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By John Ross
$19.11
By Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols
$17.79
$21
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AP/Musadeq Sadeq
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai has branded the Taliban’s 18-hour siege of Kabul and places across eastern Afghanistan on Sunday an intelligence failure and called for an investigation into NATO security operations.
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AP / Rahmat Gul
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Pointing to “the shaky, erratic and vague standpoint of the Americans” as one key reason for their decision, Taliban leaders in Afghanistan put the kibosh on plans to meet with U.S. envoys, releasing a statement on Thursday explaining the change of plans.
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bbc.co.uk
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Claims made by NATO that Pakistan is in cahoots with the Afghan Taliban are tantamount to “old wine in an even older bottle,” according to Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar. However, this particular batch of wine represents thousands of mandatory conversations (read: interrogations) versus Khar’s official denial.
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AP / Khalid Mohammed
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The U.S. troops that remain in Iraq after last summer’s withdrawal face some new challenges from within Iraqi factions, as some previously American-allied members of the Awakening Councils are apparently joining the ranks ... (continued)
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AP / Shah Khalid
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In an incident that could lead to even more tension between the U.S. and Pakistan, NATO has confirmed that one of its aircraft engaged in an attack across the Pakistani border, purportedly to fire on suspected militants.
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AP / Guillermo Arias
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In an apparent mixing of official messages, President Obama has contradicted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by rejecting the analogy that Mexico is becoming more and more like 1990s drug-heyday Colombia, when 40 percent of the country’s territory was controlled by rebel groups.
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Photo illustration based on image from Wikimedia Commons / Vardion
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Were they election campaign workers peacefully going about their business in a convoy in northern Afghanistan, or were some 10 people reported killed Thursday in a NATO-led airstrike actually insurgents? In this case, both versions are being claimed as fact.
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AP / Charles Dharapak
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The term withdrawal seems a bit overstated when it comes to describing the changing U.S. military strategy in Iraq, but President Obama emphasized the thematic over the technical in a speech he delivered Monday ... (continued)
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U.S. Air Force / Staff Sgt. Bradley A. Lail
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What’s in a name? Well, quite a bit, according to the newly crowned military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, as he pushes to designate a group of militants in Pakistan as “terrorists.”
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AP / Allauddin Khan
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A new report issued by the London School of Economics claims that Pakistan’s intelligence agency is not only funding and training Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan but also holds sway in the insurgency’s leadership council.
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AP / Rafiq Maqbool
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The Afghan government has stepped away from a total ban on the broadcasting of “disturbing images” that was implemented earlier this month. The move had set off howls among media and rights groups.
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AP / Khalid Mohammed
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Perhaps it was to be expected after the mass exodus of American forces in late June, but August was a cruel month in terms of the Iraqi death toll caused by insurgent violence—the worst in 13 months. Unfortunately, the trend might continue as Iraqis navigate the aftermath of U.S. troop withdrawal and anticipate their national elections early next year.
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Defense Dept. / Army Staff Sgt. Michael J. Carden
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After Wednesday’s multiple bombings in Iraq, which left about 100 dead and more than 500 wounded, Army Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick, the U.S. commander in charge of training Iraqi troops before the Americans’ departure, said there’s “much work to be done” during and after the hand-over.
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said it, and judging by this three-part series from CNN, the age of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is upon us. It’s warfare by joystick—and the Predator drone is only the beginning.
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AP photo
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An overturned truck filled with timber and, it turned out, explosives blew up early Thursday morning in Logar province, Afghanistan, killing 25 people. Thirteen of the victims were children on their way to school, according to the Associated Press.
Posted on Jul 9, 2009
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AP photo / Jason Reed, pool
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By Chris Hedges — The bodies of dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, women, children and men, their corpses blown into bits of human flesh by iron fragmentation bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes in a village in the western province of Farah, illustrates the futility of the Afghan war.
