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Monday, July 27

What is NATO doing in Afghanistan? Picking its nose?

When it's not bombing Afghan Army posts by mistake?  When I went looking for news on the joke called Operation Resolute Support I came across the following report at the Army Times. But first here's a photograph.

  An Afghanistan National Army soldier stands guard in a trench in district of Baraki Barak in Logar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan, July 20, 2015 (VOA).

Army engineers build roads, reassure European allies
By Michelle Tan, Staff writer
July 26, 2015
Army engineers are spread across Eastern Europe this summer building roads and constructing training facilities as part of the United States' efforts to assure its allies in the face of Russian aggression.
Why can't the East Europeans build their own roads?  Because the road-building effort is a cash cow for contractors the U.S. senators who've led the charge against Russia favor. And that's what the provocations against Russia have been all about. Cash on the barrelhead.  

As for Operation Resolute Support in Afghanistan:  
NATO to have no military role in Afghanistan after 2016Brooks Tigner, Brussels
IHS Jane's Defence Weekly
05 July 2015
NATO's next foray in Afghanistan after its Resolute Support military train-and-advise mission ends in December 2016 will be a civilian-led effort.
It will have neither a military dimension nor any responsibility to counter the country's resurgent poppy production, according to a senior NATO official who said that must fall to other parts of the international community. Afghanistan's opium trade fuels arms to the Taliban.
"We are trying to avoid anything militaristic [within the next mission]," Nick Williams, head of NATO's Afghanistan team, said during a security policy debate in Brussels on 2 July.
"We are already thinking ahead to 2017 - beyond Resolute Support," he said, adding that during a 24-25 June meeting in Brussels of allied defence ministers the latter supported the idea of "a civil-led approach to continue the capability-building effort in Kabul".
What is NATO doing at this time to counter the poppy production?   What is it doing in Afghanistan, period?  Certainly not building roads for the ANA.

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