afghanistan - Thomas Nordlund on Diigo

16 Oct 09

06 Oct 09

White House: Leaving Afghanistan Not An Option | CommonDreams.org

The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama is not considering a strategy for Afghanistan that would withdraw U.S. troops from the eroding war there.

www.commondreams.org/...05-9 - Preview

commondreams afghanistan

The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama is not considering a strategy for Afghanistan that would withdraw U.S. troops from the eroding war there.
The debate over whether to send as many as 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan is a major element of a strategy overhaul that senior administration policy advisers will consider this week as they gather for top-level meetings on the evolving direction of the war.

Tensions rise over Afghanistan war strategy -- latimes.com

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that President Obama's advisors should keep their guidance private, in effect admonishing the top commander in Afghanistan for publicly advocating an approach requiring more troops even as the White House reassesses its strategy.

www.latimes.com/...han6-2009oct06,0,4864756.story - Preview

afghanistan mcchrystal policy obama

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that President Obama's advisors should keep their guidance private, in effect admonishing the top commander in Afghanistan for publicly advocating an approach requiring more troops even as the White House reassesses its strategy.
James L. Jones, said that military commanders should convey their advice through the chain of command
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- disarray in the Obama administration's attempts to forge a new policy on Afghanistan and underscored wide differences among top officials over the correct approach.
- "hyper-partisan" debate over Afghanistan policy.
- With public opinion turning against the war, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will meet today with congressional leaders.
- McChrystal said his strategy stood the best chance of success in Afghanistan. The general has submitted a request for up to 40,000 additional troops to support his approach to the war.
- he rejected proposals to limit U.S. involvement to attacking extremists and pursuing Al Qaeda militants, the type of plan Biden favors.
- Gates and Clinton said the U.S. objective in Afghanistan remains to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" Al Qaeda, but the plans for achieving that goal are under review.

05 Oct 09

Open Left:: McChrystal's Assault on the Chain of Command and the Constitution - and the Need for Pushback

General Stanley McChrystal may be engaged in a calculated strategy to break the military's chain of command and publicly try to force the Obama administration to accede to his demands for a massive troop escalation in Afghanistan.

www.openleft.com/...tion-and-the-need-for-pushback - Preview

afghanistan strategy policy obama peace mcchrystal

General Stanley McChrystal may be engaged in a calculated strategy to break the military's chain of command and publicly try to force the Obama administration to accede to his demands for a massive troop escalation in Afghanistan.
Articles I and II of the U.S. Constitution which clearly say the Congress and the President are the ultimate military decision makers.
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- McChrystal, of course, is betting that after a 30-year scorched earth campaign by the authoritarian right to insist that America's elected civilian leadership do nothing but rubber-stamp the military brass's demands, President Obama doesn't have the guts to pull a Harry Truman and fire his ass for rank insubordination
- Obama is (at least up until this point) refusing to be bullied on the policy. McChrystal may be out there insulting the Constitution and the chain of command by trying to embarrass his commander in chief, but Obama hasn't budged from his insistence that he is exploring all options in Afghanistan
- Congress is starting to assert its constitutional prerogatives.
- Jim Jones appeared on CNN this weekend and pushed back at McChrystal on constitutional and policy grounds
- while we're not at a point where the Obama administration feels comfortable enough to assert its constitutional authorities in a Truman-esque kind of way, we are at a point where the administration is at least acknowledging - and pushing back against - the undeniable fact that McChrystal is mounting a challenge to those authorities.

Foreign Policy Expert Returns Fom Afghanistan: 7-Day Fact Finding Trip Reveals Policy Myths | CommonDreams.org

"After spending a week in Afghanistan it is clear that 40,000 more troops will not substantially increase security, nor stop violent extremists. Instead the U.S. and NATO needs to stop air and Predator drone strikes and other actions that kill, injure or terrorize innocent civilians and create recruits for the Taliban and violent extremists.

