While President Obama is pushing the Afghanistan surge, large numbers of elected Democrats are demanding we get out.

Three different ways they’re viewing the leaked “war logs” across the Pond.

Now we’re doubling down on the Karzai government.

We need to ask ourselves some tough questions on Afghanistan.

The Chairman of the RNC is expressing doubts about America’s war effort in Afghanistan.

Just a week after he was named to replace General Stanley McChrystal, the Senate has unanimously confirmed David Petraeus as the new commander of American forces in Afghanistan: General David Petraeus, the president’s pick to take over from Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the new commander of the troubled war in Afghanistan, was approved by the [...]

A new poll shows that a majority of the public favors President Obama’s decision to begin withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in July 2011: A majority of Americans favor President Barack Obama’s planned July 2011 timetable to begin the withdrawal of U.S. troops, according to a new USA Today/Gallup Poll. Fifty-eight percent of the [...]

The odds that David Petraeus will be able to pull off a miracle in Afghanistan like he did in Iraq are very slim.

No official word yet, but this seems to confirm that General McChrystal is out: The White House is reviewing a list of possible replacements for Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who admitted to top Obama administration officials that he “compromised the mission” by making disparaging comments in a Rolling Stone interview. The embattled general met President Obama [...]

Stanley McChrystal is being called to face Obama’s national security team this morning. They should take the opportunity to come up with coherent Afghanistan policy.

Are we making too much of Stanley McChrystal’s remarks?

Stanley McChrystal’s fate is the story of the day, but there’s a broader message in the Rolling Stone story, and it has broad implications for the future of the Afghan War.

There’s really only one story in Washington, D.C. today, and Stanley McChrystal is the star player.

General Stanley McChrystal has not only likely ended his career but seriously damaged the already dimming chances of success in Afghanistan.

Do we care about lithium reserves in Afghanistan?

NYT reporter James Risen took a lot of flak from the blogosphere for his front page story touting the discovery of a trillion dollar mineral trove in Afghanistan, on account of the finding happened years ago and the trillion dollar figure was pulled out of someone’s ass. In an interview with YahooNews, Risen shot back: [...]

In the midst of testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee defending the progress of the mission in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus fainted.  Thankfully, he appears to be fine.  Alas, the symbolism was powerful. As I note in my New Atlanticist post, “Afghanistan Effort Falling on its Face,” the 57-year-old chief of Central Command apparently [...]

Marc Ambinder gives reason to be very skeptical about the news of a massive mineral find in Afghanistan: For one, a simple Google search identifies any number of previous stories with similar details. The Bush Administration concluded in 2007 that Afghanistan was potentially sitting on a goldmine of mineral resources and that this fact ought [...]

An intriguing report in today’s New York Times, which reports the discovery of vast mineral deposits in one of the most war-torn spots on the planet: WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan [...]

There’s yet more evidence of odd behavior from Afghan President Hamid Karzai: KABUL, Afghanistan — Two senior Afghan officials were showing President Hamid Karzai the evidence of the spectacular rocket attack on a nationwide peace conference earlier this month when Mr. Karzai told them that he believed the Taliban were not responsible. “The president did [...]

An anonymous attendee of Central Command’s Af-Pak conference penned a post Andrew Exum’s Abu Muqawama arguing that the experts who have advised on our Afghanistan strategy over the years aren’t worthy of the name. The conference was structured in a way that prevented it from generating the analysis that ISAF so badly needs. The structure [...]

Dave, James, and Alex all did an excellent job this morning of laying out the various problems with America’s current strategy in Afghanistan. I don’t have much to add to their points, but I do think its worth taking note of a new Rasmussen poll that shows that public support for the Afghan War is [...]

Honestly, I don’t know what to add to Dave’s and James’ takes on the current situation in Afghanistan. Like James, I supported the initial invasion of Afghanistan and was also surprised at how quickly the Taliban fell and al-Qaeda dispersed. But now, eight and a half years later, I too have to question the wisdom [...]

Unlike Dave, I supported the invasion of Afghanistan as a response demanded by the 9/11 attacks, which had been perpetrated by al Qaeda under the auspices of the Taliban government, which had been giving them aid and comfort.   Indeed, I was outraged that the Bush Administration waited several days; I’d have ordered strikes immediately. My [...]

As I’ve observed here before I opposed the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 largely on prudential grounds and because I foresaw a situation not unlike the one we face now: the difficulty of achieving and maintaining a worthwhile objective by invading at a cost and in a timeframe that the American people will accept. Along [...]

Yesterday President Obama addressed the graduating cadets at West Point. The full transcript is here. As was proper and should have been expected, Afghanistan occupied a prominent place in the speech: This is the ninth consecutive commencement that has taken place at West Point with our nation at war. This time of war began in [...]

Earlier this week, the Afghan War, already the longest conflict in American history, reached another grim milestone: On Tuesday, the toll of American dead in Afghanistan passed 1,000, after a suicide bomb in Kabul killed at least five United States service members. Having taken nearly seven years to reach the first 500 dead, the war [...]

To build on my recent post on the drug war (as well as to a broader enterprise on this subject), I took a look at the 2009 World Drug Report to check out the stats on the street price of cocaine.  This is a key metric, as one of the stated goals of US anti-drug [...]

The other day I noticed that novelist Brad Thor reported the one of the world’s most wanted men, Mullah Mohammed Omar had been captured.  I ignored said news (as did, it seemed, most of the Blogosphere and all of the MSM).  After all, he’s a novelist and he writes for Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government, which [...]

I’ve been stewing about this post for some time. Try as I might I can’t come up with a comprehensible explanation of our Afghanistan policy as a policy. George Will’s most recent column is as good a place to start as any in thinking about this: The ticking clock does not disturb the preternatural serenity [...]

When I saw the Washington Times headline “Obama skips Polish funeral, heads to golf course” via Memeorandum, I had to laugh. After all, Obama was unable to fly to Europe because of the massive volcano ash cloud that has grounded flights across the continent. But, to his credit, Joseph Curl acknowledges that in the first [...]

Terry Lakin, the army lieutenant colonel who refuses to deploy to Afghanistan on account of President Obama not really being an American and thus not authorized to make him will instead be deployed to Fort Leavenworth as a private. U.S. military officials tell NBC News that the U.S. Army will court martial a lieutenant colonel [...]

Kyrgyzstan’s capital is under siege in a brutal riot that appears to have ousted Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the brutal leader who himself came to power in the Tulip Revolution. Obviously, it’s a breaking news story but I’m keeping up with it as best I can at New Atlanticist: ”Kyrgyzstan Revolution Topples Government.” Oh, and if your reaction [...]

A disturbing video which seems to show American soldiers shooting unarmed civilians just for fun is making the rounds. CSM’s Dan Murphy has the backstory: A video released on the Internet Monday by WikiLeaks, a small nonprofit dedicated to publishing classified information from the US and other governments, appears to show the killing of two [...]

The next episode of OTB Radio, our BlogTalkRadio program, will record and air live from 5:30-6:30 Eastern. Dave Schuler and I will be joined by special guest Pat Lang of Sic Semper Tyrannis to discuss the Baradar capture, the state of the war in Afghanistan, the US-Pakistani relationship, and the unfolding Iran story are all [...]

Here’s some good news from the Afghanistan front: The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials. The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban [...]

My colleague Dave Schuler, writing at his own digs, explains why he’s “discouraged” by the news of the day, both foreign and domestic. Healthcare reform. As I commented not long ago over at OTB I wouldn’t oppose a single-payer system in the U. S. if (and only if) it were accompanied by measures that would [...]

Charlie Wilson, the Congressman who became decidedly more famous in retirement than he ever was during his career, has died. Charlie Wilson, the former U.S. congressman from Texas whose funding of Afghanistan’s resistance to the Soviet Union was chronicled in the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War,” has died. He was 76. Wilson died Wednesday at Memorial [...]

Eric Robinson, a Yale IR grad student and veteran of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, doesn’t give a hoot about what Sarah Palin had written on her hand at her Tea Party Convention speech. He is, however, concerned about what was on her wrist. I hadn’t noticed it until I watched MSNBC’s “Hardball” on [...]

Responding to my post on the Pentagon’s findings that Fort Hood shooter Hasan’s supervisors didn’t do their job, Bernard Finel observes: A major challenge, though, is that there is a strong element of “social promotion” nowadays. Whereas promotion to O-4 (Major) used to be in the 80% range, now over 95% of eligible O-3s get [...]

A recent ABC-BBC-ARD survey of Afghanistan has both given hopes to those who support NATO’s mission in Afghanistan and created a backlash among doubters. The news in the poll was astoundingly good, with the trends for almost every issue pointing in the right direction and, in some cases, rocketing in that direction.  But, how seriously [...]

The Obama administration has announced that citizens traveling to the United States from 14 countries will undergo more intensive airport security screening.   Eric Lipton for NYT: Citizens of 14 nations, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, who are flying to the United States will be subjected indefinitely to the intense screening at airports worldwide that [...]

Politico‘s Josh Gernstein notes that revelations of Yemen’s connection to the failed Detroit terror plot will further complicate President Obama’s plans to move prisoners from the prison at Guantanamo Bay. “I’d expect Yemen’s handling of returned Guantanamo detainees to come under intense U.S. scrutiny,” said Matthew Waxman, a Columbia law professor who was an assistant [...]

An air strike in Yemen may have killed the top leaders of al Qaead’s branch in that country, along with an American-born cleric linked to the Fort Hood massacre. A Yemeni air raid may have killed the top two leaders of al Qaeda’s regional branch on Thursday, and an American Muslim preacher linked to the [...]

Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies PhD candidate Christian Bleuer offers up “29 Tips for Bad Writing on Afghanistan.” Among my favorites: 2. Make a gross generalizations about Afghans based on a single Afghan you met (a far too small sample size will also suffice). 8. Use exoticisms that make you sound really informed. Something [...]

Are you a terrorist who would like to blow up an airliner but confused about how best to elude screening?  Well, luckily for you, the Transportation Security Administration has published a How To manual to answer all your questions. In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inadvertently posted online its airport screening [...]

Big features on the decision-making process behind the newest new Afghanistan strategy in both NYT (“How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan “) and WaPo (“Obama pressed for faster surge“) paint a flattering picture of a commander-in-chief taking control of the process. Peter Baker sets the stage by noting the factors weighing on [...]

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has announced that NATO members will deploy an additional 7,000 troops to Afghanistan: Twenty-five countries have announced that they will deploy additional troops next year, and more contributions are expected “during the coming weeks and months,” said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. However, officials were still trying to [...]

There is a growing pocket of Republican skeptics of the war in Afghanistan, Reihan Salam contends, and they could cause serious problems for President Obama.  Alas, his argument is short on examples and long on speculation. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican known for his independent streak, has made a conservative case for withdrawal. And [...]

Last fall, a commenter at Dave Schuler’s Glittering Eye blog made an observation to the effect that Barack Obama’s progressive supporters were enthusiastic about him because they believed everything he said whereas the so-called Obamacons assumed he was lying on the matters with which they disagreed. (The original was pithier but, alas, I failed to [...]