Fascinating series of photographs of Tuesday night’s attack — and counter-attack — on Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel by Nazir Ekhlass, and posted on war blogger Michael Yon’s website.
Afghanistan
Afghan War Just Got Cheaper
OK. It’s not much, but every little bit helps. Thanks to a new airspace access deal with Russia — with Russia! — a U.S. KC-135 refueling tanker was able to fly from Washington state to the big U.S. base in Kyrgyzstan via the North Pole last week. The Manas base in Kyrgyzstan is a major support hub for the war in Afghanistan. The …
Pakistan: More Grim Reading…
Afghanistan: Perception v. Will
War remains forever about perceptions, absent the signing of instruments of surrender.
Last week: “We’ve inflicted serious losses on the Taliban,” President Obama declared as he announced U.S. troops will start coming home next month.
Last night: nine Taliban suicide bombers stormed one of the most posh and protected hotels in
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The $5 Trillion War on Terror
Last week, the Pentagon told you the costs of the war on terror had eclipsed $1 trillion. Wednesday morning, a panel of academics experienced in war accounting says that’s only a down payment — and that its real, total cost is around $5 trillion.
Five trillion dollars: that’s $16,000 per American; $64,000 for a family of four.
Obviously a Joint Operation
Not Going Anywhere Soon…
Former USA Today military reporter Kirk Spitzer finds the recent uptick in chatter about U.S. forces leaving Afghanistan and Iraq just a little bit funny — because he now lives in Japan:
The wars are over. The occupations are done. It’s time to bring the troops home. But anyone who thinks US forces will depart Iraq or Afghanistan any
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After the Drawdown: the Fictional Legacy of the Wars on Terror
Nearly every war in history has been fictionalized in the popular media of its day. Fictional stories about combat explore areas that can be harder to capture with history and journalism. At their best, they illuminate the damage and sacrifice of war; at their worst, they create myths or outright fabrications that become some disjointed …
Deadly Infiltrators on Both Sides of the Durand Line
The historically-porous frontier dividing Afghanistan from Pakistan — all 1,600 miles (2,400 km.) of it — has long been easily crossed by Taliban fighters seeking to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan, who then withdraw back into the relative safety of Pakistan. If that constant border crossing isn’t headache enough for local …
The Looming Afghan Civil War
Aryn Baker spells it out over on Global Spin:
If President Obama’s plan for withdrawal demonstrated the unusual feat of simultaneously pissing off both sides of the aisle in the US, he need not despair: in Afghanistan he most certainly drew applause from both the Taliban, and Karzai – who crowed in an interview with CNN on Sunday that
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Lessons Learned in Iraq, Afghanistan Dictate That NATO Accept a Compromise in Libya
This from my Global Spin entry today:
As NATO’s war in Libya entered its 100th day on Monday, an end to the conflict may be in sight — but not necessarily a decisive one. Military and diplomatic signs point increasingly towards some measure of compromise by both sides in shaping an outcome that neither the regime nor the rebels
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The New U.S. “Smalls” Air Force Over Afghanistan
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We’ve all seen the airplane-sized Predator and Reaper drones now flying and fighting over Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan and Yemen. They’re fairly big (the Predator has a 48-foot [15-m.] wingspan) and costly ($5 million each). But there are fleets of smaller and cheaper man-launched …
Fixing the Human Wreckage of War
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Thousands of soldiers, gravely wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq, become as much as they can be through months of rehabilitation in the Army’s Warrior Transition Units. Every once in awhile a story pops up about how things fells apart for a specific WTU …