"The U.S. and the international community needs to make investments into Afghanistan to provide its populous with physical, economic and food security. Additionally, Afghans desire a sense of justice and trust of their government."

www.commondreams.org/...05-6 - Preview

afghanistan strategy policy obama martin

Mr. Martin returned this morning from a seven-day delegation to Afghanistan. While there he met with a diverse group of high-level and ordinary people
"After spending a week in Afghanistan it is clear that 40,000 more troops will not substantially increase security, nor stop violent extremists. Instead the U.S. and NATO needs to stop air and Predator drone strikes and other actions that kill, injure or terrorize innocent civilians and create recruits for the Taliban and violent extremists.
"The U.S. and the international community needs to make investments into Afghanistan to provide its populous with physical, economic and food security. Additionally, Afghans desire a sense of justice and trust of their government."
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- Will more troops increase the security situation in Afghanistan? What are the politics behind these issues? How is the U.S. Congress reacting and acting? What is the progressive community or peace movement doing? What do Americans really think?

Afghanistan: NCF Afghanistan Working Group Report

The Afghanistan Working Group has recently finished this policy paper after a meeting a few weeks ago. In this brief paper we address the central problem of state credibility (which Karzai has been complicit in destroying), call for better military and economic aid coordination and a re-thought strategy of governance that concentrates on local, rather than central, systems.

ncfafghanistan.blogspot.com/...stan-working-group-report.html - Preview

afghanistan strategy policy obama martin ncf

Truthdig - Reports - War Kills Off Great Reform Movements

The American record is pretty clear: World War I brought the Progressive Era to a close. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was waging World War II, he was candid in saying that “Dr. New Deal” had given way to “Dr. Win the War.” Korea ended Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, and Vietnam brought Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society to an abrupt halt.

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truthdig afghanistan policy obama mcchrystal

The American record is pretty clear: World War I brought the Progressive Era to a close. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was waging World War II, he was candid in saying that “Dr. New Deal” had given way to “Dr. Win the War.” Korea ended Harry Truman’s Fair Deal, and Vietnam brought Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society to an abrupt halt.
why Obama is right to have grave qualms about an extended commitment of many more American troops to Afghanistan. Obama was elected not to escalate a war but to end one. The change and hope he promised did not involve a vast new campaign to transform Afghanistan.
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- It sure would have been nice if we had settled Afghanistan before beating the drums of war in Iraq.
- For the uninsured, they propose fiscal prudence. For war, they offer profligacy.
- The truth is that Obama has only bad choices in Afghanistan.
- Obama has said over and over that the war in Afghanistan, unlike the war in Iraq, is necessary. “We are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and our allies,” he declared last March.
- “I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal,” he said, “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.” These are the words that will give Obama room to reconsider his policy.
- He writes of “the crisis of popular confidence that springs from the weakness of [Afghan government] institutions, the unpunished abuse of power by corrupt officials and power brokers, a widespread sense of political disenfranchisement, and a long-standing lack of economic opportunity.”
- Is this a situation in which Obama should commit tens of thousands more troops for a lengthy war? Should it surprise us that some administration officials are asking why it is that al-Qaida has weakened even as the Taliban has grown stronger? These skeptics now question whether routing the Taliban is actually essential to Obama’s core goal of defeating al-Qaida.
- a jelling conventional wisdom that if Obama doesn’t go all in with McChrystal’s strategy, he is admitting defeat and backing away from his earlier pledges. Those who want him to commit now are impatient for a decision.
- Obama should resist both their impatience and their criticism of his search for an alternative strategy. The last thing he should do is rush into a new set of obligations in Afghanistan that would come to define his presidency more than any victory he wins on health care.
- Those most eager for a bigger war have little interest in Obama’s quest for domestic reform. As he ponders his options, theirs are not the voices he should worry about.

Sharp division inside White House on Afghanistan, analyst says - CNN.com

Deliberations over what to do in Afghanistan are taking place behind closed doors, but the divisions among some of President Obama's trusted advisers are starting to emerge.

www.cnn.com/...afghanistan.debate - Preview

mcchrystal afghanistan cnn.com

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has made no secret about his belief that the U.S. needs to send more troops now -- or it will risk failure
Obama has said he needs time to meet with his advisers and evaluate the best way forward before making a decision about resources. As discussions continue this week -- including two meetings with his national security team -- some are suggesting that it would be best if talks about strategy be kept behind closed doors.
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- Obama also plans to host a bipartisan, bicameral meeting Tuesday with congressional leaders about the war
- McChrystal has said he wants to focus more on protecting Afghan civilians rather than holding remote outposts such as the one that was attacked.
- In March, Obama announced plans to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to provide security for a national election. That move followed what Obama and others call years of inadequate resources in Afghanistan due to the Bush administration's focus on Iraq.
- The Obama strategy was based on a counterinsurgency mission intended both to defeat terrorists based in Afghanistan while winning local support and helping with development.
- McChrystal is said to want up to 40,000 more troops to carry out the mission in Afghanistan.
- Some helping to shape the strategy support counterinsurgency, which would involve a large number of troops focused on fighting the Taliban, plus efforts to rebuild the country and its economic system. Others, such as Vice President Joe Biden, favor a counterterrorism strategy in which a limited number of troops would target only al Qaeda.

t r u t h o u t | General McChrystal Criticized for Afghanistan Comments

Public remarks made in London by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, have elicited criticism from the Obama administration and opened a debate on the role military officials should play within a civilian-controlled government.

www.truthout.org/1005097 - Preview

mcchrystal afghanistan

McChrystal, in a speech last Sunday, flatly rejected White House
proposals for a new strategic approach to the war in Afghanistan involving strategic
drone strikes and special forces attacks.
McChrystal described the White House strategy proposal, which Vice President
Biden has been advocating in public remarks, as one that would lead to Afghanistan
becoming "Chaos-istan."
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- "Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential
  advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week. The next
  day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air
  Force One
- The relationship between McChrystal and the White House began to sour several
  days ago, after The Washington Post published a leaked Pentagon report in which
  McChrystal stated the war in Afghanistan would fail without an immediate and
  significant infusion of US troops. Since the release of that report, officials
  within the Obama administration have publicly questioned McChrystal's conclusions,
  offering several proposals at odds with the general's assessment.
- Beyond the policy dispute itself, the rift between President Obama and General
  McChrystal has led to questions about the proper role of military commanders
  in the formation of policy within a civilian government. A variety of commentators
  have leveled criticism at McChrystal for publicly inserting himself into a debate
  where the ultimate decisions belong to elected officials.

t r u t h o u t | Graft the Next Great Hurdle to a "New" Iraq

www.truthout.org/1005096 - Preview

graft afghanistan bribe corruption

As violence in Iraq continues to decline
overall, the top concern for many Iraqis has shifted from security to corruption,
as they look to their government to restore long-absent central services
in the eyes
of many, corruption in present-day Iraq is worse than it was under Saddam Hussein.
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- That's according to Transparency International's annual
  corruption perceptions index, which ranks countries in order from the least
  perceived corruption to the most. During the year of the U.S. invasion in 2003,
  Iraq ranked 113 out of 133 countries surveyed. In 2008, it had fallen to 178
  out of 180 countries surveyed.
- And now that American forces have begun reducing their presence after withdrawing
  from the cities on June 30, Imbara fears that corruption may worsen, with less
  oversight from the U.S. military
- as Iraqis work to establish a
  unified, central government, their ability to tackle the corruption problem
  will play a critical role in determining the country's future
  success.
- Without addressing the corruption problem, "you completely erode and undermine
  the public's trust in government at a certain point,"
  Heller says. "At that point, people start to really detach themselves from
  government, they start to look to tribal leaders, sectarian leaders, to others
  as a source of authority and power. And I think one would have to argue that
  in an Iraqi context that's certainly not helpful."
- For the average Iraqi citizen the current level of corruption means it's
  difficult to accomplish many tasks, whether getting a government job or obtaining
  a permit, without greasing someone's palm.
- For those dealing with the aftermath of the war, corruption has added hurdles
  to already difficult jobs.
- A number of citizens harbor concerns about the integrity of Iraqi security
  forces. While the Iraqi Army generally enjoys a reasonably sound reputation,
  many Iraqis worry about police extortion.
- After decades of living under Saddam and the embargo years, many Iraqis have
  become comfortable living with a certain degree of corruption in their society.
  What is considered a bribe in the West, may be considered a normal cost of doing
  business in Iraq. The task ahead may well be finding a way to reduce excesses.
- Still, there are signs of progress. General attitudes are shifting and there
  is increasingly less tolerance of unethical government conduct.

t r u t h o u t | Sakena Yacoobi’s Vision for Afghanistan

The West can help with infrastructure, she says. But solutions for a better future must be forged with respect to a culture that is thousands of years old.

www.truthout.org/100409D - Preview

afghanistan vision alternatives war

The West can help with infrastructure, she says. But solutions for a better future must be forged with respect to a culture that is thousands of years old.
Her goal is to bring education to Afghanistan, a country that has a 70 percent illiteracy rate. Her main focus is girls and women. She believes education can ameliorate the ravages of 35 years—and counting—of war.
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- founded the Afghan Institute of Learning in 1995
- Managed by women, A.I.L. has served 6.7 million Afghans. It is one of the largest employers of Afghan women, providing health care, education, and training
- Its American project partner is Creating Hope International.
- Her succinct outline of factors contributing to the critical situation in her country included a government that is corrupted, negligible services, and lack of security.
- Yacoobi sees how the despair of poverty and hunger can foster terrorism. She believes that when you create jobs and self-sufficiency, people get involved in rebuilding their society.
- A reported 10 to 15 million unexploded land mines are still inside Afghanistan, a territory the size of Texas.
- Yacoobi sees education as the portal to rebuilding her country. In the mid-1990s, she created and implemented a network of 80 underground home schools after the Taliban outlawed education for girls.
- A.I.L. has trained over 16,000 teachers (70 percent of them women), provided leadership, administrative and human rights training to 5800 Afghans (80 percent of them women), and health training to 6400 women.
- Her health program is ambitious and essential. There is no money for doctors or medicine, and people wait until their situation is critical before they seek attention. Yacoobi has five clinics operating inside of Afghanistan, a country with the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world according to the UN. Children die at a very young age, as they are born with existing ailments. To fight this, A.I.L. provides services through clinics that are both stationary and mobile
- A strong conviction about the innate intelligence of Afghan women underpins Yacoobi’s philosophy. She explained how women have always had the power in the household through managing the money and handling the children.
- When those outside of Afghanistan see the garb as oppressive and “want to teach us human rights, when they want to teach us democracy, when they want to teach us all these things, [it is] according to Western culture. And that is not right.”
- Yacoobi frames Afghan women’s call for equality through the precepts and teaching of the Koran.
- Yacoobi has hopes that President Obama will have an understanding about the vital need for national infrastructure. “I try to do the best I can,” she said of her efforts, suggesting modestly that she was a small person in the global scheme of things.
- With her drumbeat for education, health services, and vocational training, her work through A.I.L. constitutes an independent front of pro-active solutions.

01 Oct 09

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Quick guide: Afghanistan

Overview

news.bbc.co.uk/...5140380.stm - Preview

afghanistan history terrorism interlegere

Ethnic, religious and regional rivalries and the terrain have also made it hard for the authorities in the capital, Kabul, to rule the country.
The overthrow of Afghanistan's King Zahir Shah in 1973 sparked a chain of events that led to decades of unrest. Reforms imposed by a Moscow-backed regime sparked rebellions and, in 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan.
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- In 1989, the USSR withdrew in defeat, leaving behind a devastated country and hundreds of thousands of dead Afghans.
- In 1994, the hard-line Islamic Taliban emerged. By the late 1990s they controlled most of Afghanistan with their strict version of Sharia law.
- In October 2001, the US and its allies launched a bombing campaign against the Taliban
- Years of fighting have left Afghanistan in ruins - it is one of the poorest countries in the world. International donors have poured billions of dollars into the country, but the government says it needs more.
- In 2004 a constitution was signed and Hamid Karzai won the country's first direct presidential elections.
  In 2005 national assembly elections were held.
- Islamic militants, warlords and the booming drugs trade are among the greatest threats to stability. The authorities have limited power outside Kabul, and huge swathes of the country are racked by insurgent violence or controlled by warlords once funded by the US to fight the Taliban.
- Afghanistan still produces about 90% of the world's opium.

