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After Trump-era cuts, refugee agencies have rebuilt to accommodate evacuating Afghans

Nov 10, 2022
Trump Administration-era cuts scaled back refugee programs, but the resettlement of 88,000 Afghans prompted them to ramp up and expand.
The rapid resettlement of Afghans over the last year left many refugee agencies scrambling. Above, a person wears a vest reading "Welcome" in Persian and English at an Afghan refugee camp in New Mexico.
Jon Cherry/Getty Images

What Taliban rule has meant for an Afghan American, personally and professionally

Sep 20, 2021
Homa Sorouri spent years working with international aid organizations in Afghanistan. It's "dreadful," she said, to see the work they did disappear.
People wait to withdraw money outside a bank in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Banks were temporarily closed after the Taliban seized power, adding to the chaos.
Javed Tanveer/Getty Images

How the "economic fundamentals" of opium undermined U.S. strategy in Afghanistan

Aug 24, 2021
The U.S. spent billions trying to suppress Afghanistan’s illicit opium and heroin trade. It didn’t work.
A U.S. Marine sergeant patrols in an Afghan poppy field in 2011. With many farmers dependent on the opium trade, Jeffrey Clemens says, "the effort to win hearts and minds" was set back by the U.S. eradication program.
Bay Ismoyo/AFP via Getty Images

Military contractors and the profits of war

Aug 16, 2021
DynCorp International, KBR and Fluor Corp. often operated under no-bid military contracts, which granted them monopolies on huge deals.
Soldiers and civilian contractors sort through supplies near Gardez, Afghanistan, in 2014.
Scott Olson via Getty Images

From taxes to the drug trade, how the Taliban paid its way

Aug 16, 2021
The Taliban has taxed everything from government projects to international trade.
An Afghan opium poppy farmer at work in 2011. While the Taliban receives income from taxing opium, most of its recent income has come from taxes on legal goods.
Bay Ismoyo/AFP via Getty Images

After Afghanistan, a Marine and a combat photographer "reconnect through writing"

Aug 25, 2017
In "Shooting Ghosts," T.J. Brennan and Finbarr O'Reilly talk about the friendship that helped them rebuild their lives after war.
Finbarr O'Reilly, left,  and T.J. Brennan at OP Kunjak, a tiny hilltop outpost in Afghanistan.
Finbarr O’Reilly/REUTERS

The numbers for November 11, 2014

Nov 11, 2014
On Veterans Day, we look at Kai's time in the Navy and post-9/11 casualty rates.

For public good, not for profit.

The next big challenge in Afghanistan is payroll

May 27, 2014
As more U.S. troops withdraw, experts say new challenges will be "mundane".

Following the money in America's most expensive war

May 15, 2014
Fighting continues in Afghanistan.

Why wasteful spending and war seem to go hand in hand

Jul 16, 2013
A Senate committee takes up the issue of war-time contracting, looking at the huge amounts of waste and fraud during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.