To all our readers,

I must start off by apologizing for my long absence from the blog. Being a grad student, I was sidetracked with a large number of other papers and neglected my duties to this site.

Since then I have traveled to Afghanistan where I will be living for the next five weeks. Tomorrow I start the Counterinsurgency Leadership Course after which I will be traveling outside of Kabul observing information operations. Over the course of this time I hope to be able to provide you with a series of observations from the field.

My first such observation has to do with the complete lack of emphasis that Western media has put on exactly how international the force here really is. Today alone I have interacted with a dozen Australians, 5-6 French troops, some Italian army and police, and even an Irishman, not to mention the countless numbers of Nepalese and Mongolians who provide perimeter security for the majority of ISAF bases here.

This failure or reporting I believe stems from the emphasis that the Bush administration but on the fact that the invasion of Iraq was an international effort comprising troops from over forty members of the coalition of the willing. The number of international troops involved in that conflict were indeed laughable when compared to the 150,000 U.S. troops present in Iraq. While in Afghanistan, U.S. troops do account for more than fifty present of the force here, the level of international commitment to the Afghan conflict is clear to anyone who spends more than 15 minutes on any base here.