To all those who followed my series of roundups and stories pertaining to Afghanistan and Pakistan, no matter your feelings on the subject, I would like to thank you for finding such news to be worth keeping ontop of. Much has happened over there since I pulled another Houdini; Richard Holbrooke sadly passed away, Salmam Taseer was assassinated, Pakistan continued to talk about going into North Waziristan, the Pakistani civilian government continued to fall apart, Karzai continued to talk tough towards contractors while others talked tough about the recent parliamentary elections in Afghanistan. There were, of course, countless of other stories. The continuation of ramped-up special ops throughout Afghanistan despite the traditional winter-lull in fighting, numerous stories on poppy production and corruption, and of course the cost in blood of the continued US/NATO presence. There was also, of course, President Obama's December review of the AfPak situation.
Despite that there will be plenty of news from the area worth rounding-up for easy digestion, however, do no expect to see routine diaries from me on the subject.
My feelings here are a little mixed. On the one hand, I'm a bit unnerved by the lack of interest in a U.S. theatre of war considering what is at stake for those serving, depicted best by the IGTNT series. On the other hand, I understand the entire public's weariness of what seems like endless assymetrical warfare- a weariness just as prevalent in Afghanistan as it is here in the U.S.. It's not a subject that many want to hear a lot about, which I find both unfortunate and understandable.
While I'll still post occasionally on AfPak, namely regarding specific stories down the road, I'm not going to be as focused on it as before.
So how about them Packers?