Primer of Afghanistan's Policital Situation & U.S. Foreign Policy

Here's some background, and what Obama faces.

www.latimes.com/...er10-2009sep10,0,5502511.story - Preview

afghanistan terrorism interlegere foreignpolicy unitedstates

After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States and its allies attacked Al Qaeda bases in the country, then controlled by the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group. The West, operating with United Nations authority, overthrew the Taliban.
The country is nominally led by President Hamid Karzai, but the resurgent Taliban controls important areas. Karzai, who was seeking his second presidential term, was opposed in the recent election by Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister. The key issues included what will be the country's relationship to the United States and NATO
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- Complicating the situation is the high level of corruption fueled by cash from the illicit opium trade.
- the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission has said there was convincing evidence of fraud and has ordered a recount in some areas.
- For the United States, Afghanistan has always been the key to the war on terrorism. For the Bush administration, Afghanistan was the protector of Al Qaeda and had to toppled, eventually to be replaced by Karzai, who was friendly to U.S. interests. Now Afghanistan is seen as a listening post into the Al Qaeda areas of Pakistan and a country that must be protected from the return of the Taliban.
- There is support for helping Afghanistan, but there are differences over whether to send more troops into an increasingly unpopular war.
- Politically, the Obama administration is at a crossroads as well. Obama and many Democrats opposed the Bush administration war in Iraq, arguing that Afghanistan was the important theater for the war on terrorism. But as the death toll has grown from violence in Afghanistan, public support has decreased.
- NATO has authorized approximately 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, though not all are combat forces. The war has also grown increasingly unpopular in Britain, France and Germany.

Council Split Complicates Obama's Afghan Decision - ABC News

abcnews.go.com/...WireStory - Preview

afghanistan troops mcchrystal obama

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both support McChrystal's strategy
White House officials say it may take weeks more before the president decides whether to overhaul the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan or send more troops.
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- the administration's evolving Afghanistan strategy depends in large part on the outcome of the disputed Afghan election. Those decisions are expected in a matter of weeks.
- key Democrats in Congress have begun voicing concern about the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan, questioning whether a further commitment of blood and treasure is wise or necessary. The most vocal support for continuing or even expanding the conflict comes from Republicans.

Advisers Split Complicates Obama's Afghan Decision - ABC News

abcnews.go.com/...wireStory - Preview

afghanistan troops mcchrystal obama

President Barack Obama is confronting a split among his closest advisers on Afghanistan, reflecting divisions in his own party over whether to send in thousands more U.S. troops and complicating his efforts to adopt a war policy he can sell to a public grown weary of the 8-year-old conflict.
top military commanders and congressional Republicans pushing for a troop increase
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- The talks revealed the emerging fault lines within the administration, with military commanders solidly behind the request for additional troops and other key officials divided.
- McChrystal declared that the U.S. would fail to meet its objective of causing irreparable damage to Taliban militants and their al-Qaida allies if the administration did not significantly increase American forces.

U.S. general says Taliban growing, Afghan outlook serious

www.swissinfo.ch/...Afghan_insurgency_growing.html - Preview

swissinfo afghanistan troops mcchrystal

The insurgency in Afghanistan is growing and the success of the campaign against the Taliban cannot be taken for granted, General Stanley McChrystal
McChyrstal said the situation was serious and time was running out, although he also cautioned that moving too quickly without planning would be a mistake.
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- McChrystal has said previously that the mission in Afghanistan, involving 100,000 foreign troops of which around 60,000 are American, faces failure unless the strategy is shifted. He also believes, according to U.S. officials, that up to 40,000 more troops and trainers are needed for the war.
- President Barack Obama is now carrying out a series of discussions with policy experts and analysts on how the strategy needs changing.
- U.S. officials have said that could take weeks, a decision is expected on whether more troops are required or not.
- "I discount immediately anyone who simplifies the problem or offers a solution...or says 'this is what you have got to do' because they absolutely have no clue about the complexity of what we are dealing with."
- "Does that mean the Afghan government talking to the Taliban? Yes, with a simple message: Live within the constitution and you can come home to your communities and have a share of power, but stay outside, in hiding ... and you will face an unremitting military force."

U.N. fires critic of its probe of Afghan vote

www.post-gazette.com/...1002257-82.stm - Preview

elections afghanistan karzai

The delay in final results from the Aug. 20 vote has led to fears of a power vacuum in the Afghan government that could endure until spring, even as Taliban violence against U.S. and NATO soldiers and Afghan civilians continues to rise.
But proclamation of a winner has been delayed pending a partial recount by the United Nations-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, or ECC, following allegations of widespread fraud.
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- Mr. Galbraith's removal called into question the impartiality of the U.N. mission and the credibility of the election process.

