US vice president makes unannounced Afghanistan visit 12/22/2017 8:52:57 AM US Vice President Mike Pence made an unannounced pre-Christmas visit to Afghanistan KABUL (AFP), 21 December 2017 -- Vice President Mike Pence arrived on an unannounced pre-Christmas visit to Afghanistan Thursday, becoming the most senior Trump administration official to visit troops fighting a 17-year-old conflict that has largely receded from US public view. Flying secretly through the day and night on a standard unmarked US Air Force C-17, Pence corkscrewed into Bagram Airforce Base, where he thanked some of the roughly 15,000 US personnel still hoping to turn the tide of America's longest-ever war. The superpower's vexed campaign against Al Qaeda and the Taliban -- born from the rubble of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, receives ever-less public attention in the United States these days. Pence's visit is designed to shift the spotlight back on person...