Outside the Beltway

Ten years ago tomorrow, President Bush announced that “the United States military has begun strikes against al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.”

Giving the President the unchecked power to kill American citizens raises some serious red flags.

The U.S. War in Afghanistan sounds disturbingly similar to the Soviet one.

Measuring our progress a decade after the 9/11 attacks

Killing’s our business and business is good.

What are the contours of “mainstream” religious thought in today’s America?

The U.S may be on the verge of committing the next decade to the future of Afghanistan.

Honoring the fallen by ensuring that the didn’t die in vain is a recipe for getting more good men killed.

A disastrous day for American troops in Afghanistan.

Freshman GOP Representative Allen West is a loose cannon and unfit for office.

Our good ally Pakistan has publicly ordered us to leave a base used for “covert” CIA drone attacks.

Last night, the President basically announced that America’s longest war had entered it’s end game.

President Obama is expected to announce the withdrawal of the 30,000 Surge troops.

Contrary to what Senator McCain, seeking realism in military policy does not make one an isolationist.

The ISI appears to have shown a special interest in informants that helped the CIA find bin Laden.

Allen West says Congressmen who oppose the war in Afghanistan should go over and “get shot at a few times and maybe they’d have a different opinion.”

While President Obama has had some amusing gaffes on his trip to London, including getting the year wrong in the guest book and an awkward toast to the Queen, his speech to Parliament today hit all the right notes.

Frank R. Lindh, father of Abu Sulayman al-Irlandi (aka Sulayman al-Faris, Abdul Hamid, and John Walker Lindh) has an op-ed in the NYT asking “Bin Laden’s Gone. Can My Son Come Home?” The answer is, sure: In another 8 to 11 years.

The myth that the U.S. armed and trained Osama bin Laden in the early 80’s is rearing its ugly head again.

Changing our relationship status to Complicated.

And when did it know it?

The law of war is not fully clear when applied to modern conflicts.

The only people responsible for the murders in Afghanistan are the people who committed them, but the demagogues like Terry Jones deserve condemnation as well.

Todays’ horrific attack on the UN complex in Mazar-i Sharif may well the the Tet Offensive of Afghanistan: a relatively minor event that permanently changed the American public’s view of the war.

The groups we supported were defeated by the Taliban in the civil war that followed Soviet withdrawal. The Taliban and Usama bin Laden were supported by the separate “Sayyaf” group of Mujahideen supported by Saudi Arabia and Deobandi fanatics in Pakistan.

The antiwar movement has been strangely silent despite the fact that U.S. foreign policy hasn’t really changed that much since Barack Obama became President.

Another survey shows that Americans don’t know much about their own history, but does it really matter?

New York Times journalists Anthony Shadid, Stephen Farrell, Tyler Hicks, and Lynsey Addario have not been heard from in more than 24 hours.

Public support for the war in Afghanistan continues to plummet, but will that hurt the President when 2012 rolls around?

Nine years into a war that seems to be without end, it’s time to declare victory and go home.