I advocate all the time for talking as a means of resolving conflicts. Somehow this has become a somewhat radical idea, but like Roosevelt and Reagan I believe that we can talk with people even in the midst of conflict.

Talks encounter all kinds of hurdles. But that doesn't make it a bad idea to talk. When talks break down, the pessimists - and the hawks - will be quick to gloat over that fact, arguing that it reinforces the need for heavy-handed military solutions. And when that happens, sane people should remind everyone that shutting down channels of communication rarely works.

With that said, recent talks between Pakistan's civilian government and hardline pro-Taliban elements are breaking down. About a week and a half ago, the Taliban decided to suspend talks, citing the government's continued military presence in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan as an obstacle to an agreement, despite the fact that all parties seemed interested in the draft proposal that was then on the table.

NATO deserves attention both in terms of its current activities in Afghanistan and because of the current debates revolving around NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia. NATO’s quest for a new identity since the end of the Cold War has rightly resulted in much debate about the utility of the Alliance in a world with contemporary threats that can no longer be defined by East and West. Several articles published recently at the Atlantic Community provide an excellent framework for anchoring discussions around NATO.

Andre Kelleners, a member of the Atlantic Community, argues that rather than sidelining Russia, NATO membership states should consult with Russia to determine a common understanding of NATO’s role. It makes sense, he contends, for Partnership-for-Peace countries to eventually join the alliance as full members, but only together with and at the same time as Russia. It is in all parties’ best interest for NATO and Russia to share the same vision.

Andreas Umland of the National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, continued the debate about when and how to offer a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Ukraine. He highlighted the February 2008 statistics which revealed that a staggering 53% of Ukraine’s population were against NATO membership and only 21% in favor. He blames NATO rather than Germany for this statistic, saying that NATO “has done too little too late in terms of explaining to Ukrainians what NATO is about. Instead, Ukraine's political and public discourse remains corrupted by Soviet legacies.”

Timo Noetzel and Benjamin Schreer of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin focus the discussion around NATO on the difficulties which NATO is currently facing in Afghanistan and argue that the chances are high that the Alliance will fail. NATO, they contend, is both politically and militarily ill-prepared to execute the required counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan. An Afghan disaster might not be a death sentence for the Alliance, but would certainly have major repercussions.

May 2

BBC - A cameraman from the al-Jazeera television station, freed from US detention in Guantanamo Bay, has arrived home in Sudan.

Sami al-Hajj had been in US custody for more than six years. He was detained in Afghanistan in 2001.

He arrived in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on a US military plane in the early hours of Friday morning.

After a 16-month hunger strike, Mr Hajj grimaced as he was carried off the plane by US military personnel.

"I have been so overwhelmed with happiness that I've been in tears," he said shortly after his arrival.

"I have every right to cry after I've survived these seven horrid years of humiliation, repression and injustice for no fault on my part apart from being a Muslim."

GRAEME SMITH | KHENJAKAK, AFGHANISTAN | May 1, 2008 at 2:00

From Thursday's Globe and Mail -
Canada reaches out to Taliban
After years of refusing to negotiate with insurgents, soldiers in Kandahar put word out they want to talk

KHENJAKAK, AFGHANISTAN — Canadian troops are reaching out to the Taliban for the first time, military and diplomatic officials say, as Canada softens its ban on speaking with the insurgents.

After years of rejecting any contact with the insurgents, Canadian officials say those involved with the mission are now rethinking the policy in hopes of helping peace efforts led by the Afghan government.

The Canadian work on political solutions follows two separate tracks: tactical discussions at a local level in Kandahar, and strategic talks through the Kabul government and its allies. Neither type of negotiation appears to have made progress so far, though efforts are still in the early stages.

Thomas H. Maugh II | Bamian, Afghanistan | April 26

LAT - The technique of painting in oils was developed in Asia as long as 800 years before it appeared in Europe, according to a new analysis of murals found inside caves at Bamian in Afghanistan.

