With the justified firing of Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his replacement with Iraq water-walker David Petraeus, it's as if people are hoping for a second coming of Jesus in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the replacement may be similar to the second coming of the...
A system designed to track the success of Afghan police training is deeply flawed, says a report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR). Some 67 out of 101 Afghan National Police (ANP) units rated capable of working independently had regressed...
When a Pakistani-U.S. national pleaded guilty last week to a failed attempt to detonate explosives packed in a vehicle in the heart of New York City, he admitted that one of the reasons he targeted the busy Times Square neighborhood was to "injure and kill" as many...
It's like taking a trip in a time machine, going all the way back to the darkest days of the cold war era, as headlines scream: Russian spy cabal arrested! Glamorous Russian Mata Hari – “worthy of a 007 movie” – was sending secret messages! Eleven seemingly ordinary –...
[Note for TomDispatch Readers: To check out the most recent review of my book, The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's, which just went up at Mother Jones magazine's Web site, click here (“...as in his daily dispatches, he takes on our war-possessed...
Nearly a week after the abrupt demise of Washington's top commander in Afghanistan, U.S. strategy for reversing the flood of bad news that has been recently pouring out of that strife-torn country remains as unclear as ever. Led by Sen. John McCain and many of the...
Click here to listen to this commentary. This past week various news events once again made it abundantly clear that our foreign policy is an abject failure. Unfortunately, in spite of this, the administration is determined to stay on this destructive course, despite...
Now we know why “King David” Petraeus fainted like a girl at his Senate testimony [.pdf] two weeks ago. Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin put Petraeus on the ropes by asking if his allegiance to President Obama's withdrawal timeline for Afghanistan...
