Tag: afghanistan

Bull Feather Merchant Marines

The New York Times continues to serve as headquarters of the Pentagon’s bull feather merchant marines. The headline of an Oct. 20 Times piece by Carlotta Gall on the Kandahar offensive read “Coalition Forces Routing Taliban in Key Afghan Region.” Nothing in the text of the piece supported the conclusion that anything remotely like a … Continue reading “Bull Feather Merchant Marines”

Do Afghan Peace Talks Have Traction?

Reports over the past 10 days of high-level talks between the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and senior representatives of the Taliban have spurred growing speculation here about whether Washington is looking for a speedy exit to the longest foreign war in its history. The speculation has been fueled by a number of factors, … Continue reading “Do Afghan Peace Talks Have Traction?”

Continued Foibles in Iraq and Afghanistan

After Richard Nixon started the U.S. troop drawdown in Vietnam, the American public thought “problem solved” and demonstrations on college campuses dissipated. Then it was disclosed that Nixon, while reducing U.S. forces in Vietnam, was escalating a parallel war in Cambodia by bombing and invasion. Antiwar protests resumed with a new frenzy. Similarly, for some … Continue reading “Continued Foibles in Iraq and Afghanistan”

Report Shows Drone Strikes Based on Scant Evidence

New information on the Central Intelligence Agency’s campaign of drone strikes in northwest Pakistan directly contradicts the image the Barack Obama administration and the CIA have sought to establish in the news media of a program based on highly accurate targeting that is effective in disrupting al-Qaeda’s terrorist plots against the United States. A new … Continue reading “Report Shows Drone Strikes Based on Scant Evidence”

Pipelineistan’s New Silk Road

  Back before e-mail, a world traveler who wanted to keep in touch and couldn’t just pop into the nearest Internet café might drop you a series of postcards from one exotic locale after another. Pepe Escobar, that edgy, peripatetic globe-trotting reporter for one of my favorite on-line publications, Asia Times, has been doing just … Continue reading “Pipelineistan’s New Silk Road”

Woodward’s Exposé Documents What We All Suspected

The talk in Washington of late has been Bob Woodward’s book Obama’s Wars. The books are piled in the front of every bookstore in town, and people are whispering in the usual “inside baseball” way, about who in the Washington security bureaucracies dissed whom to Woodward. If it weren’t for the latest salacious bureau-gossip, the … Continue reading “Woodward’s Exposé Documents What We All Suspected”

Senate Urges Pentagon to Rein in Afghan Contractors

Failures in vetting, training, and supervising Defense Department private security contractors are putting U.S. and coalition troops as well as Afghan civilians at risk and unwittingly aiding Afghan militants by hiring security contractors provided by the Taliban and by warlords, warns a new report released last week by the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee. The … Continue reading “Senate Urges Pentagon to Rein in Afghan Contractors”

Pakistan’s Convoy Halt Forces US to Reduce Tensions

By continuing its halt in NATO convoys headed for Afghanistan through the Torkham border crossing into a second week, Pakistan’s military leadership has brought an end to the unilateral attacks in Pakistan pushed by Gen. David Petraeus and forced Washington to make a new accommodation. And it may make it impossible for Petraeus to make … Continue reading “Pakistan’s Convoy Halt Forces US to Reduce Tensions”