Fareed Zakaria criticized the Afghanistan war in unusually harsh terms on his CNN program Sunday, saying that "the whole enterprise in Afghanistan feels disproportionate, a very expensive solution to what is turning out to be a small but real problem."
His comments followed CIA director Leon Panetta's admission last week that the number of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan may be down to just 50 to 100 members, or even fewer.
"If Al Qaeda is down to 100 men there at the most," Zakaria asked, "why are we fighting a major war?"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/04/fareed-zakaria-criticizes_n_635170.html
The federal government would have “absolute power” to shut down the Internet under the terms of a new US Senate bill being pushed by Joe Lieberman, legislation which would hand President Obama a figurative “kill switch” to seize control of the world wide web in response to a Homeland Security directive.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/new-bill-gives-obama-kill-switch-to-shut-down-the-internet.html
update: PASSED
http://www.theage.com.au/technology/security/obama-internet-kill-switch-bill-approved-20100625-z8sf.html
Tonight, Jon Stewart called out President Obama for not only not living up to his campaign-era promises to reverse many of the Bush Administration's war-related human rights policies, but also attempting to introduce new, even more harsh ones. Video inside.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-15-2010/respect-my-authoritah
Despite what you may read this morning, the U.S. military did not just “discover” a trillion dollars’ worth of precious minerals in Afghanistan.
The New York Times today proclaimed that Afghanistan is apparently poised to become “the Saudi Arabia of lithium” — a metal used to produce gadgets like iPods and laptops. The discovery will also, according to Pentagon documents quoted by the Times, fundamentally transform the country’s opium-reliant economy.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/no-the-military-didnt-just-discover-an-afghan-mineral-motherlode/
Ten Nato soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan in the deadliest day in months for the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf).
In the worst of several attacks, five US soldiers died in an improvised bomb blast in east Afghanistan, the US said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10260145.stm
The US military has reprimanded six operators of an unmanned drone, which mistakenly attacked a civilian convoy in Afghanistan killing at least 23.
Warnings that the convoy was not an attacking force were ignored or played down, while the ground-force commander was not sure who was in the vehicles, an investigation found.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10189462.stm
A serious disease is affecting opium poppies in Afghanistan, Antonio Maria Costa, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has said.
Mr Costa told the BBC that this year's opium production could be reduced by a quarter, compared with last year.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8679203.stm
The pilots waging America’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan could be liable to criminal prosecution for “war crimes,” a prominent law professor told a Congressional panel Wednesday.
Harold Koh, the State Department’s top legal adviser, outlined the administration’s legal case for the robotic attacks last month. Now, some legal experts are taking turns to punch holes in Koh’s argument.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/04/drone-pilots-could-be-tried-for-war-crimes-law-prof-says/
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors charged the former president of Blackwater Worldwide and four other former senior company officials on Friday with weapons violations and making false statements in the first criminal inquiry to reach into the top management ranks of the private security company.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/world/17XE.html
KABUL — Deaths of Afghan civilians by NATO troops have more than doubled this year, NATO statistics show, jeopardizing a U.S. campaign to win over the local population by protecting them against insurgent attacks.
NATO troops accidentally killed 72 civilians in the first three months of 2010, up from 29 in the same period in 2009, according to figures the International Security Assistance Force gave USA TODAY. The numbers were released after Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, issued measures to protect ordinary Afghans.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-04-15-afghan-shooting_N.htm
