The US ambassador in Kabul has written to the White House to oppose sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan.

In a leaked cable, Karl Eikenberry said President Karzai's government should first prove it would tackle corruption.

The message arrived amid intense debate over strategy, with President Obama yet to make a decision on troop numbers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8356094.stm

The incomparably pernicious Joe Lieberman said yesterday on Fox News that he intends to launch an investigation into "the motives of [Nidal] Hasan in carrying out this brutal mass murder, if a terrorist attack, the worst terrorist attack since 9/11."  Hasan's attack was carried out on a military base, with his clear target being American soldiers, not civilians.  No matter one's views on how unjustified and evil this attack was, can an attack on soldiers — particularly ones in the process of deploying for a war — fall within any legitimate definition of "terrorism," which generally refers to deliberate attacks on civilians?

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/09/terrorism/index.html

2950 Days, 300 Billion Dollars, 911 Dead Americans – End the War, Bring back the Troops: Congressman Eric Massa (D) calls for recalling the US troops from Afghanistan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjJ_4BrFVp4

KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html?_r=2&src=twt&twt=nytimes

Afghanistan is a country the size of Texas, with only a handful of major roads. So when the U.S. military wants to haul gear, supply isolated outposts, reposition forces, or evacuate wounded troops, the first, best and sometimes only option is to do so by helicopter.

Which means that the demand for helos at most U.S. bases far outstrips the supply. And the helicopters that do fly operate under unforgiving and often dangerous conditions, as we saw in Monday’s twin copter calamities, which killed 14 Americans. In short, helicopters are the irreplaceable connective tissue of the Afghanistan war effort — and its potential Achilles’ heel. “It’s our strategic weak point,” a defense official told Danger Room.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/10/helicopters-achilles-heel-of-the-afghanistan-war/

THE POLITICAL SCENE about the C.I.A.’s covert drone program. On August 5th, officials at the C.I.A., in Langley, VA, watched a live video feed relaying closeup footage of one of the most wanted terrorists in Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, on the rooftop of his father-in-law’s house.

The video was captured by the infrared camera of a Predator drone—a remotely controlled, unmanned plane that had been hovering, undetected, two miles or so above the house. The C.I.A. remotely launched two Hellfire missiles from the Predator, and Mehsud and eleven others died.*)

There was no controversy when, a few days after the missile strike, CNN reported that President Barack Obama had authorized it. However, there was widespread anger after the Wall Street Journal revealed, at about the same time, that during the Bush Administration the C.I.A. had considered setting up hit squads to capture or kill Al Qaeda operatives around the world.

Hina Shamsi, a human-rights lawyer at the New York University School of Law, was struck by the inconsistency of the public’s responses. She said of the Predator program, “These are targeted international killings by the state.”

http://www.the-peoples-forum.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=15053

*) This was actually attempt #16 – the first 15 drone attacks on him, missed their target.

A slight majority of Americans think that the war in Afghanistan is turning into another Vietnam, according to a new national poll which also indicates that nearly six in 10 oppose sending more U.S. troops to the conflict.

Fifty-two percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday say the eight year long conflict has turned into a situation like the U.S. faced in the Vietnam War, with 46 percent disagreeing.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/19/cnn-poll-will-afghanistan-turn-into-another-vietnam/

On the eighth anniversary of the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, the spotlight is on the Obama administration's evolving war strategy in a nation long known as the "graveyard of empires."

The current discourse on what is now dubbed "Obama's War" focuses on the number and composition of troops, as well as the overarching strategy (counter-insurgency, rapid withdrawal, a mix of military and reconstruction operations).

But we should not lose sight of another consequence of the October 7, 2001 invasion: the detention of thousands of people suspected of being hostile to the United States. They remain held at prisons at Guantánamo, Bagram Air Field, and elsewhere. They have now become Obama's enemy combatants.

http://counterpunch.com/berrigan10132009.html

RAY MCGOVERN, FORMER CIA ANALYST: I wanted to ask my own self a question here. It's a question that came up last night. And I think that, especially for staffers here, I'd like you to know, for what it's worth, how I feel about the cavalier way that people talk about regime change, people talk about going into Iran, people talk about zapping their nuclear potential or their nuclear installations. It's very similar to Vietnam. When the generals used to talk about, well, if worst comes to worst, we can nuke these guys, the path starts with Israel provoking an incident or we and Israel doing something that Iran has to retaliate against. They've been very circumspect, but there are certain events that they will have to retaliate against. And then all hell breaks loose, folks; all hell breaks loose. The straits are closed. Now, Mullen, Admiral Mullen, was asked, you know, don't the Iranians have the capability to close the straits? And he gulped and he said, "Yes, they do. Oh, but we could reopen them in a short period of time." Well, give me a break. How are you going to reopen the straits, huh?

http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4322

President Barack Obama is quietly deploying an extra 13,000 troops to Afghanistan, an unannounced move that is separate from a request by the US commander in the country for even more reinforcements.

The extra 13,000 is part of a gradual shift in priority since Obama became president away from Iraq to Afghanistan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/13/obama-afghanistan-troop-deployment