Slate Magazine (blog)

Stories have emerged once again of China's military presence in Afghanistan. These reports come after China thwarted India's attempt to get Jaish-e-Mohammed leader Masood Azhar added to the U.N. list of proscribed terrorist individuals, and China appeared to christen a new regional grouping after a meeting in Moscow with Pakistan and Russian officials to discuss the future of Afghanistan.

Seen from New Delhi, the picture could be interpreted as one of growing Chinese alignment towards Pakistan. In reality, these shifts mark the growth of China as a regional security actor whose views are not entirely dissimilar to India's.

The main characterization of Beijing's efforts in Afghanistan remains hedging. China continues to engage through multiple regional and international formats. Either through international multilateral vehicles like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), the 'Heart of Asia' or 'Istanbul Process', the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA); or through sub-regional groupings like hosting Pakistan-Afghanistan-China trilateral, bilateral engagements with India, Russia, the UK, Germany, the U.S. or Pakistan focused on Afghanistan (some including specific projects - like the American joint training programmes); or finally through Chinese instigated mechanisms focused on Afghanistan like the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG made up of Afghanistan, Pakistan, U.S. and China) or the Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism (QCCM, made up of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and China).

Of this wide range of engagements, the final one is the most significant to note recently as it can be interpreted as a rejection of the SCO, a regional organization which was constructed to deal with regional security concerns around Afghanistan, but appears to have not delivered enough.

As a result in the wake of Military Chief of Staff Fang Fenghui's visit to Kabul in March 2016, Beijing established a new regional sub-grouping to focus attention on Afghanistan's security problems. It has met once at a senior level, and at least once at a more junior level since its establishment -- reflecting a fairly high intensity engagement that until now has been held publicly in China.

This new regional sub-grouping is a reflection of a number of things. On the one hand, it is about China's military becoming more engaged in a country that until now they have largely played a secondary role to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs lead. It is also a reflection of a growing concern in Beijing about the shift of Uighur militants to Badakhshan in northern Afghanistan from their previous Pakistani hideaways. This in turn helps explain China's presence on the ground in Afghanistan as well as their desire to bolster Tajikistan's capacity to defend its own border with Afghanistan.

The other side to China's regional engagement is its economic investment -- something that comes under the auspices of the Silk Road Economic Belt (through Central Asia and across Eurasia ultimately to Europe) and down the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Afghanistan has always sat awkwardly in between, but recently there has been a particular effort by Beijing to tie Afghanistan into the vision.

In Nov. 2016, Assistant Foreign Minister Kong Xuanyou visited Kabul warmly welcoming Afghanistan into the vision and specifically suggested that Afghanistan consider train lines between Quetta and Kabul, and Peshawar and Kabul. It is not clear how these will happen, though soon afterwards the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) won a $205m contract, issued by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to build a 178 km road connecting northern Mazar-i-Sharif city to Yakawlang.

For Beijing, a stable and secure Afghanistan is both key to domestic security as well as its growing investments in Pakistan. And it is not always clear that Beijing finds operating in Pakistan easy. There have been stories of lawsuits, a local population who feel they are not being included in the process as well as human casualties as CPEC tries to bring development to Pakistan's more isolated regions. China is discovering building CPEC is not a smooth ride.

But Beijing still prizes its relationship with Pakistan, aware that an unstable and paranoid Islamabad is worse than what they have at the moment. Consequently, Beijing will continue to support Pakistan vociferously and publicly - including in defending it from being publicly named and shamed as a 'state sponsor' of terrorism in the U.N.

Among the most persuasive reasons for China's refusal to support the listing of Masood Azhar was the view that Beijing saw him as merely another in a long list of individuals that India sought listing. Given the lack of much impact around the listing of Lashkar-e-Taiba leader Hafiz Saeed, listing Azhar seemed a pointless enterprise for Beijing that would do little except make Islamabad feel cornered.

The lesson here is an important one for India to note. Beijing is not doing this as part of an anti-Indian alignment. It is rather out of national interest which seen from Beijing is about managing Pakistan and stabilizing it. This is a reflection of what China is already trying at home where the maxim that prosperity equals stability is a central driving concept, and is the ideological cornerstone of CPEC.

China is acting as a growing regional power with security interests it wants to deal with itself rather than abrogating such responsibility to others. It has tried repeated multilateral formats, peace talks, and now it is recognizing the need for greater security engagement.

