Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet. December 23, 2009. Some 30 percent of all U.S. deaths in Afghanistan have occurred during Obama's presidency. His escalation of that war is not what the Nobel committee envisioned.
Medea Benjamin, AlterNet. December 22, 2009. It was a tough year, but there is still much to celebrate -- now a majority of Americans oppose war in Afghanistan, the war on drugs is waning, and more.
Agence France PresseDecember 22, 2009. "Some of my colleagues in the prison lost their sight, some lost their limbs and others ended up mentally disturbed," recalls Mohamed Saleban Bare. "I'm OK compared to them."
Democracy Now! AlterNet: WorldDecember 21, 2009. Speaking before an Afghan audience on Thursday, Karl Eikenberry said, "This is not a deadline despite what some people in the United States and Afghanistan have said."
Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports. December 21, 2009. Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. actually has 189,000 personnel on the ground in Afghanistan right now -- and that number is quickly rising.
Jo Comerford, Tomdispatch.com. December 17, 2009. The $30 billion cost of Obama's surge alone would place the US in the top-ten for global military spending, sandwiched between Italy and Saudi Arabia.
Liliana Segura, AlterNet AlterNet: World. December 17, 2009. The Wall Street Journal calls it a "potentially serious vulnerability in Washington's growing network of unmanned drones."
Mary Giovagnoli, Immigration Impact. December 15, 2009. Hot-button issues like health reform and economic recovery will come and go. That U.S. immigration policy is fundamentally broken guarantees its eventual place in the conversation.
Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com. December 14, 2009. The troop surge is only one part of the escalation of the Afghanistan war. Here are 8 more signs of how fully the President has committed us.
Robert Parry, Consortium News. December 12, 2009. How a desire for bipartisanship and peace within his own party led Obama to appoint a hawkish cabal that pushed him to a renewed war in Afghanistan.
Megan Carpentier, Air America. December 11, 2009. Pentagon policy from the Rumsfeld days on acceptable kill rates still seems to be the guiding logic for what field commanders are telling the news media.
Christian Parenti, The Nation. December 10, 2009. The real purpose of sending 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan is to make Obama look tough as he heads toward his next election.
Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet AlterNet: World. December 10, 2009. President Obama accepts his Nobel Peace Prize by calling Afghanistan a "just war." The Nobel chairman claims "Dr. King's dream has come true." What?
Norman Solomon, AlterNet. December 10, 2009. Obama spoke of "the world as it is" and insisted that "war is sometimes necessary" -- but generalities do nothing to mitigate the horrors of war being endured by others.
Daniela Perdomo, AlterNet AlterNet: Politics. December 9, 2009. The president plans to speak about war during his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo on Thursday. Perfect.
David DeGraw, Amped Status. December 9, 2009. Increasing numbers of deployed soldiers, mercenaries and drones all add up to Obama being more of a war president than Bush, in terms of hard numbers.
Christian Parenti, The Nation AlterNet: World. December 8, 2009. The real purpose of these 30,000 soldiers is to make Obama look tough as he heads toward the next U.S. presidential election.
Adele Stan, AlterNet AlterNet: World. December 7, 2009. Michael Moore says the U.S. mission in Afghanistan is about the American empire. Tomasky pleads a moral case for intervention.
Liliana Segura, AlterNet AlterNet: World. December 7, 2009. From Charlie Rose to Hardball, Friedman has spent months polishing his favorite new metaphor.
Faiz Shakir, Think Progress AlterNet: World. December 7, 2009. Over the weekend, David Petraeus, James Jones, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden told various news outlets that 2011 is not a hard deadline for withdrawal.
Jodie Evans, AlterNet. December 4, 2009. The president's announcement of a troop surge in Afghanistan this week prompted protests in over 80 communities across the country.