Bamian became notorious when the Taliban blew up two colossal statues of Buddha there in 2001. The Taliban -- whose strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, forbids representational art -- also damaged ancient murals in many caves in the region.

In Afghanistan, endemic violence continues to demonstrate how the American mission has faltered in achieving its objectives there. Across the border in Pakistan, violence is also claiming lives. At the same time, though, the Pakistani government is tentatively pursuing new approaches to dealing with militants.

Afghanistan

Today the world was shocked to learn of a Taliban attack on a military parade in Kabul attended by President Hamid Karzai. Karzai was unhurt, but two citizens were killed and eleven others wounded. The Taliban claimed that they were not trying to kill Karzai, but merely "wanted to show how easily they could get access to such events." Whether or not this statement represents their real intentions (I suspect it was a failed assassination attempt), the ease with which they got close enough to kill has revealed the weakness of the government's security forces.

Team Agonist

Iraq's simmering ethnic war over Kirkuk
Kirkuk has been the object of a bitter struggle over the past five years among Iraq's competing ethnic and sectarian groups. And now Arab, Kurd, and Turkmen factions seem to be digging in, anticipating that tensions may erupt in an area that is the center of northern Iraq's oil industry ahead of a promised referendum on the fate of Kirkuk Province, officially still called Tamim, its previous Baath Party-era name.

Article 140 of Iraq's Constitution was supposed to resolve the issue by the end of 2007 but the deadline for a vote has been extended to the end of June in the hopes that the United Nations may be able to broker a solution by then.

Iraqis see red as U.S. opens world's biggest embassy
"Saddam had his big castles; they symbolized his power and were places to be feared, and now we have the castle of the power that toppled him," says Abdul Jabbar Ahmed, a vice dean for political sciences at Baghdad University. "If I am the ambassador of the USA here I would say, 'Build something smaller that doesn't stand out so much, it's too important that we avoid these negative impressions.' "

New Jobs Set for 2 Generals With Iraq Role
Under a plan announced at the Pentagon on Wednesday, the two commanders most closely associated with President Bush’s current strategy in Iraq would be elevated into new posts with responsibilities extending into the next administration over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Previous Updates after the jump. Please post new stories and comments about the coalition's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on this thread. (Prior weeks' Updates here).

By Bob Geiger

Citing "the Bush administration's failure to take aggressive action to enforce and punish wartime fraud," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) on Friday introduced legislation to crack down on the massive fraud and theft by some defense contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan and allow the government to criminally prosecute guilty parties even after the war is over.

S. 2892, the Wartime Enforcement of Fraud Act of 2008, would close a loophole in the 66-year-old Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act, that allowed the government to investigate and prosecute contracting fraud up to three years after the end of a war, but that does not apply to the current Bush-McCain war in Iraq because it was never formally declared.

Inal Ersan | Dubai | April 19

Reuters - Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, who went missing in February in the Khyber region, appeared on Arabic television on Saturday saying he was being held by the Taliban and urged Islamabad to meet their demands.

Ambassador Tariq Azizuddin appeared in a video tape on Al Arabiya television surrounded by armed militants to make his first public statement since going missing.

"We were kidnapped by mujahideen from the Taliban," the ambassador, wearing an open-necked shirt and looking calm, said in the remarks which were translated from Urdu into Arabic.

OpEd News Apr 16, 2008

Bush Defense Secretary Admits 9/11 Was Blowback
by Don Williams  

You won’t find the above headline anywhere else. Believe me, I've tried. Still, it's true. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 10, 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made the following jaw-dropping statement: “We were attacked from Afghanistan in 2001, and we are at war in Afghanistan today, in no small measure because of mistakes this government made--mistakes I among others made in the end game of the anti-Soviet war there some 20 years ago. ”

This has been coming for a long time. I’ve been watching the politicians in Washington very closely to see exactly how they intended to manage an administration that is so extremely neo-conservative that they are dangerous to this country and the world. I’ve seen heroic stances by some like Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Patrick Leahy, Russ Feingold and even Ron Paul. However, this is not enough. We’ve seen Cynthia McKinney disenfranchised as well as others that have stood up to tyranny and war. Meanwhile, while all of this has taken place, the Democratic Party has been split down the middle and has offered no protection or support to any that oppose the horrendous regime in Washington.

