Sheyanne Baker was sitting down to dinner with her husband when she heard someone at the door. With a daughter deployed to Afghanistan and a son in Iraq at the time, knocks on the door made both their hearts jump. Her husband ran to the door to see who was there. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The No. 2 U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that U.S. military advisory teams will start deploying to Afghanistan this year to help Afghan combat forces as they take a more prominent role in fighting the Taliban. (more)
It seems the United States Army will be reverting to the condition it is usually in when a Democrat is President and Commander-in-Chief. I remember those days well. Back then the Army didn’t have enough repair parts to keep its motor vehicles running and its helicopters flying so combat units were instructed to selectively cannibalize non-running vehicles and helicopters to keep as much of the fleet operational as possible. (more)
The Occupy Wall Street movement is almost five months old and although some vow not to abandon their posts throughout the country, HBO’s Bill Maher says the protest has ran its course. (more)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban dismissed reports they are preparing to talk peace with the Afghan government, and a NATO report leaked Wednesday shows captured insurgents full of confidence they will seize power after international troops leave. (more)
The White House is hoping to end its ten year old war with the Taliban in Afghanistan through a political settlement. Let us all pray that the negotiations will be successful. It is past time to get our soldiers out of there. But as with most things in the Middle East, there is a little “catch” that complicates things and makes pulling out our troops hard to do. It is hard because the war didn’t start with political maneuvering. It started with the blowing up of the twin World Trade Center Towers in Manhattan. The war came in with a loud bang; it is unlikely to go out with a whimper. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is moving ahead with plans for negotiating with the Taliban, confident that talks offer the best chance to end the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan. But the military worries things are moving too fast, and intelligence agencies offered a gloomy prognosis in their latest Afghanistan report. (more)
Making the rounds is a short video showing four Marines urinating on Afghan terrorist corpses in northern Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Evidently the Marines were letting off steam after a firefight and washing the bodies with urine instead of following the Muslim tradition of washing the bodies with water and burying them within 24 hours. Without doubt this was an aberration and such conduct should not and cannot be tolerated by our armed forces under any circumstances. It would be interesting to know the combat circumstances that led up to this incident. (more)
Almost every American sports fan has heard of Hickory, Ind., which was immortalized in the 1986 film “Hoosiers.” Yet many who recite the movie’s unforgettable lines think Hickory actually exists. It doesn’t, although some real-life towns come close. (more)
In an appearance on “Imus in the Morning” on the Fox Business Network, former Navy SEAL officer Leif Babin criticized the reaction to a video of U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban, pointing out that the media focuses on that while ignoring the sacrifices of fallen soldiers. (more)
The video of U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban soldiers that surfaced last week has sparked its share of outrage. However, it is the Obama administration’s reaction that has Texas Gov. Rick Perry concerned. (more)
American commentators, public officials and the Taliban expressed outrage over a video that appeared last week showing U.S. Marines urinating on the dead corpses of enemy Taliban combatants. But was the act any worse than killing Taliban fighters with drone strikes? (more)
International outrage over a video of U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters consumed media coverage Friday. Some conservatives cheered the Marines for showing such profound disrespect to the dead insurgents, while many on the political left demanded more forceful condemnation. (more)
Iran launched a military maneuver near its border with Afghanistan on Saturday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, days after naval exercises in the Gulf increased tensions with the West and pushed up oil prices. (more)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration hopes to restore momentum in the spring to U.S. talks with the Taliban insurgency that had reached a critical point before falling apart this month because of objections from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, U.S. and Afghan officials said. (more)
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — A California man was charged on Tuesday with attempted murder in the shooting of an Afghanistan war veteran at a homecoming party during what authorities said was a fight over football teams. (more)
In a statement released on Monday, a 16-year former aide to Texas Rep. Ron Paul writes that the presidential candidate “was opposed to the war in Afghanistan, and to any military reaction to the attacks of 9/11,” but ultimately voted “Yay” [sic] in the face of a threatened staff rebellion and near-certain political suicide. (more)
BLUEMONT, Va. — Four years ago, this annual Christmas column was written from Baquba, Iraq, while our Fox News “War Stories” team was embedded with the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division and special operations units operating against the Iranian-supported Mahdi Army in the outskirts of Baghdad. A year earlier, the Christmas 2006 column was written in Ramadi, Iraq, while we were embedded with 1st Battalion, 6th Marines in what was then the bloodiest place on the planet. And in 2005, this column originated with 3d Battalion, 7th Marines and the 2nd Brigade of the 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania National Guard, in Anbar province, where we documented the first free elections ever held in an Arab country. (more)
NBC 10 Philadelphia is rushing to set up a live stream that will grant a Christmas wish from soldiers based in an isolated area of Afghanistan. (more)
