Asia

In honor of Tuesday’s major donor’s conference in Afghanistan, Informed Comment is beginning a series of reposts of the classic six-part documentary, Rethink Afghanistan by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films. As the war grinds on, the questions the series raised are crucial to informed public discussion, and it is worth watching it again, or […]

Afghanistan

Advice for General Petraeus on the Rules of Engagement:
It’s Neither/Nor, Not Either/Or

Juan Cole

Tom Engelhardt, author of the recently-published The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (Haymarket Books, July 2010) and editor of Tomdispatch.com, writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment: Recently, we’ve been flooded with news stories and debate about the “rules of engagement” for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Now-discredited war commander General […]

Afghanistan

NATO Secretly Planning to Leave Afghanistan by 2014;
5 NATO Troops Killed

Juan Cole

The Afghanistan War claimed another 5 NATO troops, it was announced Saturday, two of them American and two British. Taliban blew up the gate of the main prison in Farah Province in Afghanistan, briefly releasing about 20 inmates from captivity. Four were arrested when they were wounded in the bombing, and 7 more were recaptured […]

Afghanistan

8 US Troops Killed in Afghanistan in 24 Hours

Juan Cole

8 American troops have died in Afghanistan in the past 24 hours. One of the operations involved a suicide bombing at the gates of an elite police HQ in Qandahar, followed by an attack with small arms, leaving 3 US troops dead along with an Afghan policeman and 5 civilians. Qandahar is the major southern […]

Afghanistan

Taliban Grant Renegade Afghan Soldier, Killer of 3 British Troops, Asylum

Juan Cole

A soldier in the Afghanistan National Army based in Helmand province, at a joint base with the British 1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles, went berserk on Tuesday and killed three British soldiers, wounding two others. One of the dead was of Nepali heritage, the others were Britons. British military officials speculated that the renegade soldier […]

Afghanistan

6 US Troops Killed in Afghanistan;
Mazar Demonstration says ‘Yankee Go Home’

Juan Cole

Guerrillas killed 5 US Troops in Afghanistan on Saturday, along with a dozen civilians. Another American soldier died in an accidental explosion. Two were killed in the south of the country, a stronghold of the Old Taliban of Mullah Omar. Three were killed in the east, by small arms fire or roadside bombs, in an […]

Pakistan

Taliban Kill 65 in Bomb Blast;
Blackwill Urges Partition

Juan Cole

A suicide bomber on a motorcycle struck at a government office in the Mohmand region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 48 65 and wounding over 100. This is an area where the Pakistani military has fought the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (the Taliban Movement of Pakistan). […]

Afghanistan

Steele blames Obama for Afghanistan, Defends Iraq War

Juan Cole

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele has provoked a furor by remarks he made on President Obama’s Afghanistan policy at a GOP fundraiser in Noank, Ct. (where he mumbled on for all the world like a third-rate lounge lizard at an off-off the Strip Vegas discount casino before an audience mesmerized into zombiehood by its […]

Pakistan

Fundamentalist bombings of Lahore mystical Shrine leave 42 Dead, 175 Wounded

Juan Cole

The FT says that at least two suicide bombers struck at the shrine of medieval Sufi master Datta Ganj Bakhsh (Sayyid Ali Hujwiri), the patron saint of Lahore, on Thursday evening, killing at least 42 and wounding 175. (The death toll will rise since many of the injured are in critical condition). Pakistan’s The News […]