The current political battles between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are much ado about nothing. The remark that Obama made about the American Middle class was nothing to be trivialized by Clinton and McCain. What these two politicians have done is to silence a voice that speaks volumes to the middle class and the way that they truly feel. Of course Clinton and McCain would know nothing about how we really feel, because the only time that they get to talk with us is between speech stumps in various States that they haven’t a clue what really drives people there. The information that they go on is from political fact-checkers and input from party lackeys on the ground there. The last time Hillary Clinton actually faced average middle-class Americans was the last time she was speaking at them, not to them.

Lahore | April 13

Daily Times - * US president says terror plans in Afghanistan would be routed out with firepower
* Says US has no intention of attacking Iran

If another September-11 style attack is being planned, it probably is being plotted in Pakistan and not Afghanistan, the AP news agency quoted US President George Bush as saying on Saturday.

In an interview with a US TV channel, Bush said if terrorists planning such attacks were in Afghanistan, they would be routed out. “We’ve got plenty of firepower to take on Al Qaeda cells in Afghanistan,” he said, although more US and NATO troops are headed to Afghanistan.

Team Agonist

President George W. Bush today will announce a reduction in Army combat tours to 12 months from the current 15 months and accept General David Petraeus's plan to suspend further force reductions. Bloomberg

April 10

The Taliban talk the talk

Another spring, another promised Taliban offensive in Afghanistan. This time it will be different, claim the Taliban, bolstered by hard-nosed tacticians and seasoned fighters who have honed their skills in Kashmir and the Pakistani tribal areas. Coalition forces in Afghanistan, while concerned over disruptions to their supply lines, are unmoved: bring them on, they say.

Carryings on up the Khyber

The Taliban have identified the town of Torkham, at the Afghanistan end of the fabled Khyber Pass, as a crucial weak point in the supply lines that maintain the international military presence in Afghanistan. Significantly, the first in a planned series of six joint intelligence centers along the border has been opened at Torkham, in what the US describes as "a giant step forward". If only Pakistan would play along.

Colonel 9th of his rank to be killed in Iraq

Family members are mourning an Army colonel who had worked at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama and who is only the ninth solider of his rank to have been killed in the Iraq war.

Col. Stephen Scott died Sunday during a mortar attack on facilities inside the protected Green Zone in Baghdad, which houses the U.S. Embassy. An avid jogger, the 54-year-old Scott was killed as he exercised on a treadmill in a U.S. military facility, according to his sister, Kathleen King.

** Army, Marine brass say readiness a concern
** The surge is working, just ask the Pale Horse
** Three die in Mosul car blasts
** Curfews, Clashes, Protests and Mortars ~ Juan Cole
** New rules for military on running for office
** Iraq: 5 more U.S. soldiers killed; civilian death toll rising

Previous Updates after the jump. Please post new stories and comments about the coalition's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on this thread. (Prior weeks' Updates here).

Despite a certain reshuffling of NATO troop commitments, with France, Georgia, Poland, and other countries contributing around 2,000 soldiers total, and the US promising an unspecified contribution for 2009, the NATO effort in Afghanistan still suffers from fatal strategic flaws.

What the International Crisis Group said in February remains true:

Afghanistan is not lost but the signs are not good. Its growing insurgency reflects a collective failure to tackle the root causes of violence. Six years after the Taliban’s ouster, the international community lacks a common diagnosis of what is needed to stabilise the country as well as a common set of objectives. Long-term improvement of institutions is vital for both state building and counter-insurgency, but without a more strategic approach, the increased attention and resources now directed at quelling the conflict could even prove counterproductive by furthering a tendency to seek quick fixes. Growing tensions over burden sharing risk undermining the very foundations of multilateralism, including NATO’s future.

