In a sign of growing war weariness in Congress and among the general public, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted Thursday to bar the deployment of U.S. troops to Libya and narrowly defeated a provision requiring President Barack Obama to submit a plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The latter measure, one of dozens …
Continue reading “House Votes Suggest Growing War Weariness”
…how about Afghanistan’s? asks Josef Storm
Thousands of Afghans have taken to the streets for the second day in northwestern Afghanistan to protest the killing of four people in a night raid by NATO forces this month. While many residents of the city of Taloqan (in addition to the local police force) claim that those killed were innocent, NATO has maintained that they …
Continue reading “As Afghanistan Rises in Revolt, America Sinks Further into Grave of Empires”
The unilateral U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden created a spike in mutual recriminations between U.S. and Pakistani politicians, but their fundamental conflict of interest over Afghanistan was already driving the two countries toward serious confrontation. The pivotal event in relations between the Barack Obama administration and Pakistan was the decision by Obama to …
Continue reading “Obama Troop Surge Decision Ignored Pak-Taliban Ties”
One day in October 2001, a pilot for Northwest Airlines refused to let Arshad Chowdhury, a 25-year-old American Muslim (“with a dark complexion”) who had once worked as an investment banker in the World Trade Center, board his plane at San Francisco National Airport. According to Northwest’s gate agents, Chowdhury writes in the Washington Post, …
Continue reading “Bored to Death in Afghanistan (and Washington)”
David R. Henderson’s Introduction: The first part of this article’s title is absurd, right? How could the head of the CIA, a man who sends drones to kill alleged terrorists and ends up killing not only terrorists, but also many innocent people, be a saint? Well, you probably don’t live in the Monterey area. I …
Continue reading “Is Leon Panetta a Saint—or a War Criminal?”
On May 4, 2011, CNN World News asked whether killing Osama bin Laden was legal under international law. Other news commentaries have questioned whether it would have been both possible and advantageous to bring Osama bin Laden to trial rather than kill him. World attention has been focused, however briefly, on questions of legality regarding …
Continue reading “The Predators: Where Is Your Democracy?”
Although the Obama administration has said that the killing of Osama bin Laden is not a VE or VJ day—which brought a return to normal times after World War II ended—perhaps it should be. President Obama should declare that the Bush-era “war on terror” has finally been won. The main trunk of al Qaeda has …
Continue reading “Let’s Call It ‘VO Day’ and Get Out”
When George W. Bush rejected a Taliban offer to have Osama bin Laden tried by a moderate group of Islamic states in mid-October 2001, he gave up the only opportunity the United States would have to end bin Laden’s terrorist career for the next nine years.The al-Qaeda leader was able to escape into Pakistan a …
Continue reading “US Refusal of 2001 Taliban Offer Gave bin Laden a Free Pass”
Sunday’s killing of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden by a small helicopter-borne team of U.S. Navy Seals could result in significant impacts on U.S. relations and strategy both in Pakistan, where the raid was carried out, and neighboring Afghanistan, where it was launched, according to policy experts. Analysts agreed that the operation, which targeted a …
Continue reading “Bin Laden’s Killing Could Alter Af-Pak Policies” 
