The boast of American exceptionalism betrays ignorance of the Founding Fathers and the tarnished history of the United States. In any event, to overlook faults because other nations are more flawed is juvenile, and leads nowhere.
Greetings from Afghanistan. President Obama argues that we are on the right track here, but once you land at Kabul International Airport, one is quickly made aware that something is terribly wrong.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, if you protest being molested in an airport, that's a sure sign that you are not afraid of Al Qaeda. And that's a problem on both fronts.
Where have President Obama's and his Secretary of Transportation's backbones gone? Long time passing. I'm sitting here weeping and fuming at the sam...
I guess the nine years of conflict we have been involved in, plus the conflict's previous twenty plus years of bloodshed and instability, are not enough to give us a basic understanding of the root causes and factors underlying this war.
The reason why the US has been in Afghanistan for so long is not because it wants to be there but because it has no idea how to leave.
What do we say to our troops, our men and women who once again, for a ninth Christmas in a row, will be spending the holidays in foreign battlefields where peace on earth and good will to men are just cruel incongruities?
You'd better sit still, You'd better not flee, You'd better just chill -- Don't shoot the TV! Bristol Palin's dancing with stars... She's missing t...
"I think the sense that, in however small a way, we are doing something to inform and enlighten people about the complexities of Afghanistan and our involvement there is very rewarding."
What Wikileaks has done is shed light on the lies and the corruption and the greed that have not simply endangered lives, but killed and tortured hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, and our own soldiers.
The top line of the story the administration is presenting is "progress." But the assessment of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies gives a very different picture, and the public needs to know that in order to have an informed opinion.
The Afghan War's current cost-benefit disparity would call for a scale-down. But for now, the United States would rather fixate on pipe dreams and on asserting America's permanent role in Central Asia.
The United States should immediately begin the political and diplomatic process necessary to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
Bill O'Reilly's latest attacks on University of Washington Assistant Professor Amy Hagopian tells far more about the twisted mind of O'Reilly than the serious study the professor authored.
Richard Holbrooke's life ended as he faced the greatest challenge of his career: to successfully negotiate peace in Afghanistan.
The death of Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has left a giant vacuum in Afghanistan policy circles -- particularly in regards to the agricultural development policy that Holbrooke championed as an essential counterinsurgency tool.
I did not know Holbrooke that well. Then again, I wonder if I ever could know someone as peripatetic as he was. Holbrooke was a political and diplomatic Great White Shark. Intellectually powerful, scaldingly opinionated, indefatigable.
Chinese foreign policy is focused not on achieving global preeminence, but on maintaining access to energy resources and on creating a regional sphere of influence in East Asia.
In a globalized world where the powers of military might and diplomatic finesse have diminished, "Oh, I didn't know that" moments of cross cultural understanding can make a difference.
Couple the lack of security with the media coverage of the war on terror, and it becomes difficult to connect to the real Afghanistan today. That mkes connecting communities and cultures more important than ever.