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As the war in Afghanistan enters its 11th year, US and NATO forces are finding that so-called “green on blue” attacks in which Afghan National Army soldiers are killing Western forces, are increasing at an alarming rate. Nearly one fourth of all combat fatalities in Afghanistan this year have been caused by “green on blue” killings. Just this past month, 15 Western troops were killed by western trained Afghan police or soldiers.

US Commanders are now calling for a better vetting process when hiring for both the Afghan Local Police and the Afghan National Army. In the mean time, the scant three week training period for new recruits of the Afghan Local Police, is being put on hold in order to re-interview its 16,300 members. Another 350,000 members of the Afghan National Security Forces will also be re-checked for their loyalties to the Taliban.

Meanwhile, Afghan civilian fatalities continue to grow as a suicide bomber killed at least 25 people at a funeral in the Durbaba district near the border of Pakistan just yesterday. As Afghanistan continues to suffer from the ravages of war, in the United States, presidential election politics have taken center stage.

Despite record numbers of returning US soldiers now committing suicide and a war that has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars, the Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney completely avoided any mention of the Afghanistan war in his acceptance speech last week at the Republican National Convention. President Barack Obama, who is up for re-election, will campaign on a commitment to end the war in Afghanistan by 2014. In fact, expanding the Afghanistan war was candidate Obama’s biggest foreign policy platform in 2008.

GUEST: Kathy Kelly, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Kathy has traveled to Afghanistan several times and worked closely with young Afghan activists

Visit www.vcnv.org and www.2millionvoices.org for more information.