Stephen Farrell Freed
This is going to get a lot of press — and it has already — but a good friend of mine, Stephen Farrell was kidnapped this weekend near Kunduz, Afghanistan. He was freed today by NATO forces (possibly British or American Special Forces) in an operation that, tragically, left his interpreter Sultan Munadi dead.
I’m very, very glad […]
Afghanistan : Vietnam as … ?
A good friend of mine who asked to remain anonymous, but who is very smart and wise on such things, quibbled with my Vietnam analogy. With his kind permission, it is reprinted below:
A good post, though I have to offer one quibble: I hold that all comparisons of Afghanistan to Vietnam are de facto false without there […]
Afghan Elections: What's Obama to Do?
Dexter Filkins and Carlotta Gall of the New York Times have a thoroughly dispiriting story today.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghans loyal to President Hamid Karzai set up hundreds of fictitious polling sites where no one voted but where hundreds of thousands of ballots were still recorded toward the president’s re-election, according to senior Western and Afghan officials here.
The […]
Video report on ISAF attack in Kabul
Bit of propaganda here, but hey, all sides get an airing…
'The more troops they send, the more targets we have'
My friend Ghaith Abdul-Ahad has a crackerjack story in today’s Guardian on the Afghanistan Taliban. Yes, there have been other “Inside the Taliban” stories, but Ghaith is a ballsy guy and managed to hook up with fighters from the Haqqani network. The details of the story stand out, such as this note about how the fighters avoid […]
Two AP journalists wounded in Afghanistan
Two AP visual journalists were seriously wounded in Afghanistan earlier today when the convoy they were traveling with was hit by an IED.
Photographer Emilio Morenatti and AP Television News videographer Andi Jatmiko were traveling with the military when their vehicle was struck by the bomb Tuesday.
Both were immediately taken to a military hospital in Kandahar. Jatmiko suffered […]
"It was always a bad year to get out of Vietnam"
Compare and contrast:
Obama’s Vietnam: “Vietnam analogies can be tiresome. To critics, especially those on the left, all American interventions after Vietnam have been potential “quagmires.” But sometimes clichés come true, and, especially lately, it seems that the war in Afghanistan is shaping up in all-too-familiar ways. The parallels are disturbing: the president, eager to show […]
The Great Escape
I’m glad to see a little light thrown on this story. And very glad to know David and Tahir are safe.
KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan journalist who was held captive by the Taliban for more than seven months along with a New York Times reporter revealed details on Sunday of a nighttime escape that included weeks of careful plotting, […]
Afghans in America
While this post has little to do with the insurgency in Afghanistan, it does reflect the project I’ve been working on for the past 10 weeks or so. In my closing days at Stanford University as a Knight Fellow, I decided to explore the Afghan community in Fremont, Calif., which is the largest in the United States. […]
Afghan Orphans Show Off Artistry
Posted by Christopher Allbritton on September 11, 2009 at 12:26 pm +0000 · Leave a Comment
My friend Natalie Carney is in Kabul doing a documentary on Afghan orphans. And although I’ve seen it many times, I’m always blown away by the sheer resilience of kids in war zones. The urge and ability to be a kid — to play, to smile, to escape a lot of the shit of their everyday lives — […]
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