afghanistan after us, our allies the british, they declared their contribution to that annual $4 billion cost is going be rough ly 0.1 of $1 billion pledging essentially a rounding error to the cost of afghanistan's security after the war. gee, thanks. second thing, the american presidential election, mitt romney has so far not been able to gain traction in an effort to politicize the afghanistan war. he has taken positions for and against timetables for withdrawal, said he would like to bring the troops home and also said we have to stay until the taliban is defeated, all over the map even as he has taken a critical tone. the republican party's leading hawk, senator john mccain has been out this week giving a major speech on afghanistan pounding the rhetorical table saying that united states should not be so quote hell bent on leaving, even 2014 cannot be the