In a Rose Garden news conference today, President Bush said he hopes to be able to shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan by the end of this year. While there’s nowhere near a guarantee that Iraq will be stable enough for this kind of redeployment, the move would likely cause some tension amongst Democrats running [...]

Given our lack of attention to this region, is it much of a surprise that the former regime is getting stronger?
A new Pentagon report says the Taliban has regrouped after its initial fall from power in Afghanistan. The new report offers a rather dim view of progress in the nearly 7-year-old war, declaring that the [...]

Maybe…
From NY Times:
Mr. Obama, who spoke to the Iraqi foreign minister [Hoshyar Zebari] by telephone this morning, said he was “encouraged” by the reductions in violence in Iraq. But he said the United States still must begin gradually withdrawing troops, at a pace of one to two brigades a month, with a goal of [...]

And considering we have about 26,000 troops in Afghanistan, the overall percentage proves that Afghanistan has been a much, much deadlier place for quite some time.
Not surprisingly, I found this news in a story about an attack by the Taliban that freed hundreds of inmates from an Afghan prison:
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - U.S. and NATO troops [...]

This is very good news, but what about the billions we continue to spend over there with no discernible gain? Remember, lowered troop deaths doesn’t mean political progress, it just means there’s more security and fewer families devastated stateside.
From Reuters:
U.S. troop deaths in Iraq fell to their lowest level last month since the 2003 invasion [...]

The title says it all.
USA Today has the details:
More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.
This reliance on troops found medically “non-deployable” is another sign of stress placed on a military that has [...]

Some sobering news about how many of our young men and women are dying from wounds they suffered on the battlefield that nobody could see until it’s too late.
From Bloomberg:
The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. [...]

From the AP:
The killings of three U.S. soldiers in separate attacks in Baghdad pushed the American death toll for April up to 47, making it the deadliest month since September.
One soldier died when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb. The other died of wounds sustained when he was attacked by small-arms fire, the [...]

I saw this in the comments from my post today, Nearly 1 In 5 Soldiers Have PTSD:
I’m the Vet who contacted Carissa Piccard and Liz Dozier at CBS. Jonathan & I talked for over an hour today. He agrees that both Carissa & Liz totally rock. So do I - in spades. Jonathan is still [...]

From AP:
A recently completed survey showed 18.5% — or 300,000 people — said they have symptoms of depression or PTSD, the researchers said. Nineteen% — or 320,000 — suffered head injuries ranging from mild concussions to penetrating head wounds. [...]
The 500-page study is the first large-scale, private assessment of its kind — including a survey [...]

An interesting moment from yesterday’s testimony with Biden, Petraeus and Crocker.

And while some on the left and the right have been trying to make hay out of this, the segment does have my wondering why, if our highest priority targets are in Afghanistan, that we’re not trying to destroy them.
I understand we think we [...]

In early September, 2006, I wrote a piece at my own blog, and here at Donklephant, (more here) asking whether we had just lost a war. Afghanistan was the subject, and sadly, I think I was pretty close to right. The attempt by Musharraf to compromise with the Taliban and their allies in the tribal [...]

“I must say, I’m a little envious.[...] If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.”
- President Bush, talking to soldiers in Afghanistan on a video conference call yesterday
Coming from a different President this [...]

Do any of you remember this moment in the debate last night?

A LOT has been made about this on the right wing blogs today about. I think this is mainly because many right wing blogs fancy themselves experts in anything that has to do with the military. So here’s a taste of the experts…
Flopping [...]

It’s amazing how little we hear about Afghanistan these days.
Now I find this tragic story about the mentally ill in the war torn country. Some are actually kept in chains. Devastating stuff.

The New York Times on Al Qaeda’s resurgence:
Al Qaeda’s comeback didn’t have to happen. And it must not be allowed to continue. The new Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan do not operate with the blessing of the Pakistani government. But Pakistan’s military dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has not tried very hard to drive them out. In [...]

The question I asked on September 6 was Did We Just Lose?
Now right-wing pundit Tony Blankley essentially agrees with that headline and leads me to a question for which I have, unfortunately, a ready answer.
With little reporting, and almost without media or governmental comment, the United States has suffered a substantial defeat in the war [...]

A couple months after we invaded Iraq I was in a cafe in Paris talking politics. Guy I was talking to was a very pro-American French lawyer. He considered the US his second home. He got off a funny, self-deprecating line about the irrelevance of French reaction. “What difference does it make? We are a [...]

So the guy sets his house on fire and as his wife and kids are running around in circles, panicked, screaming, “what should we do, what should we do?” the man looks at his wife and says, “You figure it out. Do I have to do everything around this place?”
There are loud demands for Democrats [...]

I wake up to this heads-up from The Walrus Said:
Bigger than 9/11
This is the kind of attack Al-Qaeda is threatening against the US, warning all American Muslims to flee New York and Washington.
From an interview with Abu Dawood, the newly appointed commander of the al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan, by journalist Hamid Mir.
It is headlined:
Exclusive [...]