bagram

D.C. Federal Judge Orders Bush Administration to Produce Evidence About Bagram Prisoners

After hearing arguments on whether prisoners held indefinitely without charge at the U.S.-controlled prison at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan have the right to challenge their detention in American courts, Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia late Wednesday ordered the government to provide certain basic information [...]

Obama’s Gitmo?

A case before the Washington, DC District Court could serve as a roadmap for what the Obama administration must do with thousands of ‘war on terror’ detainees held by the US around the world.

Why Closing Gitmo Isn’t Enough

At a call-in “town hall” meeting tonight, the American Civil Liberties Union reiterated its call for the new Obama administration to close the Guantanamo Bay prison on the president’s first day in office. With the help of the filmmaker Robert Greenwald, the ACLU is even distributing a short film to persuade people to join [...]

Obama’s Plans to Close Gitmo Prompts Hard Questions

As The Associated Press reported on Monday, President-elect Barack Obama is wasting no time in making plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center and ship the current prisoners out of there. Where they go, what happens to them and what happens to all the other suspected terrorists still in U.S. detention around the [...]

U.S. Forces Spread Thin

The Salerno army base offers a window into the hard counterinsurgency battle at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Dark Side of the Moon

BETWEEN BAGRAM AIR FIELD AND FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan – When I arrived at Bagram, a public-affairs officer named Chuck asked me what I thought of Afghanistan, notwithstanding the fact that all I had seen so far was Kabul. I told him that the place reminded me of the moon. Chuck laughed as he [...]

Cross-Border Attacks On The Increase in Afghanipakistan

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — Usually when you hear about cross-border attacks here, they are perpetrated by the Taliban. Not so much in recent weeks — this time it’s the U.S. dipping its toes into Pakistan, which Sen. John McCain has said Sen. Barack Obama is naive for proposing.
Last week, the U.S. allegedly went after [...]

Roads And Air Traffic

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan – I had hoped to be in Khost Province, near the Pakistan border, by now. But catching a military flight out to Forward Operating Base Salerno proves to be an exercise in patience.
It’s the most remote base of its kind in Afghanistan, meaning that on the list of essential personnel and [...]

Getting Fed Up

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan – Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser is the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in the eastern sector of Afghanistan, known as RC-East. That puts him in charge of an Afghan population of nearly nine million, spread out across an area about the size of Pennsylvania — if Pennsylvania were pockmarked by [...]

Fallen Comrades

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan – In the predawn chill of 4 a.m., in uniform, in silence interrupted only by the morning chirp of hungry birds and a distant muezzin’s call to prayer, the soldiers of Bagram lined up at attention along Disney Drive.
Behind the avenue, to the east, four vehicles — two white trucks and [...]