Robert McNamara died the other day as seven American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.

It wasn't the deaths on the same day that made me remember McNamara's folly.

It was the sense that McNamara's ghost is hovering over the new graveyard of...

The simultaneous conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and beyond are all connected to the Pentagon strategy of "the Long War" projected to last fifty years in "the arc of crisis" that just happens to stretch across Muslim lands where there are oil reserves and plans for Western-dominated pipelines. The term...

Progressives who have been silent towards the escalating wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan have a new opportunity to change their stance now that the $100 billion Congressional war authorizes suppression of hundreds of torture photographs held by the Pentagon.

The amendment by senators Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham is...

After six weeks of forums on Afghanistan-Pakistan, the Congressional Progressive Caucus is weighing a series of recommendations to de-escalate the war, offered by CPC co-chair Rep. Raul Grijalva and Rep. Mike Honda.

The good news for the peace movement is that the recommendations, taken together, present a plausible alternative...

It's becoming a pattern: whenever Barack Obama implements a campaign pledge, the dinosaurs used to running things push back. The latest dinosaur to undercut the president's gestures is Jeffrey Davidow, US coordinator of the Trinidad meeting, who claimed that Hugo Chavez wanted a photo with Obama to polish his reputation...

Latin America may be Barack Obama's greatest opportunity and greatest current weakness. As an opportunity, the continent is in the midst of the greatest democratic revolution in fifty years and can become a successful model of independent economic development. Domestically, the growing Latino and immigrant populations in the United States...

GO THERE, MR. PRESIDENT!

17,000 or 21,000 more American troops will not protect Americans against Al Qaeda attacks.

The Obama Plan instead will accelerate any plans al Qaeda commanders have for attacking targets in the United States or Europe. The alternative for al Qaeda is to risk complete destruction, an...

The Center for American Progress has positioned itself as a "progressive" Washington think tank, especially suited to channel new thinking and expertise into the Obama administration. It therefore is deeply disappointing that CAP has issued a call for a ten-year war in Afghanistan, including an immediate military escalation, just as...

After years of frustrating ambiguity, President Obama has clearly committed to a complete withdrawal of all US troops in less than three years.

Speaking to the Marines in North Carolina, Obama finally clarified that the proposed "residual force" of 50,000 or more will be a "transitional" one, departing one...

It is confirmed that one of the loopholes in the president's anti-torture orders allows the continuance of rendition by the CIA, which consists of secretly snatching suspects off the street without any due process and "rendering" them to jails in other countries. Rendition is at the heart of the state...

My friend Bob Mulholland, a disabled Vietnam veteran and political officer of California's Democratic Party, has rolled out the relevant maps which reveal the staggering scope of the emerging Afghanistan/Pakistan War:

- South Vietnam, where Bob fought alongside 500,000 Americans, was 67,108 sq. miles in 1973;

- Vietnam as...

As the media and military focus shifts to the Afghan front, the issue of torture and human rights violations in Afghanistan will be spotlighted increasingly. This may be the Achilles' Heel of the Obama policy, so a fierce battle over definitions is to be expected.

The core truth is...

President Obama pledged to "forge a hard-earned peace on Afghanistan" today, a potentially significant reformulation of his war aims.

Peace advocates favoring a diplomatic solution in Afghanistan and Pakistan can be cautiously hopeful as they step up criticism of the expanding war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As a candidate,...

The late Robert Graham is justly acclaimed for the monuments he left behind -- from those to Roosevelt in Washington to the doors of the Los Angeles Cathedral -- but I remember him best as lending his sculpturing genius to helping the homeboys in the street gang culture of Venice....

Back when Barack Obama was a longshot candidate in the Iowa primary, he was morally candid, saying on March 11, 2007, that "nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people." It was one month after the announcement of Obama's campaign, and the last time he would make such a statement....

On January 21, President Barack Obama will take personal responsibility for the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan launched under President Bush. The Afghan-Pakistan war is uniquely Democratic in origin, however. Since John Kerry's 2004 campaign, hawkish Democratic security and political consultants have asserted that Afghanistan is a good and necessary...

Leaders of presidential transition teams are expected to be discreet, tight-lipped, button-down, servants of power, but not quite so in the case of John Podesta. The senior member of the team setting up the new administration, Podesta also heads a progressive think tank and has authored his own book on...

American military personnel recently denied Human Rights Watch observers access to Iraqi detainees held under US control, threatened to expel HRW from a court if they spoke to any detainees, and deployed military escorts to prevent any such contacts with the human rights observers. These incidents are reported deep in...

Fifty clergy and human rights leaders are demanding that Congress oppose the pact being negotiated in secret by the Bush and al-Maliki administrations to bind the hands of the next Administration with a continued war and occupation in Iraq.

The White House and Pentagon commanders are threatening "consequences" if Iraq...

Every child in America should know that Sarah Palin is against saving polar bears from extinction. Then the kids should ask their parents, teachers and ministers what the adults are going to do about it.

The first step should to click the 30-second video of a polar bear family...