Opinion Forum

Lynn Woolsey: A National Embarrassment

January 10th, 2011

By Nancy Morgan My nephew, Lance Corporal Lee Morgan, will be deploying to Afghanistan next Friday. This will be his second tour of duty there. Lee will be putting his life on the line, once again, fighting a war which is described by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) as “an epic failure, a national embarrassment and [...]

Articles written by Nancy Morgan
Tags: Afghanistan, Code Pink, failure, Iraq, Lynn Woolsey, terrorism, war
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (2) | Home

Book Review: A Thousand Splendid Suns

December 8th, 2010

By Tom Carter I just read Khaled Hosseini’s novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes good fiction. It has everything — strong plot, perfect narrative, great style, and rare insight into the human condition. The subject matter, however, is what makes it an urgently important book. It chronicles the [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Afghanistan, Khaled Hosseini, Soviet, Splendid Suns, Taliban, terrorism, war
Categories: Arts, History, Life | Comments (0) | Home

Another Kind of Hero

September 5th, 2010

By Jan Barry Former Arizona Cardinals football star Pat Tillman was posthumously awarded the Silver Star by the U.S. Army — for being killed by fellow Rangers on a mission in Afghanistan. The wrenching impact on his family of his death and promotion to poster boy for the War on Terrorism is the focus of [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, documentary, friendly fire, Iraq, review, Silver Star, Tillman
Categories: Arts, Military, News, Politics | Comments (9) | Home

Winding Down a Misbegotten War

August 20th, 2010

By Jan Barry As the last U.S. combat units rumbled out of Iraq under President Obama’s August deadline, Time magazine’s chief political columnist, Joe Klein, summed up the costly consequences of what he called “a war that should never have been fought.” Blasting the Bush administration for blundering into “a neo-colonialist delusion” that caused hundreds [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, casualties, cost, end, invasion, Iraq, occupation, threat, war
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

bin Laden Is Laughing

July 19th, 2010

By Nancy Morgan Terrorists the world over are laughing into their turbans and praising Allah five times a day for the naive Americans who were responsible for electing Barack Hussein Obama as president of the U.S. And they’re giving a special thanks to the American media, specifically, the Washington Post, for giving them all the [...]

Articles written by Nancy Morgan
Tags: 9/11, Afghanistan, bin Laden, Iraq, islamic, Muslim, security, terrorism, war
Categories: Media, News, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

Let’s All Make the United States a Better Place

July 3rd, 2010

By Dan Miller As the two hundred and thirty-fourth anniversary of the signing of the faux Declaration of Dependence approaches, it behooves us all to reflect upon the nation’s shameful history and ways to make the United States a better and more progressive place of which we can all finally be proud. On July 1st, [...]

Articles written by Dan Miller
Tags: Afghanistan, economy, illegal immigration, Mexico, Pelosi, satire
Categories: Economics, Humor, Politics | Comments (12) | Home

Women’s Suffrage In Afghanistan

June 18th, 2010

By Brianna Aubin A real, honest-to-God picture of a woman having a picture taken for a photo ID in Afghanistan for voting purposes. It’d be funny if it weren’t so incredibly stupid.

Articles written by Brianna Aubin
Tags: Afghanistan, burqa, identification, rights, suffrage, voting, women
Categories: Life, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

Clocking the Cost of War

April 15th, 2010

By Jan Barry The cost of waging war overseas on the fumes of a sputtering national economy is stirring some unusual, creative protests. Mayor Matt Ryan of Binghamton, NY, is vowing to install a digital “cost of war” clock on the front of the municipal building to show local residents how much they pay in [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, Binghamton, cost, Iraq, militarism, taxes, veterans
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (1) | Home

Peace Action at Work

March 26th, 2010

By Jan Barry In cold rain and summer heat, snowdrifts and bitter winds, a Veterans For Peace Chapter 21 contingent anchors a weekly peace vigil on a busy street corner by the NJ National Guard Armory in Teaneck. Chapter members are also active in numerous vigils, public meetings and marches around the state, as well [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, Iraq, National Guard, NJ, peace vigil, Veterans for Peace
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (6) | Home

Why Not a Peace Surge?

