A startling new study about U.S. troops serving in Afghanistan shows the lowest morale of the past five years among soldiers fighting there. USA Today reports that less than half of the troops there describe morale as high — a 20 percent drop from 2005. Troops there also report more intense fighting in Afghanistan now than during the …
Afghanistan
Even More SEALs: Navy to Name Warship After SEAL Hero Saturday
SEALs go through their infamous Hell Week during their training, when physical stress amid mental duress and sleep deprivation breaks nearly all strong, smart men. This past week, it seems, we have all been through SEAL Week.
And it’s not over yet: Saturday morning the Navy will christen USS Michael Murphy, a guided-missile …
National Shame: Fighting A War Overseas, Then Fighting For a Job Back Home
Powerful and poignant Time video piece by ace videographer Natasha Del Toro about the veterans coming home from America’s two wars — widely hailed as heroes, and praised for their service and sacrifice — and why they are having such a tough time landing jobs.
“Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have fought in the toughest parts of …
Commando Dogs: Going After bin Laden — And IEDs
The mystery mutt who accompanied the SEALs on their mission to Osama bin Laden’s lair is coming in for a fair amount of attention. After all, people love their dogs, and if one can help take out the world’s most wanted terrorist, all the better. Their noses know: the dog’s keen sense of smell, to sniff out …
The Man Who Got bin Laden: The Most Deadly Would-be Journalist in the World
The man who commanded the SEAL team that hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden studied to be a reporter. If the Pulitzer Prize board establishes a new category — for killing the world’s most wanted terrorist — it’s a safe bet Bill McRaven will win it next spring.
Vice Adm. William McRaven, himself a SEAL, was on the ground in …
Avenging bin Laden’s Death…
…is going to take longer than you might think, according to colleague Bruce Crumley over at Time’s Global Spin.
The Pall of Confusion Surrounding bin Laden’s Death
Even when the U.S. government feels like bragging about a military success, it takes several days for the most elementary outline to surface. Now, imagine it’s a secret raid involving sensitive sources and methods that the U.S. doesn’t want to divulge. Pile on top of that a senior White House official a little too eager to spin a …
Speaking of Afghanistan…
Jim Lacey is a former Time colleague now a professor of strategic studies at the Marine Corps War College. He’s still writing:
While I was in Kandahar, General Petraeus announced that the Coalition faced about a hundred al-Qaeda fighters. Did anyone do the math? There are over 140,000 Coalition soldiers in Afghanistan, or 1,400 for
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Wither the Afghan War
So now that Osama bin Laden has gone on to his just deserts, what impact — if any — will his demise have on the war in Afghanistan next door?
The military answer: none.
The political answer: accelerate that troop pullout.
And You Think You’re Happy bin Laden Is Dead
Imagine how the Oregon schoolteacher who pledged not to shave until Osama bin Laden was history feels today:
A teacher who vowed nearly 10 years ago not to cut his beard until Osama bin Laden was captured or proven dead said he cried Sunday night upon hearing of the terrorist’s death. “I spent my first five minutes crying and then
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The Final Room-by-Room Hunt For Osama Bin Laden
A senior U.S. intelligence official described Osama bin Laden’s compound with two words that are rarely spoken together: “opaque windows.” Once the U.S. became aware of the compound, a closer look made them even more curious. “The walls around the compound were up to 18 feet high,” a senior U.S. intelligence operative said Monday. …
Bin Laden: Betrayed By His Face, His DNA…And His Wife
Senior U.S. officials say the U.S. government used several sophisticated methods to confirm that the tall man Navy SEALs killed early Monday in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was, indeed, Osama bin Laden:
1. CIA experts compared known photos of bin Laden with photographs of the corpse, and concluded they were 95% sure the dead man was bin
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Bin Laden’s Final Resting Place
Osama bin Laden left this world from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea about mid-day Monday. In a strange twist on an ancient military tradition, he was buried at sea. The ceremony was in accord with Muslim law, which requires burial within 24 hours of death, Pentagon officials said.
Bin …