New Delhi should seize this moment to enhance its engagement with Beijing on Afghanistan, using its long history of experience and contacts to find a way to help Afghanistan stabilize alongside China. Both countries are already major economic players in Afghanistan, and India has already contributed substantially in military terms.

Raffaello Pantucci is Director, International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London. He is currently working on a number of projects looking at Chinese influence and interests in South and Central Asia.

The Nov. 8 declaration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demonetise the economy was a bolt from the blue widely hailed by many Indian citizens. The BJP was quick to jump on the bandwagon and call it a masterstroke that would redeem the partys election promise in 2014 to end black money in the country.

The Nifty rode on positive global cues to gain over 2 percent during the week to close at 8,262 despite the RBI disappointing investors by holding rates steady and a rather mixed message from the ECB.

Markets turned indecisive during the week with the Nifty witnessing sharp gains in the first three sessions to cross 8,200 but then falling to close at 8,087 on Friday. The rise in crude oil prices after OPECs decision to cut production also dampened sentiments.

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Commentary: China's expanding security role in Afghanistan - Reuters

It was night-time and it was raining. Thats when the shooting started.

Nine-year-old Wali Khan Norzai remembers holding his fathers hand in the mountainous, borderland darkness. Ahead lay Turkey, behind them Iran, further back their abandoned home in Afghanistan. Now suddenly, all around them, bullets.

The group of 100 people scattered. When the dust settled and Wali Khan and his father, Said Ghullam Norzai, emerged from hiding, there was no sign of Wali Khans mother or his six siblings.

In the year since, father and son have heard nothing from them. Norzai says if he had known that the journey would have meant losing seven members of his family, he would have stayed in Afghanistan and risked life under the Taliban.

From Turkey, Norzai and Wali Khans journey to Britain was the sort of tragic odyssey that has become familiar over the past few years: a hazardous crossing of the Mediterranean, a long walk through European countries they had never heard of, and months in Calais risking their lives to get on the back of a lorry.

But if the mass movement of people to Europe was the tale of 2015-16, the story of 2017 is what happens to those people now. What does the future hold for the tens of thousands of families like the Norzais?

It is these questions that the Guardian will explore as we embark on an ambitious project to learn about Europes new arrivals and the communities in which they are making their homes. Teaming up with Der Spiegel, Le Monde and El Pas, we will follow refugees and asylum seekers in four European countries a large Syrian family in Germany, a Sudanese family en route to France and a group of Africans who have joined a football team in Spain. In Britain we will be telling the story of Said and Wali Khan, and others like them, who are desperately hoping to make the country their permanent home. We will assess whether Europe is keeping its promises to refugees, how they are changing European society and how it is changing them.

For Norzai, a melon farmer driven from Kunduz province by a resurgent Taliban, his new life is a lonely one. As an asylum seeker , he is not allowed to work and has few connections in Derby where he and his son have been sent to live by the Home Office. The 40-year-old speaks almost no English and progress at the free English classes he attends is slow. He is tormented by thoughts of his missing wife and children.

After he drops Wali Khan at school, he sits alone in his flat in the quiet for as long as he can bear. There is little else to do. He has no radio, computer or smartphone; the television in the bedroom that father and son share is broken. When he can take the silence of the flat no longer, he goes out and strolls the streets of Derby by himself, counting the minutes until the school day is over and he can pick up his son.

In contrast, Wali Khans English after just a few months in a British school, is already good and the nine-year-old functions as interpreter for his father, calling doctors, officials, even G4S, who manage the property they live in, to report maintenance issues. He loves school, he says, and has eight friends there. They play tag and sometimes football and cricket. He would like to be a doctor.

Whether he will have a chance to study here is uncertain; the Norzais life in Britain is extremely precarious. A few days before publication, Norzai learned that his asylum case had been rejected on the grounds that Afghanistan is considered safe.

As he is illiterate, he did not open the letter sent to him, and has now missed his 14-day window to appeal. He is discussing his case with an immigration solicitor and hopes to file a late appeal. About half of all appeals from Afghan asylum seekers are granted.

At the end of 2016, 38,517 people such as Said and Wali Khan Norzai applied for asylum in Britain. To tell the story of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK, the Guardian has travelled across the country, from Coventry to Cardiff, Liverpool to Leicester. From church halls in Sheffield and community halls in St Helens, to the flats of asylum seekers in Nottingham and Peterborough, we have been meeting those who are seeking sanctuary and the communities, charities, lawyers, case workers and faith groups trying to help them.

