Another, Not the Last, Tale of 'Progress' In Afghanistan

On Tuesday, a suicide bomb attack in Kabul killed at least 17 people and injured more than 40 others outside the Supreme Court. The previous day, seven insurgents, including suicide bombers, laid siege to the city's main airport for four hours.

Against this background of overtly deteriorating security at the heart of the Afghanistan administration General Joseph Dunford, NATO Commander in Afghanistan, clearly felt obliged to make his statement of this morning. Even by NATO standards it was a dire performance. He said 'Eventually this war has to be resolved by political means'. Thanks for that one, General.

But the sting was in the tail of the end of his press conference where he said that the 'progress' of that last 12 years (yes, twelve years) was 'not entirely sustainable'. Those familiar with NATO/ISAF spin over the years will have noticed that this is NATO-speak for 'Mission Failed'. The rest of the statement was a farrago of the usual NATO vocabulary - 'progress' 'smooth transition' 'political space to accommodate the Afghan people' 'gains...'

All I could perceive across Dunford's depiction of his surreal landscape was the sound of drones and the smell of abject failure.