A Canadian general underlines the need for comprehensive strategies, not "winning":

"I never use the term winning because it too simplistic and does not relate to what we are doing here," Maj.-Gen. Marc Lessard said in his first formal interview since assuming command of NATO's Regional Command South in January.

"The question really is, 'Are we making progress: Yes or no?' The fact is that I think we are making significant progress."

[snip]

"A lot of people talk, 'We need more troops, more troops.' I think it is more about better synchronization between security, development and governance in terms of a comprehensive plan for Afghanistan."

Of course, many people agree that we need to develop more effective strategies. The main disagreements relate to how we can do this.

In my view, there are two main areas where we could do a better job: reducing civilian casualties and increasing the effectiveness of aid. Sadly, we're failing on both.

KILLING CIVILIANS

Some argue that civilian deaths are an inevitable byproduct of modern warfare. Indeed, observers have noted that wars have tended to inflict more civilian casualties as technology advances and the area of potential battle zones widens. But the civilian death toll in Afghanistan is unnecessarily high, as evidenced by disparities in the casualties America inflicts and those our allies inflict, even when the intensity of the fighting is comparable. Another piece of evidence is the condemnation of international bodies, who after careful scrutiny have deemed that our behavior exceeds reasonable standards.

So as yet another investigation into civilian deaths caused by American forces begins, we have to ask ourselves what we might be doing wrong. Aside from the obvious questions regarding the use of cluster bombs and the general indifference to civilian casualties that men such as Bush, Cheney, and Rumself have displayed, there is also the issue of our short-sightedness. We learn from the BBC (see link above) that the 33 civilians who were (it seems) killed in the strike in question were in the wrong place at the wrong time: close to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Islamic warlord who "has long been a thorn in the coalition's side."

That's true, of course. But before his long career as a thorn, he was our friend - and as we do with all our friends, we gave him money and guns:

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Hekmatyar received millions of dollars from the CIA through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). According to some, ISI's decision to allocate the highest percentage of covert aid to Hekmatyar was based on his record as an effective anti-Soviet military commander in Afghanistan.[6] Others describe his position as the result of having "almost no grassroots support and no military base inside Afghanistan," and thus being the much more "dependent on Pakistani President Zia-ul-Haq's protection and financial largess" than other mujahideen factions.

Hekmatyar has been harshly criticized for his behavior during the Soviet and civil war.

"Harshly criticized?" If I recall correctly, in Good Muslim, Bad Muslim Mahmood Mamdani says that Hekmatyar was one of those charming fellows who used to throw acid on women's uncovered faces in Kabul during the 80s. This guy Hekmatyar, never a real friend of the Taliban during the 90s, served a stint as prime minister in the early 90s before they ran him out of the capital.

It would be nice if more of this background was mentioned when we hear about dozens of civilian deaths connected to an attack on a man referred to simply as a dangerous warlord by the mainstream media. Because if we talked more about why people like Hekmatyar turned from friends to foes, we might have to interrogate the logic that ignores all the consequences of our actions. Is it outside the realm of possibility that just as our actions in the past caused some of our problems in the present, our actions in the present - such as murdering and alienating significant portions of the Afghan populace - might come back to haunt us in the future?

I'm not saying we should make nice with thugs like Hekmatyar. But I sure wish we would focus more on "tackling the root causes of violence," as ICG suggested, rather than producing more violence. Because until we can undercut the support that warlords have - support that comes from poppies, political instability, the proliferation of small arms, government corruption, and all the other problems we aren't solving - there will be no shortage of new thugs to take Hekmatyar's place once we do kill him. Violence on its own, in other words, cannot solve the problems represented by someone like Hekmatyar. We have to focus on structural solutions as well.