30 Sep 09

UN envoy 'removed' from Kabul post

english.aljazeera.net/...200993010327180138.html - Preview

obama afghanistan pakistan peter galbraith un

Peter Galbraith, the deputy to Kai Eide, the UN special envoy, would not be returning to his post in Kabul.
Preliminary results gave Karzai a 54.6 per cent lead, but a UN-backed fraud watchdog has ordered an audit of the results from 12 per cent of polling stations where suspiciously large numbers of votes were cast or one candidate received 95 per cent.
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- If enough of Karzai's ballots are nullified because of fraud that he no longer has 50 per cent, he would face a runoff election with Abdullah Abdullah, his main challenger and a former foreign minister.
- Western powers have sought to shore up their relationship over Afghanistan, with Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the secretary-general of Nato, vowing that troops would remain there for as long as necessary.
- Nato-led forces have been struggling to contain a surge in attacks by the Taliban.
- General Stanley McChrystal, the senior US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, has said that the military effort risks failure unless more troops are sent to the country as part of a revised strategy.

Suspected U.S. drone attack kills 8 in NW Pakistan - swissinfo

www.swissinfo.ch/...ck_kills_8_in_NW_Pakistan.html - Preview

obama afghanistan swissinfo drones pakistan

A missile-firing U.S. drone aircraft killed eight militants, including some foreigners, on Wednesday in Pakistan's North Waziristan region on the Afghan border
The United States stepped up its attacks by pilotless drones on militants in northwestern Pakistani border sanctuaries last year as the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan intensified.
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- Despite the killing of Mehsud, Pakistan officially objects to the drone strikes, saying they violate its sovereignty and the civilian casualties they sometimes inflict inflame public anger.
- U.S. officials say the strikes are carried out under an agreement with Islamabad that allows Pakistani leaders to decry the attacks in public.
- About 510 people, most of them militants, have been killed in the U.S. drone strikes since early last year
- The options the United States is considering to turn the tide in Afghanistan include sending more combat troops and trainers for the Afghan army and stepping up drone strikes on militants on the Pakistani side of the border.

Pressure increases on Obama over Afghanistan - CNN.com

www.cnn.com/...index.html - Preview

obama afghanistan mcchrystal

The meeting comes a day before Obama is scheduled to discuss Afghanistan strategy with his national security team.
McChrystal is expected to send his request any day for more resources to combat the insurgency in Afghanistan
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- Obama's advisers are split on whether to send more troops.
- Vice President Joe Biden has advocated reducing U.S. troops and focusing on dismantling al Qaeda cells
- A USA Today/Gallup poll released last week showed that half of all Americans, or 50 percent surveyed, are against sending more troops to Afghanistan.
- the other decision for the administration is likely to be on neighboring Pakistan.

Thomas Nordlund's Library tagged afghanistan → View Popular

t r u t h o u t | McChrystal's 40,000 Troop Hoax

White House: Leaving Afghanistan Not An Option | CommonDreams.org

Tensions rise over Afghanistan war strategy -- latimes.com

Open Left:: McChrystal's Assault on the Chain of Command and the Constitution - and the Need for Pushback

Foreign Policy Expert Returns Fom Afghanistan: 7-Day Fact Finding Trip Reveals Policy Myths | CommonDreams.org

Afghanistan: NCF Afghanistan Working Group Report

Truthdig - Reports - War Kills Off Great Reform Movements

Sharp division inside White House on Afghanistan, analyst says - CNN.com

t r u t h o u t | General McChrystal Criticized for Afghanistan Comments

t r u t h o u t | Graft the Next Great Hurdle to a "New" Iraq

t r u t h o u t | Sakena Yacoobi’s Vision for Afghanistan

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Quick guide: Afghanistan

Primer of Afghanistan's Policital Situation & U.S. Foreign Policy

Council Split Complicates Obama's Afghan Decision - ABC News

Advisers Split Complicates Obama's Afghan Decision - ABC News

U.S. general says Taliban growing, Afghan outlook serious

U.N. fires critic of its probe of Afghan vote

UN envoy 'removed' from Kabul post

Suspected U.S. drone attack kills 8 in NW Pakistan - swissinfo

Pressure increases on Obama over Afghanistan - CNN.com

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