A Kabul–based United Nations’s guesthouse is the latest target to be hit by Afghani insurgents. Eight people, including an American, were killed. Three days prior, capital-city Kabul was the scene of a helicopter crash that claimed 14 American lives, in what the Associated Press characterized as “the deadliest day for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan in more than four years.”  A … [Read More]

The Pentagon’s pre-emptive strike came with the leak of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s confidential review of the Afghan war to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. McChrystal’s painting of the military picture was grim. “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months)—while Afghan security capacity matures—risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer … [Read More]

While America was consumed this summer with quarrels over town-hall radicals, “death panels,” the “public option” and racism’s role in the plunging polls of Barack, what happens to health care is not going to change the history of the world. What happens in Afghanistan might. Gen. Stanley McChrystal has done his duty. He has bluntly told his commander in chief what … [Read More]

If the aphorism holds—the guerrilla wins if he does not lose—the Taliban are winning and America is losing the war in Afghanistan. Well into the eighth year of war, the Taliban are more numerous than ever, inflicting more casualties than ever, operating in more provinces than ever and controlling more territory than ever. And their tactics are more sophisticated. Gen. Stanley … [Read More]

A year ago this week, I wrote the following concerning liberal Democrat Joe Lieberman being invited to speak at the 2008 Republican National Convention and conservative Republican Ron Paul being shut out: “If you are pro-gun control, pro-socialized health care, pro-choice, pro-amnesty, all of these liberal positions can be tolerated so long as you are pro-war. If you are a staunch … [Read More]

In those heady days of 2003, when the War Party was really feeling its oats and the neocons, the “warbloggers,” and the television talking heads were triumphantly hailing the invasion of Iraq as an unqualified success, one Iraqi pretty much summed up the Arab response to the “liberation,” as reported by the New York Times: “In the giddy spirit of the … [Read More]

“Taliban Are Winning: U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Warns of Rising Casualties.” Thus ran the startling headline on the front-page of the Wall Street Journal. The lead paragraph ran thus: The Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan, the top American commander there said, forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops … [Read More]