Which brings me to the second glaringly obvious problem in Afghanistan: the failure of "nationbuilding."

AID

Al Jazeera brings us a frustrating but unsurprising report on what our tax dollars in Afghanistan actually go towards:

Afghanistan is highly dependent on foreign aid, but a new study says that much of it is being wasted.

The Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an alliance of 94 international aid agencies, said in a report on Tuesday that a vast amount is spent on expatriate staff's high salaries, security and living arrangements.

Since 2001, 40 per cent of Western aid worth $15 billion have been spent on projects that return money to donor nations through fees to contractors and salaries to employees from those countries.

The study says that Afghanistan's biggest donor, USAID, allocates close to half of its funds to five large US contractors and that "it is clear that substantial amounts of aid continue to be absorbed in corporate profits."

The five companies are KBR, the Louis Berger Group, Chemonics International, Bearing Point and Dyncorp International, the report said.

The report, which was written by Oxfam, a British charity, said the cost of a full-time expatriate consultant working in Afghanistan is around $250,000. It is some 200 times the average annual salary of an Afghan civil servant, who is paid less than $1,000 per year.

The report also notes that more aid is going to urban than rural areas, despite the fact that most Afghans live in villages - and the fact that the Taliban's support is especially strong in some rural areas. Put together the rural population being left out in the cold, and their suffering as "collateral damage" in our attempts to root out the Taliban through force alone, and it's no wonder we're failing to "win hearts and minds."

Think of everything we could do with those $250,000 salaries, and you may start to agree with ICG that all is far from lost in Afghanistan. Wells, roads, clinics, farming machines, clothing, farm subsidies, buses, microcredit, job training...the possibilities are there, and if any population in the world needs our help it is Afghanistan's.

And of course, with Afghanistan's government reputedly more corrupt than the Taliban, ordinary people are going to look to either us or our enemies to provide them with security, justice, and assistance. Again, as ICG said, it comes down to institution-building. If we succeed in that, we have a foundation on which to build some success. If not, we can achieve as many military victories as we like, and then watch them slip through our fingers like so many grains of sand. Don't believe me? I'll ask you in another six and a half years, then.

****

Bucharest, Romania | April 4

NZ Herald - Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has failed in his bid get NATO allies to take immediate action to destroy Afghanistan's drug crops, and the funds they provide for the Taliban.

And the summit of NATO members and other coalition partners in Afghanistan appear to have fallen short of their target of getting an additional 10,000 forces into the war zone.

So far, France has made the biggest extra commitment of up to 1000 troops for eastern Afghanistan, adding to the 1600 already in the field.

The French forces will free up United States capacity which will now move to the south to work with the Canadians who had been threatening to withdraw their soldiers without additional support.

I am concerned that progressives and Democratic candidates who base their arguments for withdrawal from Iraq on the idea that we have to focus on the "real fight" in Afghanistan (and, in some formulations, Pakistan) are playing a dangerous game.

The argument is tempting. Republicans have not only utterly botched the running of our government, they've started to lose credibility on their perennial rhetorical strengths: "fiscal conservatism" (whatever that means) and national security, among others. Progressives rightly recognize their opportunity to step in and beat conservatives on their own turf. Just like we can show that we're better with money than they are, we can show that we can manage the military more effectively.

Team Agonist

MARCH 29

U.S. Airstrikes Aid Iraqi Army in Basra Siege

The American military conducted airstrikes Thursday and Friday to back up stalled Iraqi forces in Basra and battle Shiite militias in Baghdad as continued violence and political infighting worsened the prospects for any timely reconciliation among Iraq’s warring factions.

Although American officials have emphasized that the campaign in the southern port city of Basra is directed by Iraqi forces, the Iraqis have failed so far to wrest control of neighborhoods in Basra from Shiite militias and asked the Americans and British to step in.

