afghanistan

Apropos of my query why Peter Orszag, the chief of the White House Office of Management and Budget, wasn’t in yesterday’s all-hands Afghanistan strategy session, Josh Gerstein at Politico has a great catch:
Spotted in the official White House photo of Monday night’s war council meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan in the White House’s situation room: [...]

Two Algerians held for seven years without charge or trial at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay l have been acquitted after after a trial back home in Algeria, their defense lawyer said yesterday.
Faghoul Abdelli and Mohamed Terari were arrested in Afghanistan by Pakistani police following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. They had [...]

Reid Wilson has the first look at a resolution being pushed by Republican National Committee member Jim Bopp, author of the infamous “socialist” resolution, that would aim to prevent future NY-23 disasters by requiring that candidates agree to at least seven of 10 issue promises in order to receive financial support from the RNC. After [...]

Just over the wires:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is holding out the possibility that Iraq’s national election could be delayed beyond January because of a dispute over the allocation of seats in parliament.

I saw in my RSS reader that four U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan in the last 24 hours. Hmm, I thought, I get emails from the International Security Assistance Force — the NATO military command in Afghanistan — and I don’t recall seeing that. So I went back through my inbox and found this [...]

Speaking of the unclear cost of escalating the Afghanistan war, I see via David Dayen and Tim Fernholz that Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, wants to treat war spending like domestic spending:

Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, warned that if President Barack Obama decides [...]

Chances are President Obama will announce a readjusted Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s very likely that strategy announcement will come paired with an announcement of a troop escalation. Before that happens, however, Obama will host one last all-hands-on-deck meeting with his national security team. Just added to the White House calendar is [...]

The Los Angeles Times earns your readership this morning by running a great piece digging into differing cost estimates between the White House and the Pentagon over how much a troop increase in Afghanistan will cost. The White House says it wants a thorough accounting; the Pentagon appears to be worried that such a thing [...]

Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed, an Algerian national who was captured in Pakistan and turned over to the U.S. military after fleeing from Afghanistan, was ordered released from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay by a U.S. District Court judge yesterday, according to the human rights group CagePrisoners. Judge Gladys Kessler’s written opinion is still [...]

Jeffrey Kaye at Truthout has a good piece today on the suicide — or murder? — of Yemeni Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh al Hanashi in June. It’s a powerful reminder of why human rights advocates, as well as U.S. military leaders, think it’s important to close that prison soon.
I admit I overlooked [...]