To borrow from Elizabeth Barrett Browning… let me count the ways. First and foremost, we don't have enough troops. (Yes, yes, I know I'm a broken record to regular Antiwar.com readers.) The accepted standard for successful counterinsurgency operations is 20 soldiers...
Bill for Afghan War Could Run Into the Trillions
The U.S. Senate is moving forward with a $59 billion spending bill, of which $33.5 billion would be allocated for the war in Afghanistan. However, some experts in Washington are raising concerns that the war may be unwinnable and that the money being spent on military...
What Next for NATO?
The European Union doesn't know where it stands at this moment. NATO thinks it knows and is gambling. Has the EU a future, or has disintegration set in? The behavior of the Germans under the conservative Merkel government is taken by many to signal that the end, if...
Drones and Democracy
ISLAMABAD - On May 12, the day after a U.S. drone strike killed 24 people in Pakistan's North Waziristan, two men from the area agreed to tell us their perspective as eyewitnesses of previous drone strikes. One is a journalist, Safdar Dawar, general secretary of the...
Obama’s Flailing Wars
On stage, it would be farce. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, it's bound to play out as tragedy. Less than two months ago, Barack Obama flew into Afghanistan for six hours – essentially to read the riot act to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whom his ambassador had only...
Obama, Karzai Still Split on Peace Talks with Taliban
U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai sought to portray a united front on the issue of a political settlement with the Taliban in their joint press conference Wednesday. But their comments underlined the deep rift that divides Karzai and the...
US Urged to Probe Alleged ‘Second Prison’ at Bagram
Pressure is mounting on the U.S. government to investigate reports that inmates from the notorious prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan have been moved to a second separate facility -- known as the Tor Jail, which translates as "black jail" -- where they...
Obama: Say Yes to Afghan Peace Talks
Feting a Fetid War
To smooth over the stormy relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Barack Obama is throwing out the red carpet in Washington, D.C., for Karzai and his entourage. Vice President Joe Biden, who in the past has erupted in open hostility toward Karzai,...
Did You Say $33 Billion?
In case you hadn't noticed, our Afghan War, like some oil-slicked bird in the Gulf of Mexico, has been dragged under the waves. It's largely off front pages and out of the TV spotlight (despite the possible linkage of the Times Square failed car bombing to the...