** More on the hell that is Iraq at Informed Comment/Juan Cole
** Iraq’s leader softens ultimatum to disarm as Shiite militias stand ground in Basra
** U.S. Has Little Influence, Few Options in Iraq's Volatile South
** Look to Basra for signs of where Iraq is headed
** US Mid-East commander is replaced

Deadly blast in south Afghanistan

A bomb explosion near a power plant in southern Afghanistan has killed two employees, police say.

Helmand province police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said six people had been hurt in the blast in the Gereshk district of the troubled region.

He told AFP news agency that the remote-controlled device was apparently hidden near the wall of the plant.

Previous Updates after the jump. Please post new stories and comments about the coalition's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on this thread. (Prior weeks' Updates here).

Team Agonist

Across Iraq, battles erupt with Mahdi Army

The Mahdi Army's seven-month-long cease-fire appears to have come undone.

Rockets fired from the capital's Shiite district of Sadr City slammed into the Green Zone Tuesday, the second time in three days, and firefights erupted around Baghdad pitting government and US forces against the militia allied to the influential Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

At the same time, the oil-export city of Basra became a battleground Tuesday as Iraqi forces, backed by US air power, launched a major crackdown on the Mahdi Army elements. British and US forces were guarding the border with Iran to intercept incoming weapons or fighters, according to a senior security official in Basra.

The US blames the latest attacks on rogue Mahdi Army elements tied to Iran, but analysts say the spike in fighting with Shiite militants potentially opens a second front in the war when the American military is still doing battle with the Sunni extremists of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

"The cease-fire is over; we have been told to fight the Americans," said one Mahdi Army militiaman, who was reached by telephone in Sadr City. This same man, when interviewed in January, had stated that he was abiding by the cease-fire and that he was keeping busy running his cellular phone store.

** The battle for Basra: Iraqis fight Mahdi army as British troops remain at base
** Violence erupts in Basra as Iraqi forces battle Mehdi Army
** Baghdad mortuary sees rise in number of corpses
** Canada:Army begins using $150,000 artillery shells in Afghanistan

Previous Updates after the jump. Please post new stories and comments about the coalition's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on this thread. (Prior weeks' Updates here).

Scott Lindlaw | Guereville, Ca. | March 23

AP - Merry Lane, a cul-de-sac shaded by redwoods in Sonoma County wine country, would seem a pleasant place to recover from the psychic wounds of war. Nadia McCaffrey’s dream is to set up a group home there for veterans plagued by post-traumatic stress disorder.

But she is running into stiff resistance from the neighbors. They not only object to the brand-new structure itself, which looks like a four-story apartment house wedged amid their cabins, they are also worried that deranged veterans will move in.

At a community meeting in December, “one person was concerned that even firecrackers would set these people off,” said Andrew Eckers, 54, who lives across the street.

McCaffrey, whose son was killed in Iraq in 2004, said she has tried to reassure the neighbors, but “they are afraid of it because they don’t want to understand it.”

Team Agonist | Week of March 16

March 22

Coping With Loss, Military Kin Also Struggle With a Windfall

Some relatives of service members killed in war take death benefits as an affront, while others are thrown off balance by a sudden infusion of $500,000.

** How German Intelligence Helped Justify the US Invasion of Iraq
** Travis Pinn and Vincent Emanuele served side by side in Anbar Province. Now civilians again, one just wants the quiet life; the other aspires to help end the war.
** Iraqi Shiites Given Grim Warning
** Families of Iraq Captives Cling to a Grisly Find

Afghan Idol finale, Prophet protests show two faces of Afghanistan

In a well-guarded hotel on top of a high hill, a lively audience of Afghans and American VIPs watched the season finale of Afghanistan's version of "American Idol." Singers performed on a star-shaped stage while cutting-edge graphics flashed in the background.

