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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | yesterday
By Steve Hynd It was inevitable that Remembrance Sunday would mean a lot of British soul-searching over continued military involvement in Afghanistan. That introspection was evident in national newspapers today, including in the London Times, where foreign correspondent Christina Lamb had a long and thoughtful article about the ongoing occupation which weighed the pros and cons of various...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | yesterday
By Steve Hynd Sy Hersh has a must-read piece on Pakistan's nukes, examining how secure they are, in the current issue of the New Yorker. He get's a lot right, and has a lot of illuminating passages about the US/Pakistan relationship, but in the whole piece - eight pages in the web version - he only has one actual scenario...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 07/11/2009
By Steve Hynd In a new interview with German mag Der Spiegel out today, Obama's National Security Adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, is sounding skeptical about the McChrystal escalation request for extra troops in Afghanistan. He says, dismissively, that "generals always ask for more troops". SPIEGEL: The Obama administration is reviewing the strategy for Afghanistan. General Stanley...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 06/11/2009
By Steve Hynd The Obama administration has a new so-called Afghan Compact which is designed to increase good governance in Afghanistan and reduce corruption. The main problem, though, is that any compact needs two sides agreeing to implement it. The success of the so-called "Afghanistan Compact" will hinge on Karzai's willingness to take bold actions such as cracking down on...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 05/11/2009
By Steve Hynd By now you may have heard about the shocking situation at Fort Hood, Texas, where three shooters have killed 12 and wounded 33. AP has just reported Lt. Gen Bob Cone as telling a news conference that all three killers were U.S. soldiers and that all the shootings happened "at the base's Soldier Readiness Center where soldiers...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 05/11/2009
By Steve Hynd We blogged about the incredible Staffordshire Hoard when it was discovered back in September. Well, now another hoard of gold jewellry has been found, this time near my old alma mater of Stirling, in Scotland - and yet again, it was an amateur metal-detector using treasure hunter who found it. (H/t Kat) The hoard dates to between...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 05/11/2009
By Steve Hynd Looks like yet another in the seemingly endless series of causus belli de jour hyped stories about Iran has just bitten the dust. VIENNA (Reuters) - U.N. inspectors found "nothing to be worried about" in a first look at a previously secret uranium enrichment site in Iran last month, the International Atomic Energy chief said in remarks...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 05/11/2009
By Steve Hynd Another British soldier has died for Bush and Blair's Afghan adventure - the one neither Obama nor Brown have the balls to admit they should get out of. 230 British soldiers have now died in Afghanistan. For reference, the number of British servicemen killed during the Falkland War was 252. The number killed has already surpassed the...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 04/11/2009
By Steve Hynd The news that an Afghan policeman has shot British soldiers who were mentoring his unit, killing five and wounding six more, has sent shockwaves through the UK's press, public and political parties today. British and Afghan officials said the men were killed at a police checkpoint when the policeman picked up his weapon and began firing. The...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 03/11/2009
By Steve Hynd Mother Jones' David Corn, live-tweeting the White House presser as always, has just reported that Gibbs has refused to be drawn on specific anti-corruption measures the U.S. will demand of Hamid Karzai, saying only that the U.S. Embassy in Kabul was working on the matter. The trouble with the Embassy working on it is that the folk...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 03/11/2009
By Steve Hynd Sonali Kolhatkar is co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission and has worked closely with RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) for almost a decade. She has an op-ed at Foreign Policy In Focus that should be read by everyone concerned about an occupation without end in Afghanistan. Kolhatkar writes: One of the original justifications for...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 03/11/2009
By Steve Hynd The Seminal at Firedoglake is asking for everyone's help in keeping Derrick Crowe, their Afghanistan Fellow, writing his excellent posts. Derrick has been writing regularly on the war, bringing to bear facts, video testimony, statistics, political insight, and thoughtful arguments to drive home the point that escalating the war in Afghanistan is the wrong policy. Derrick...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 02/11/2009
By Steve Hynd The Afghan Independent Electoral Commission stands revealed as not at all independent, as Dave noted earlier - declaring Karzai the victor in the presidential election without a run-off. That, as I understand it, isn't technically constitutional. They themselves were saying just the other day that it was too late for Abdullah to withdraw and that even if...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 02/11/2009
By Steve Hynd Robert Naiman has a good catch over at Daily Kos today. He notes that, back in November last year, David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote that he worried whether Obama had the strength of character to negotiate with the Taliban the way John McCain would and, should Obama falter, the only alternative would be more troops...
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Newshoggers (Free subscription) | 01/11/2009
By Steve Hynd Sean Naylor, staff writer of the Air Force Times, might be expected to be somewhat partisan, so I'll give him a partial pass on his latest article, channeling scary stories from McChrystal's head of intelligence, Maj. Gen. Mike Flynn. However, what Flynn himself has to say is an outrageous spin of the underlying fact - that locals...
