Jul 16, 2009 5 Comments ›› Erik Wong
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is considering a plan to add 30,000 soldiers to the Army to bolster a force depleted by a growing number of troops who are wounded, stressed or for other reasons cannot deploy with their units. Struggling to wage wars on two fronts, the Army says it needs a temporary increase in order ...
Continue ReadingJul 16, 2009 2 Comments ›› Erik Wong
WASHINGTON -- As other countries watch the United States lacerate its intelligence service -- for activities already investigated or never undertaken -- perhaps they admire America's commitment to democracy and the rule of law. More likely, I fear, they conclude that we are just plain nuts. The latest "scandals" involving the Central Intelligence Agency are genuinely ...
Continue ReadingJul 15, 2009 11 Comments ›› Erik Wong
WASHINGTON - Smoke 'em if you got 'em. The Pentagon reassured troops Wednesday that it won't ban tobacco products in war zones. Defense officials hadn't actually planned to eliminate smoking—at least for now. But fear of a ban arose among some troops after the Defense Department received a study recommending the military move toward becoming ...
Continue ReadingJul 14, 2009 4 Comments ›› Erik Wong
World Affairs Journal: In a widely noted speech at the National Archives in May, President Barack Obama said of George W. Bush’s national security policies: “We are cleaning up something that is quite simply a mess.†The president is wrong. Far from a mess, when it comes to national security, President Obama actually inherited a very ...
Continue ReadingJul 13, 2009 18 Comments ›› Erik Wong
FOX News: President Obama's ambitious domestic agenda for "hope" and "change" could soon get caught in the middle of a bitter debate over the policies of the past. Early in the year, the president said he wanted to "look forward" and suggested he was not interested in opening high-profile investigations into the activities of the Bush ...
Continue ReadingJul 10, 2009 3 Comments ›› Erik Wong
Above: Journalist Seymour Hersh speaking at an Al Jazeera forum in 2007. WTF? MinnPost: At a “Great Conversations†event at the University of Minnesota last night, legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh may have made a little more news than he intended by talking about new alleged instances of domestic spying by the CIA, and about an ...
Continue ReadingJul 8, 2009 No Comments ›› Erik Wong
WASHINGTON - More Afghan soldiers with better training are needed to help clear the Taliban from a key poppy-growing province in southern Afghanistan, a top U.S. Marines commander said Wednesday. A number of Taliban militants have fled Helmand province since the Obama administration launched its first major military operation in Afghanistan a week ago, Marines Brig. ...
Continue ReadingJul 7, 2009 3 Comments ›› Erik Wong
FOX News: As U.S. forces are pushing ahead with the massive Operation Khanjar in the southern Afghanistan province of Helmand, Mullah Zakir is leading the Taliban fight against them. A former Guantanamo Bay inmate is leading the fight against U.S. Marines in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, a senior U.S. defense official confirmed to FOX News ...
Continue ReadingJul 6, 2009 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Listen tonight for the lowdown on the explosive growth of ACTIVE.
Continue ReadingJul 6, 2009 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
CAIRO (AP) - The Taliban confirmed on its Web site that it is holding an American soldier that the U.S. military had earlier described as possibly being in enemy hands. The report of the capture was last in a routine list of Taliban activities posted on the Web site. "It is to be said that five days ...
Continue ReadingJul 5, 2009 20 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
BN Network: Troops from a US Marine company in Afghanistan have been under almost constant fire since entering the country with 4,000 other troops during the week. Since flying in by helicopter to Mian Poshteh in Helmand province, troops from the 2/8 infantry battalion have been held down by insurgents. The 200 Marines are still fighting ...
Continue ReadingJul 5, 2009 1 Comment ›› Pat Dollard
The Telegraph: Around 800 soldiers of the Light Dragoons and Mercian Regiment are driving north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah in the third wave of Operation Panchai Palang, or Panther's Claw. The operation has been described as the most strategically important yet mounted by the British, who have fought to stalemate with the Islamist insurgents in ...
Continue ReadingJul 4, 2009 3 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
FORT WORTH, Texas — The soldier who was photographed fighting the Taliban in his pink boxer shorts said Saturday he was glad to be back home in Texas after his yearlong deployment to Afghanistan — especially for the Fourth of July. Specialist Zachary Boyd said he initially thought he'd get in trouble after an ...
Continue ReadingJul 4, 2009 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
In this photo taken Wednesday, June 17, 2009, people walk past the cliffs that once held giant Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 in Bamiyan BAMIYAN, Afghanistan - There's a new building in town, and it isn't a military barracks or a hospital. It's a Tourist Information Center. Even as troops fight militants in the south, ...
Continue ReadingJul 4, 2009 8 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
"Some Marines ate watermelon from a farmer's field" NAWA, Afghanistan — Taliban militants were nowhere in sight as the columns of U.S. Marines walked a third straight day across southern Afghanistan. But the desert heat proved an enemy in its own right, with several troops falling victim Saturday to temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The Marines ...
Continue ReadingJul 4, 2009 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
KABUL - Taliban militants attacked a U.S. coalition base in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday with an explosives-laden truck that blew up outside the gates, sparking a two-hour gunbattle and killing two American troops, officials said. U.S. forces called in airstrikes to end the clash, killing more than 30 insurgents in Zerok district of Paktika province, said ...
Continue ReadingJul 3, 2009 2 Comments ›› Erik Wong
FOX News: At a former Soviet training base in the town of Rish Khvor, a few miles out of Kabul, American Green Berets are working to mentor and support Afghan Special Force soldiers code-named Commandos. Better equipped, better trained, better paid and reputedly incorruptible, the Afghan Commando is meant to be everything the Afghan National Army ...
Continue ReadingJul 3, 2009 7 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
NAWA, Afghanistan — U.S. Marines moved into villages in Taliban strongholds in southern Afghanistan on Friday, meeting little resistance as they tried to win over local chiefs on the second day of the biggest military operation here since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001. One Marine was killed and several others injured or ...
Continue ReadingJul 3, 2009 7 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
The Guardian: The commander of a British regiment has been killed in Afghanistan, the first to have died in active service since the Falklands war 27 years ago. Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe, of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was killed on Wednesday by what defence officials described last night as a "huge bomb" that shattered the armoured Viking ...
Continue ReadingJul 2, 2009 4 Comments ›› Erik Wong
CNN: KABUL, Afghanistan -- An American soldier captured in southeastern Afghanistan is being held by a notorious militant clan, a senior U.S. military official said. The American and three Afghan soldiers were captured by low-level militants and then quickly "sold" to the clan led by warlord Siraj Haqqani -- believed to be deeply involved in the action. The ...
Continue ReadingJul 2, 2009 5 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
About four thousand U.S. Marines and 650 Afghan forces poured into Taliban-controlled villages in southern Afghanistan on Thursday in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's strategy to stabilize the country. One Marine was killed in fighting after troops hiking through searing heat took fire from small pockets of militants. This is the first casualty ...
Continue ReadingJul 2, 2009 5 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Insurgents have captured an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan after he walked off post with his three Afghan counterparts, officials said Thursday. Spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the soldier disappeared Tuesday. The U.S. military is offering a $25,000 reward to any Afghan national for information about the soldier's whereabouts. "We have all available resources out there looking ...
Continue Reading
