Fifty-one years ago today, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his final, prescient warning about the rising power of the military industrial complex. More than half a century later, we find ourselves in a political system which has ignored Eisenhower's sound advice as the influence of the war industry on our...

According to the website iCasualties.org, which tracks U.S. troop deaths and injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of troops killed in connection with the Afghanistan war now exceeds 1,500.

Here are the names of the U.S. troops that have been killed since the death of Osama bin...

This is the end of the second week since Osama bin Laden's death. During those two weeks, we've wasted four more American lives and another $4 billion, continuing a war strategy that contributed little to nothing to bin Laden's death and that makes no sense now that al...

Osama bin Laden is dead. Al Qaeda is no longer in Afghanistan in any significant numbers. While the Afghanistan War long ago lost a strategic rationale supported by actual outcomes on the ground (insurgent-initiated attacks continue to rise every year, despite the massive escalations of the past two years), bin...

A new report put out today by The Century Foundation urges the start of serious peace talks among the parties to the Afghanistan War. The report warns that even with the massive influx of U.S. troops over the past year, the war has settled into a stalemate in which neither...

General David Petraeus is set to testify before Congress today, and he's expected to again try to put a positive spin on a war effort that's utterly failing to meet the goals set by its backers. While intelligence assessments show that tactical moves on the ground in Afghanistan...

The Pentagon wants you to ignore some inconvenient facts about the failure of the escalation strategy in Afghanistan.

The latest Petraeus/Gates media tour is under way in preparation for the general's testimony to Congress next...

Fresh from the reported killing of more than 60 civilians, U.S. forces in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, killed nine boys gathering firewood on a mountainside. General Petraeus says he's sorry.

"We are deeply sorry...

The movement to end the Afghanistan War is gaining momentum, and on March 12, it will gain some more. In a little less than two weeks, supporters of Rethink Afghanistan ("Rethinkers") will get together with their neighbors in hundreds of communities to talk about what can be done locally to...

General Petraeus and his public relations team reportedly engaged in a scummy attempt to deflect blame for an alleged civilian casualty event on Sunday, suggesting that Afghan parents caught in the crossfire of a coalition raid burned their own children to incriminate international forces. International forces led by...

Exactly one year ago, on February 13, 2010, the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan launched the first major military operations enabled by President Obama's 30,000 troop increase. President Obama and the high priests of counterinsurgency warfare, Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, made two major assertions about...

What would you do with $1 trillion? Unfortunately, one of Washington, D.C.'s answers over the last decade has been, "waste it on two wars that make us less safe and cause deep suffering at home and abroad." The true costs of those bad decisions will be paid by today's youth,...

Last year was the worst year for civilian deaths in the war so far, and irregular armed groups backed by the U.S. and by the Afghan government are preying on the population while recruiting and abusing children. Go team.

I'm almost numb from continually relaying reports like this, but every...

The state of Indiana just denied life-saving surgery to a six month old after making deep budget cuts to their state health care safety net. The surgery saved the lives of 58 of the last 60 kids to get it. "Too bad, kiddo, we can't afford it."

Except,...

When will the Obama administration stop damaging its credibility by denying the failure of the Afghanistan War? It seems every day we get another report showing that the Taliban's momentum continues despite President Obama's massive troop increase. But, somehow, the administration's talking points seem to stay the same....

Released on the eve of the December strategy review, the Pentagon's latest "Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan (.pdf)" shows that the insurgents' momentum has not been broken, despite repeated claims by U.S. and NATO officials.

Here's how the report describes the insurgency, emphasis...

Last week, Brave New Foundation's Robert Greenwald wrote about the damage done to U.S. interests around the world by for-profit security contractors like Blackwater / Xe:

Drunken shootouts and debauchery, meaningless death and mayhem... Thanks in part to the rapacious greed injected into war-fighting by the liberal use of...

November 11 is Veterans Day, the 10th Veterans Day since the Afghanistan War began. The burden of this brutal, futile war falls heaviest on a very small slice of the population: military members and their...

McClatchy reports that the Obama administration is "moving away from 2011 Afghan date." If this is true, Hope and Change have absolutely collapsed. The president will have shown that he can be bullied into whatever policy the Republicans and the generals want. That's political and policy suicide. The...

Afghanistan continues to become less secure, despite the best efforts of General Petraeus and his press team to spin the bad news coming out of that country. Recently he and his team have tried to claim that:

• data showing worsening civilian casualties somehow show that the U.S.-led International Security Assistance...