It's suddenly become more difficult to learn anything about America's 9,800 troops staying behind in Afghanistan, and how the Pentagon is spending billions of taxpayer dollars on reconstruction.

The U.S. military ended transparency of Afghanistan's security forces in January. Losing that means losing sight of the United States' many successes … and failures.

On Dec. 29, 2014 the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction did what it always does, it asked for information. Part of SIGAR's job is to put together reports for Congress on various elements of the reconstruction.

Five days later, the new NATO-led Resolute Support Mission emailed SIGAR to let it know that it was classifying the bulk of the information requested. In particular, RSM decided to classify much of the data on Afghanistan's military.

"The decision leaves SIGAR for the first time in six years unable to publicly report on most of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded efforts to build, train, equip, and sustain the Afghan National Security Forces."