Meanwhile, only a couple hundred meters (yards) down that hill, thousands of Afghans demonstrated Friday against the publication of Prophet Mohammad drawings in Denmark, yelling "Down with Denmark" and "Death to America."

Richard Holbrooke, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton, was among the VIPs watching the filming of "Afghan Star." But because of the protests outside, he couldn't leave the hotel when he had planned to. He took note of the irony.

"I love it, fabulous. Better than 'American Idol,'" Holbrooke said of the show. "It shows the two Afghanistans. The riots down there and the show up here."

**

Previous Updates after the jump. Please post new stories and comments about the coalition's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on this thread. (Prior weeks' Updates here).

Excuse me if I offend anyone in this article, but I would like to know what happened to the Democratic Party? I always thought of Democrats as those that supported Unions, workers, the middle-class, civil liberties and silly things like that. One thing I was also taught to do was to follow the money when it comes to whom really is supporting who in things such as criminal enterprises and of course, politics. I have been around for a while now, and I believe that I’m just as aware of what’s happening in my own country as anyone else. In fact, I believe that I’m really more aware of what’s happening than most. I am a voracious reader and I have a lot of time on my hands and I actually try to dig behind the rhetoric I hear. What I have found amazes me.

It just goes to show that some people will never “get it”. The Progressive Press has whipped up a cauldron of molten ire against George W. Bush’s statement that the war in Iraq was “worth it”. My God, how could he say such a thing? The Progressive Press remarks; “Doesn’t he know that almost 4,000 Americans and untold Iraqi’s have died in a quagmire? Doesn’t he realize that the cost of this war is in the trillions? Doesn’t he realize that we are no closer to victory than we were five long years ago?”

Sure he does. He just doesn’t really care. He feels that as long as the defense contractors are making windfall profits along with Halliburton and their subsidiary KBR, and are getting gigantic no-bid contracts, and the Federal Reserve pours trillions of dollars at interest into the economy, making the bankers rich, and as long as the oil companies can get their hands on that Iraqi oil, the world is a great place. If you believe that he sees anything as wrong or right, you have a problem with your perception.

Anand Gopal | Kabul | March 18

CSM - Female contestant Lima Sahar caused a nationwide debate about women's roles before being voted off last week.

As millions prepare to cast their ballots Friday in this country's version of "American Idol," known here as "Afghan Star," Fatima Hashemi is still lamenting the loss of her favorite contestant.

"I voted for Lima because she is a woman," she says, referring to Lima Sahar, who was eliminated last week but made headlines by lasting longer than any other female contestant in the program's three-year history. "I tried to convince my friends to vote, too."

The wildly popular show has sparked discussions nationwide about gender and ethnic identity, which observers say mirror debates that mark Afghan society in the post-Taliban era.

The young woman's improbable rise from the deeply conservative Kandahar district to the small screen, where a gauzy, colorful scarf barely hides her hair, has inspired many women here. "To see a woman express herself like this means others can do it, too," Ms. Hashemi says.

Not everyone is thrilled with the show's success. "I condemn this program – Islam does not allow it," says Shamsal Rahman Frotan, associated with the Ulema Council, an influential religious body. "The Koran says that a woman should not even recite prayers with a loud voice."

The Winter Soldier is underway in Washington DC. There, brave Iraq Vets are testifying to criminal acts committed while on duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. These orders came from the top down and the rules of engagement changed from day to day, all outside the scope of International Law. These soldiers and sailors have been vetted and they are speaking “Truth to Power”, something that also happened during 1971 at the First Winter Soldier.

The Seminar is getting huge mainstream media attention, however this is mostly International attention, the US media doesn’t seem at all interested in reporting on this, which is par for the course. The facts are that the Iraq War has only 1% of the coverage of the MSM. This is different than the pre-surge level of 15%. It seems as if the perception in this country is that the US has “turned the corner” in Iraq. This is the farthest thing from the truth. This week alone was one of the most violent weeks since before the surge. 12 US soldiers were killed last week alone.