February 1st, 2010

By Jan Barry Greg Mortenson is a one-man peace wave. While heavily armed soldiers and insurgents clashed and bombs burst across Afghanistan and Pakistan throughout most of the past decade, Mortenson repeatedly trekked into the disputed region—without a rifle or artillery barrages and bombing runs to clear a path—and helped villagers in dozens of communities [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, children, Mortenson, Peace Corps, schools, Taliban
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

The Afghanistan Train Wreck

December 28th, 2009

By Tom Carter The classic metaphor is watching two trains chug along toward each other in slow motion, knowing that they will collide head-on but being unable to do anything about it. That’s what the Administration’s Afghanistan policy looks like. The President made his speech at West Point, declaring that he would send an additional [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Afghanistan, Obama, Pakistan, Powell Doctrine, strategy
Categories: Military, Politics | Comments (7) | Home

Disastrous Lessons

December 8th, 2009

By Jan Barry Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision to escalate U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, despite public statements that he sought no wider war, destroyed his political career. John F. Kennedy’s decision to veto hawkish generals and advisors and wage a secretive, low-key counterinsurgency campaign—which included approving a military coup that killed the American-installed president of [...]

Articles written by Jan Barry
Tags: Afghanistan, Bundy, Eikenberry, Johnson, Kennedy, troops, Vietnam
Categories: History, Military, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

Mortals, Messiahs, and Chickens

December 5th, 2009

By Tom Carter It’s been interesting to see the reactions to President Obama’s speech on Afghanistan. He announced the decision to send 30,000 more troops, but he assured the country (and the enemy) that they’ll begin coming home about a year after the deployments are complete. This was a classic of Clintonesque triangulation — the number [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Afghanistan, conservatives, liberals, Obama
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

Why Afghanistan Is Important

December 2nd, 2009

Pakistan has had nuclear capabilities and weaponry for years and the last thing the world needs is ‘nuclear Pakistan’ falling into the hands of the Taliban.

Articles written by Harvey Grund
Tags: Afghanistan, Obama, Pakistan, strategy, West Point
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (7) | Home

A Strategy Certain to Fail

December 2nd, 2009

By Tom Carter President Obama announced his strategy for the war in Afghanistan in a speech at West Point last night. He predictably chose a middle path, a domestic political decision designed to satisfy conservatives that the war isn’t being abandoned and to satisfy liberals that the commitment is neither large nor unlimited. He sought to [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Afghanistan, Obama, Pakistan, strategy, West Point
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

Judgment Day

December 1st, 2009

By Larry Ennis Today our President has promised to deliver his very long-awaited decision on how his Administration will conduct the war in Afghanistan. Owing to his lack of experience in this area of policy making, he would be smart to throw in the towel. The cost in life and resources makes on-the-job training for this [...]

Articles written by Larry Ennis
Tags: Afghanistan, Obama, strategy
Categories: Military, News, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

The Bumbling President

November 29th, 2009

By Tom Carter I’ve said before that while I didn’t vote for Obama, I want him to be a successful president. That’s best for the country and for maintaining U.S. power and influence in the world. While it was obvious from the beginning that he lacked experience and had succeeded on the strength of a shallow [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Afghanistan, climate change, Copenhagen, Middle East, Obama
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (3) | Home

Everything He Touches…

November 18th, 2009

By Larry Ennis According to The Washington Post online early edition today: Dearly Beloved President is not helping matters a lot here at home as he travels around Asia in an effort to look good there. Or maybe he just needs to lay low until some of his problems cease to be. Eric Holder, Obama’s [...]

Articles written by Larry Ennis
Tags: Afghanistan, diplomacy, health care, Holder, Obama, Palin
Categories: News, Politics | Comments (6) | Home

Paglia on Pelosi and Health Care

November 11th, 2009

By Tom Carter Camille Paglia’s monthly column was published today at Salon.com. She discusses everything from Nancy Pelosi’s performance as Speaker of the House, health care reform, health care in other countries, and Obama’s decision on Afghanistan to Richard Dawkins on atheism, the study of anthropology, pop music, Madonna’s latest escapades, and more. As always, [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Afghanistan, health care, Obama, Paglia, Pelosi
Categories: Arts, Economics, Life, Politics | Comments (4) | Home

Obama the Incrementalist

November 1st, 2009

By Tom Carter Obama the incrementalist is the headline of a column written by Howard Kurtz in The Washington Post a few days ago. Kurtz emphasized what I wrote in a previous article, The Faux Golden Boy. If I can be forgiven for quoting myself, I said that Obama is “the kind of modern man…who [...]

Articles written by Tom Carter
Tags: Afghanistan, decision making, leadership, Obama
Categories: Media, News, Politics | Comments (2) | Home