I received a sad missive from a friend who has been working in Kabul as a civilian teacher on behalf of the U.S aid effort on and off for the last 11 years. A staunch believer in the inevitable triumph of democracy over the Taliban and Afghanistan’s brutal warlordism, her hope, it would seem, is [...]
Yesterday would have been uber-diplomat Richard Holbrooke’s 72nd birthday. He died December 13, 2010 while on the job as our top envoy to Afghanistan, and one can’t help thinking that whatever 1960′s idealism still existed in terms of making that country a better place, died with him. At least symbolically. That is not to say [...]
Photographer and antiwar activist Jayel Aharem quipped on twitter, “‘Yesterday in San Diego, we chanted “B.A.R.A.C.K. how many kids did you kill today?’ Turns out it was 11 http://is.gd/9pCMZA.” Antiwar.com’s Jason Ditz delivers the punch line.
The Battle of Waterloo was a decisive defeat for the Emperor Napoleon: his losses forced his abdication, restored King Louis XVIII to France’s throne, and sent the former emperor away for the rest of his days in exile on the isle of Saint Helena. In other words, it destroyed him. From then on, meeting one’s [...]
Let’s hope that newly minted Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel will live up to some of our expectations and not be afraid to tell it like it is. Let’s start with Afghanistan. We just found out today that an alleged data entry glitch in the Pentagon program that spits out regular assessments like the number [...]
This week Marine Corps General John Allen joined a long and lamentable list of American leaders who have succumbed to the ancient affliction that conventional rhetoric has deemed the “graveyard of empires.” He is not the first, but given that the United States seems to be on a real trajectory — finally — for an [...]
