Fixing Afghanistan was a Noble Project that Became a Noble Failure
This was a bad week for Afghanistan optimists. First, the British media leaked a c...
Hamid Karzai
Taliban Openly Rejects Goals of Peace Talks
The Obama administration is continuing to pursue peace talks with the Taliban, even as the Taliban openly rejects the goals of those talks. "With respect to talking to...
Op-eds
Pissing on the Enemy
Some Marines seem to have pissed on the cadavers of some Taliban in Afghanistan. We don’t know when or exactly where. It may well have taken place some time ago; a military friend suggests...
Op-eds
White House Denies Deal to Release Taliban Leader
The Guardian (UK) reported yesterday, citing anonymous sources, that the Obama administrati...
Op-eds
Obama Recruits Qaradawi
The administration is working with a Muslim Brotherhood jurist.
Op-eds
Fantasyland Peace Talks with the Taliban
The Obama administration is still pursuing negotiations with the Taliban, even if it doubts a viable negotiating partner sits across the table. And, as part of this ad hoc diplomatic eff...
Op-eds
Taliban Seek Freedom for Dangerous Guantanamo Detainees
The Obama administration is considering repatriating some Guantanamo detainees to Afghanistan as part of a diplomatic effort to engage the Taliban,...
Op-eds
Obama’s Disarmament Policy: We Go First
While the Obama administration has spent the last three years attempting to take the world down the Road to Zero nuclear weapons, last week the International Atomic Energy Agency released a repor...
Op-eds
A Pattern of Appeasement and Retreat
Take two headlines, one about Iraq, the other about Afghanistan. The Iraqis told us to honor our signed agreement, and pull out all our troops by year’s end. Over in Kabul,...
Op-eds
Ex-Gitmo Detainee Killed in Afghanistan
The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announced today that...
Op-eds
Pawlenty’s Foreign Policy
Is he on the John McCain wing of the Republican party?
Op-eds
While Pakistan Burns
Al Qaeda regroups in the tribal areas, the government falters. What is to be done?
Op-eds
The Gitmo Files: An agent of Iran
A current Guantanamo detainee was an "agent of the Iranian Savama (Ministry of Intelligence and Security)" and "closely associated" with the Taliban, Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG), and al Qaeda,...
Op-eds
‘We Removed the Taliban’?
One aspect of President Obama’s speech last night — part of the “If it’s on my watch I did it, if it’s on Bush’s watch we did it” theme — is partic...
Op-eds
Government Does Not Love You
The worst part about being a prosecutor was the defendants’ kids. Wives and parents would get to me, too, but nothing was worse than the kids — especially the young teenagers, when th...
Op-eds
We’re There to Help
Last week in the northern province of Faryab, two more American soldiers were murdered by one of the police officers they are in Afghanistan to train. As my friend Diana West calculates, that bri...
Op-eds
No More Dhimmitude
As always, Mark leaves nothing left to say regarding Sen. Lindsey Graham — though I am tempted to suggest that maybe the country would have been better off if he hadn’t exercise...
Op-eds
What on Earth are We Doing in Afghanistan?
In my weekend column, I argued that the democracy project has failed in Afghanistan, and that — far from taking the battle to the Taliban and America’s other enemies — our...
Op-eds
Karzai’s ‘Peace Council’ Seeks Release of Taliban Leaders from Gitmo
Ben Farmer of The Daily Telegraph (UK) reports that Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s peace council is going to send a delegation to Guantanamo. The council is requesting the release of about...
Op-eds
The Spooks’ Black Thursday
Bad day for the “Intelligence Community” here in Washington. CIA chief Leon Panetta opined that Mubarak was very likely going to resign in a few hours, while DNI (Director of Na...