Australian Prime Minister John Faulkner stated that his government was about to make a decision about the withdrawal of Australian military men from Afghanistan. This initiative shows that the international military contingent, which the United States attracted for its Enduring Freedom Operation, is about to end its existence. It seems that there is no unity in the coalition.

Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay said in August 2009 that Ottawa was not going to leave its contingent in Afghanistan after 2011, even if other NATO allies asked the nation to do so. The Canadian authorities, the minister said, were concerned about the losses of its servicemen in the war-torn nation. Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi said in September of this year that he would like his men to return back home from Afghanistan. The majority of Italians strictly condemn their nation's military presence in Afghanistan.    

Why should the international community be spending two hundred and fifty billion dollars of its taxpayers' hard-earned money to perform state-building in Afghanistan when this country now produces 40 times more heroin than ten years ago and when corruption accounts for 2.5 billion dollars a year for NATO-trained officials to get rich?  A recent UN report, "Corruption in Afghanistan: Bribery as Reported by Victims" issued by the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) reveals that for the vast majority of the citizens of Afghanistan, the worst problem is corruption and not insecurity, despite the fact that this is becoming worse by the day. The report was based upon a survey involving 7,600 people in 12 provincial capitals and 1,600 villages.

In the last year, Afghanistan's citizens paid 2.5 billion dollars in bribes to the authorities to secure basic services which were supposed to be a right. Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of UNODC, states in the report "The Afghans say that it is impossible to obtain a public service without paying a bribe". It revealed that 50% of Afghans had to pay some sort of bribe in the period in question.     

Five foreign troops including three Americans were killed during an ambush by insurgents in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement. The NATO-led force said a patrol was hit by a roadside bomb, after which insurgents opened fire.

"The patrol responded to the attack but three service members died in the engagement," the statement said. U.S. military spokeswoman Lieutenant Commander Christine Sidenstricker said three of those killed were Americans, but did not have information on the nationalities of the other two service personnel.   

Up to 90 people died in north Afghanistan when two fuel tankers exploded after they were hit by a NATO airstrike, the governor of the Kunduz province said on Friday. Regional reports indicate that as many as 40 of the dead may have been civilians. "The incident occurred on Thursday evening," Mohammad Omar told the Tolo TV station. "Taliban militants attacked a NATO supply convoy and hijacked two fuel tankers."  

The latest UN report spells an alarming tale of ineptitude both by the Afghan government and by the international community, which has seen the situation in Afghanistan deteriorate to the point that it faces a serious threat of catastrophic irreversibility. After thousands of civilian deaths, nearly 1,000 military fatalities, eight years and $ 250 bn. the country is teetering on the edge of a chasm.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) report, released on Monday minces no words, calling the situation "critical", describing the Presidential election as "flawed", referring to the "adverse effects of increased Taliban...attacks", "insufficient resources", "lack of coordination", "lack of political readiness" which if not addressed and redressed, will lead not only to diminishing prospects of success but worse, "the deteriorating overall situation will become irreversible".    

As the London Conference on Afghanistan gets under way, it is imperative that the international community gets it right after nearly ten years of mistakes which have cost thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars and have done nothing whatsoever to improve the daily lives of the majority of the Afghan population.

Having sided with the war lords against the Pashtun-based Taliban, the international community took a short-term option which has turned into a nightmare, turning the historic ethnic mix of the country upside-down. The appearance of foreign troops has only exacerbated the Afghan population who do not see them as freedom fighters but invaders and vast quantities of the rivers of taxpayers' money being spent in Afghanistan are squandered.    

The escalation of combat action in the north-west of Pakistan, where governmental troops conduct a large-scale operation against Taliban guerrillas, has led to numerous terrorist acts committed across the nation. The largest terrorist act took place in the city of Lahore, in the north-west of Pakistan. A car bomb killed at least 23 and injured 200 people. The car blew up near the police headquarters of the city.

Pakistan's Interior Affairs Minister Rahman Malik said that the terrorist act had been conducted by Taliban fighters. Pravda.Ru has already reported that the combat action in the Swat Valley in the north-west of Pakistan made millions of civilians flee their homes, which became a humanitarian catastrophe for Pakistan. The UN urged the international community to collect $543 million of humanitarian aid to help those who suffered from the military actions in Pakistan.   

At the end of April, the American establishment was anxiously watching the redeployments of the Taliban movement, the fighters of which are now within about 100 kilometers from Islamabad. If the Pakistani army does not stop the Talibs, they will be able to seize the nuclear arsenal of the country in about two weeks. General David Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, reported at the closed meeting with US congressmen and senators that it would be clear in the next weeks whether the Taliban could overthrow the Pakistani government. According to GZT.ru, which quotes FoxNews and The Daily Telegraph, the General said that despite the excuses from the Pakistani authorities he hoped that they would strike a shattering blow on the Taliban's positions.   

US General Stanley McChrystal is now the commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan instead of General David McKiernan. None of high-ranking officials of the Pentagon could explain the reason why the previous commander was dismissed and why Mr. McChrystal could handle the Taliban better than Mr. McKiernan could. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates only said that the United States was in need of a new military command and a new thinking because of a new strategy for the war-torn country.

Anyone who takes interest in history will probably see the likeness between the recent rotation and the one that took place during the US military presence in Vietnam, when General William Westmoreland was replaced with General Creighton Abrams. Westmoreland stood up for a more active participation of the US military contingent in the destruction of bases and guerrillas of Vietcong. Unlike Westmoreland, Abrams wanted to get Vietnam directly involved in the war.