In some ways, Said and Wali Khan Norzais story is fairly typical. In 2016, Afghanistan was the fourth most common country of origin for asylum seekers to the UK, accounting for 8% of asylum claims. Roughly 70% of asylum seekers in the country are male often because families can only afford to send one person and for a variety of reasons choose a young man and, as was the case with Norzai and his son, it is rare for asylum-seeking families to arrive in the UK intact.

At a drop-in centre in Liverpool visited by the Guardian, Ahmed*, an Iraqi Kurd in his early 40s, recounted how he was forced to leave his home after Shia-Sunni tensions escalated in his region. One night, less than two months before he was sitting sharing his story in a cold church hall in Merseyside over a plate of vegetable curry, the familys home was set alight while they slept. Ahmed got his two sons a six-month-old baby and three-year-old out of the house. His sister was killed inside and his wife died in his arms in the street.

He fled Iraq, taking with him his three-year-old son. He had to leave his younger boy in the care of his mother because he felt he could not make the journey with a baby. He hopes his younger son will be able to join him once he has refugee status, but for now he is stuck in limbo, with his older boy and his grief for company.

Ahmed was just one of many who visited the drop-in centre that day. Others included two young Sudanese men who have been in the UK for three weeks, having come from Calais on lorries. There were two Palestinian men one of whom was a prominent figure on Arab television who met in Britain after fleeing the Palestinian territories and became friends, one slightly starstruck by his famous companion.

You talk to people with the most incredible stories, said Peter Carpenter, who was at the Liverpool drop-in centre as a representative of the charity Refugee Action. And you ask: what would it take for me to do this? To put everything I own on my back?

Later an older Sikh couple from Afghanistan came in. They left the country after attacks on Sikhs escalated and the mans beard was cut and his throat slit. They did not want to stay at the centre for lunch but did want a pair of socks. The woman pulled up the hem of her dress to show she was wearing slip-on shoes with no socks and she was very cold. The clothing bank, stocked with donations, was out of socks and the woman was told to come back next week. She left, but returned a few minutes later to make sure they understood how serious the situation was. If anyone came with socks, she said, could they please save them for her.

For many, there is enormous gratitude to be in Britain and to be safe; for others there is frustration that their claims are taking so long to be heard and boredom while they wait. Many do not understand why they cannot work while they wait for their claim to be processed, and some complain of difficult, sometimes intolerable conditions in the accommodation provided for them by the Home Office.

There are serious issues faced by asylum seekers in the UK and over the course of this series the Guardian will explore these, comparing the issues in Britain, Germany, France and Spain, asking how the different governments and communities have responded to the new arrivals.

We will follow the story of some of Britains asylum seekers, beginning with Said and Wali Khan Norzai. We do not know how their case will progress.

I want to carry on with my life here so my child can continue with his education, to become something, said Norzai.

When my son is coming home at night he is asking me: Dad, where are my mum, brother and sisters? Now I am here I thought they would give me a passport. Im now waiting for a document to go to Turkey and look for them. If I cant find them Ill go to Iran. Apart from this, what can I do?

Im asking the British government to give me a document to go and search for my family. It is one year now that my children are lost. I dont know whether they are in Iran or Turkey, whether they are alive or dead.

*Name has been changed

This project is funded by the European Journalism Centre via a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Share your experiences

If you arrived in the the UK as a refugee or work with refugees, wed like to hear from you. Wed like to find out about initiatives that are working well and also the the challenges of integrating into local communities.

Share your stories and experiences, anonymously if you prefer, in the encrypted form below. We will do our best to ensure your responses are kept secure and confidential. A selection of contributions will be featured in our reporting.

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They left Afghanistan a family of nine. They arrived in the UK a family of two - The Guardian

Common Dreams

In Afghanistan, America's Biggest Foe Is Self-Deception Common Dreams That statistic came up in recent Senate testimony by the U.S. commanding general in Afghanistan, John "Mick" Nicholson Jr., who is (to give no-end-in-sight further context) the 12th U.S. commander since the war began. Appearing before the Senate Armed ... Afghanistan As America's 'Bleeding Wound'Huffington Post Why Russia Is Returning to AfghanistanWorld Politics Review UK Tells Gay Asylum Seekers From Afghanistan To Pretend To Be Straight If They Are DeportedTowleroad all 6 news articles »

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In Afghanistan, America's Biggest Foe Is Self-Deception - Common Dreams