http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ivan-eland/a-war-isnt-over-till-its-_b_4673820.html

Ivan Eland

Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty, The Independent Institute

A War Isn't Over Till It's Over

Posted: 01/31/2014

Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, has refused to sign a security deal with the United States that could keep about 8,000 to 12,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan after "combat operations" end at the end of 2014. These forces would train still-pathetic Afghan security forces in the field (after 13 years of U.S. training), conduct counterterrorism raids, and guard military bases in eastern Afghanistan from which drone attacks against militants in Pakistan and monitoring of Pakistani nuclear weapons arsenal are conducted. Curiously, all of these residual missions resemble "combat."