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Citing data obtained from an Iraqi government official, the Associated Press reported Thursday that 87,215 Iraqis have died due to violence since 2005—and that could even be a conservative figure.
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AP photo / Karim Kadim
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Two suicide bomb explosions—one in central Baghdad and the other in Diyala province—killed at least 78 people on Thursday, according to the Associated Press, marking the worst day of violence in over a year.
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blog.wired.com
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At least 20 people were killed in Pakistan on Friday in two missile attacks that are being attributed to unmanned U.S. drones near the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It was the first such strike since Barack Obama took office as president.
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AP photo / Xinhua, Xie Xiudong
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By Anand Gopal —
Who exactly are the Afghan insurgents? Every suicide attack and kidnapping is usually attributed to “the Taliban.” In reality, however, the insurgency is far from monolithic.
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Flickr/Jim Gordon
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A key overlooked fact about the much-ballyhooed “surge is working” argument in Iraq is that the U.S. military actually paid some former insurgents $10 a day to help American troops keep the peace in parts of the country. But what happens when that setup changes in volatile regions like Anbar?
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Following this weekend’s attack in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, in which nine American soldiers were killed by Afghan insurgents, U.S. commanders have asked the Pentagon for more heavily armored MRAP vehicles—as many as 600 to 1,000 more—according to this CNN report from Monday morning.
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AP photo / Capt. Allie Weiskopf Chase, U.S. Army, HO
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Here’s an interesting idea for dampening insurgent violence in Iraq: Pay the would-be troublemakers to temporarily join America’s side and watch the surge success reports roll in. That’s the tactic the U.S. military has employed with some 70,000 former insurgents, according to this NPR report.
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AP photo / Wisam Sami
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Here’s a good way we can all support our troops: by listening to them when they tell us how the Iraq war is really going. Take this account from Sgt. Victor Alarcon and others in his battalion, who in Saturday’s Washington Post give their frank, and stark, assessment of the situation in Baghdad’s Sadiyah district.
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AP Photo / John Moore
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How exactly do some 190,000 pistols and AK-47 rifles go missing? That’s the mystery the Pentagon is facing, according to the Government Accountability Office, which estimates that the U.S. military can’t account for 30 percent of the arms given to Iraqi security forces to help “spread democracy” since 2004.
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A tragic milestone has been marked in Afghanistan: The number of civilian deaths attributed to American- and NATO-led forces in the last half-year has outstripped the number caused by insurgents.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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A video has surfaced that shows what appears to be the identifications cards of two missing American soldiers. The Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni insurgent coalition, has claimed responsibility for the capture of three soldiers, one of whom was later found dead.
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Two more members of the news media have sacrificed their lives covering the Iraq war. Cameraman Alaa Uldeen Aziz and sound technician Saif Laith Yousuf, both Iraqi journalists working for ABC in Baghdad, were abducted Thursday and found dead at the city morgue Friday, according to an ABC executive.
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Joao Silva / The N.Y. Times
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The city of Ramadi, epicenter of the Iraqi insurgency, has already been reduced to such ruins that constantly under-fire American forces are planning to bulldoze three blocks in the center of the city and create a mini Green Zone in an attempt to gain the upper hand on the insurgents.
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Several Sunni-led insurgent groups have begun talks with the Iraqi government in hopes of starting cease-fire negotiations. The talks began in the wake of the reconciliation plan that the Iraqi prime minister presented on Sunday.
Posted on Jun 26, 2006
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The Iraqi prime minister is set to unveil a national reconciliation plan that includes amnesty for insurgents, a timetable for withdrawal of allied forces, release of security detainees from U.S. and Iraqi prisons and compensation for some victims of coalition military operations.
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The Times (U.K.) reports that the Iraqi government is ready to announce a sweeping peace plan that includes amnesty for legitimate resistance fighters. Under the plan, there would be a U.N.-approved timeline for withdrawal of foreign troops; a halt to U.S. operations against insurgents; and compensation for attack victims….
Posted on Jun 23, 2006
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