Afghanistan: Uphill all the way. (LA Times photo)

America’s involvement in Afghanistan in 2009 has begun to look like its involvement Iraq in 2005: Insurgency is growing. The government we helped install is feckless and at least partly corrupt. We don’t…

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (AP Photo)

Four years ago Sunday, President George W. Bush summed up U.S. military strategy in Iraq for an audience at Fort Bragg, N.C.: “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.”

It finally has happened. Today…

“Just because you invade a place stupidly doesn’t mean you have to leave it stupidly.”

Counter-insurgency expert David Kilcullen (left) with Lt. Col. Michael Infanti in Iraq in 2007. (U.S. Army Photo)

So speaks David Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer with…

It would have been a shame if the first presidential debate had been postponed. The televised meeting between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama restored a sense of gravitas to the 2008 presidential campaign after a week in which it turned…

 After two weeks’ vacation and more than 1,700 Midwestern highway miles, I came home looking for some wisdom. I found it on the editorial page of Sunday’s Post-Dispatch — in a letter to the editor by Dorothy Anderson of Spanish Lake:
“I have…

President George W. Bush announced Tuesday that the United States would begin drawing down troops in Iraq next year. Why, five and a half years into the war, did that long-awaited announcement land with barely a thud?

Two years ago such an…

Call it a deadline, a horizon, a timeline, a time frame or an “aspirational timetable.” Whatever the label, Iraq and the United States finally have agreed on a date by which the United States will have pulled all of its troops…

The New York Times reports today that our loyal allies in Iraq have begun arresting leaders of the so-called “Great Awakening” movement. That’s the mostly Sunni movement made up of former allies of Al Qaida in Iraq who switched sides in…

It was a case of ironic timing that seemed almost surreal: On the very same day that the awe-inspiring opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games was supposed to announce in spectacular fashion the start of an athletic competition symbolizing…

Let us see if we have this straight: The U.S. government this year is running a $389 billion deficit and borrowing from abroad to finance it.
In addition, we’re spending roughly $100 billion a year — and sacrificing scores of American lives…

The media is frequently criticized for being too negative, and many believe that — regardless of the cause — news organizations deliberately want to paint reality with the darkest colors possible. Good news is allegedly downplayed in favor of the…

Obama’s highly anticipated overseas tour, which includes visits to countries throughout the Middle East and Europe, has generated a flurry of news coverage in the U.S. and around the world. One sign of the attention being paid to Obama’s trip:…

I have previously translated Arabic al-Jazeera articles (and comments) in order to give readers of The Platform some idea of how the election is being followed around the world. Despite some alarming stories about what’s happened to other bloggers who have…

In a widely discussed op-ed in the New York Times this morning, Barack Obama laid out his plan for Iraq.

The major centerpiece of Obama’s policy in the War on Terror is that Iraq has been a “distraction” from the more important battle…

The Washington Post’s Channel ‘08 blog (which tracks the videos of the 2008 campaign) notes two web-only attack ads released by the RNC and DNC attacking Barack Obama and John McCain’s positions on Iraq, respectively.

On July 8, the RNC released…

Not good: “‘More than 100 terror camps’ in operation in northwestern Pakistan”

A few days ago I wrote about the deteriorating situation in northwestern Pakistan and the rise of Taliban power and influence there. Apparently the situation is even worse than the…

Here’s a measure of how much the Iraq war is costing America, not just in lives
and dollars, but in terms of the nation’s priorities:

When President George W. Bush signed the $186 billion Iraq spending bill two
weeks ago, the controversial part…

My column today pulls together and reflects on last week’s three major developments in America’s ongoing effort to understand how the Bush administration came to approve and use abusive interrogation techniques on prisoners — something that violates every principle of…

The New York Times describes an appearance by CBS News’ top foreign correspondent, Lara Logan, on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show where she talked about how hard it is to get news about Iraq printed these days. According to Ms. Logan, it takes a pretty…

The Supreme Court yesterday extended rights to U.S. prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. The ruling, granting habeas corpus to the prisoners, is seen as  a rebuke to the Bush administration. The White House rejected that notion,…