By AMIR SHAH and HEIDI VOGT

MUHMUD RAQI, Afghanistan (AP) — At least 84 Afghan schoolgirls were admitted to a hospital Tuesday for headaches and vomiting in the third apparent poison attack on a girls school in as many weeks, officials and doctors said.

The students were lining up outside their school in northeastern Afghanistan on Tuesday morning when a strange odor filled the school yard, and one girl collapsed, said the school's principal, who was herself in a hospital bed gasping for breath as she described the event.

"We took her inside and splashed water on her face," said Mossena, who like many Afghans goes by one name. Then other girls started passing out in the yard and they sent all the students home.

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12 May 2009
 
It's time to leave Borneo and start the journey back to the war.  The time spent with the British Army here was very well spent.  I hope to cover them again in Afghanistan.
 
Phil Zabriskie is "tier one" journalist.  His work is always outstanding.  Please read To Be Young and Afghan.

Please give the gift of independent reporting. Your gift goes far and is used for transport, lodging, living expenses, satellite communications and for repairing and replacing gear that fails due to the rigors of the battlefields.  Millions of people, in more than a hundred countries, see these photos and words.  Your generosity goes very far, and is greatly appreciated.

NEW YORK – In response to litigation filed by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Justice Department today released four secret memos used by the Bush administration to justify torture. The memos, produced by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), provided the legal framework for the CIA's use of waterboarding and other illegal interrogation methods that violate domestic and international law.

The ACLU has called for the Justice Department to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate torture under the Bush administration.

14 April 2009

By McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Journalists for McClatchy's Washington Bureau, The Miami Herald and The Charlotte Observer received national awards for excellence Monday, two organizations announced.

Joseph L. Galloway, who writes a weekly column on military affairs and national security for McClatchy's Washington Bureau that's syndicated by Tribune Media Services, received a citation from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). The selection of columns that won the 2008 Sigma Delta Chi award for General Column Writing dealt with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the instability in Pakistan and the policies of former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

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Please give the gift of independent reporting. Your gift goes far and is used for transport, lodging, living expenses, satellite communications and for repairing and replacing gear that fails due to the rigors of the battlefields.  Millions of people, in more than a hundred countries, see these photos and words.  Your generosity goes very far, and is greatly appreciated.

Commentary: Fallen brothers found - and lost
By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

As with so much in life and in death, there was news this week that was joyous and sad and bittersweet all at once for the small community of the Vietnam War’s band of brothers of the Ia Drang Valley.

Early in the morning of December 28, 1965, a U.S. Army Huey helicopter, tail number 63-08808, lifted off from the huge grassy airfield at the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) base at An Khe in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam.

Two experienced pilots, CWO Jesse Phelps of Boise, Idaho, and CWO Kenneth Stancil of Chattanooga, Tenn., were at the controls. Behind them in the doors were crew chief Donald Grella of Laurel, Neb., and door gunner Thomas Rice Jr. of Spartanburg, S.C. All four were already veterans of the fiercest air assault battle of the war, fought the previous month in the Ia Drang.

By Gabriel Ledeen

28 March 2009

Signaling his commitment to campaign promises of a "surge" in Afghanistan, President Obama recently authorized the deployment of 17,000 additional troops to reinforce our flagging efforts. While he is still awaiting the official "strategic review" of the war, the president undoubtedly believes that the additional troops are necessary to counter the resurgent Taliban in much the same way that our surge in Iraq succeeded in quelling violence and securing the apocalyptic Baghdad.

Such a comparison, with especially significant strategic implications, requires a more thorough understanding of our Iraqi successes than currently exists. The differences between Afghanistan and Iraq are myriad and meaningful -- that is clear -- but the focus on implementing our newly recast counter-insurgency doctrine in the "other" war should give us reason to consider what exactly we did to turn the tide in Iraq. As most now recognize, the change began in Iraq's most infamous province, al Anbar. The popular consensus regarding Al Anbar contends that the tribal movement known as the "Awakening" was an impromptu rejection by Sunnis of Al Qaeda in Iraq's (AQI) brutal methods and radical rule. This consensus is wrong, or at best, only partially right.

20 March 2009

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19 March 2009

Gabriel Ledeen spent two tours as a Marine lieutenant in Iraq.  And so when an email comes in from Gabe, it grabs my attention.

Gabe sent this today: