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Well, gee, $1 trillion or so just doesn’t buy what it used to. Take Iraq, for example. Or, should I say: Take Iraq, please, someone — and fix it. Fend off the nasty Islamic fighters of ISIS and keep that miserable sinkhole for American lives and money from coming back to bite us — again. Do you understand now, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Bolton and all you neocon nutjobs, why the invasion of Iraq in 2003 wasn’t a very good idea? President Obama sure does. Because now he’s neck deep in another crisis in this place, a country...

They heard someone saying that an American soldier was looking for an English speaker so he could talk with the Taliban. "Following his disappearance, IEDs started going off directly under the trucks. They were getting perfect hits every time. Their ambushes were very calculated, very methodical,"

President Obama finally completed the prisoner swap he has been pleading with the Taliban for years to accept. While the president draws down American forces in Afghanistan and hamstrings our remaining troops with unconscionable combat rules of engagement that make both offensive operations and self-defense extremely difficult, the Taliban get back five of their most experienced, most virulently anti-American commanders. In return, thanks to the president’s negotiations with the terrorists, we receive U.S. Army sergeant Bowe Bergdahl — who, according to several of his fellow soldiers, walked off his post in 2009 before being captured by the Taliban. (For more...

After five years as a POW, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is headed home. But the circumstances of his capture by the Taliban in Afghanistan remain unclear, indicating he may have walked away from his base. For now, the story for US Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is one of physical and mental recovery and reunion with his family. But very soon it will involve debriefings about the nearly five years of his captivity by Taliban fighters, who apparently held him in Pakistan as well as Afghanistan, where his infantry unit had been engaged in combat. Military and intelligence experts will want to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The only American soldier held prisoner in Afghanistan has been freed by the Taliban

Anybody can make a mistake, and that certainly appears to be what led to the Obama White House’s exposure of the top CIA official in Afghanistan this weekend. Unfortunately, as Roger Kimball details , this is not an isolated incident. In year six of the Obama administration, it speaks volumes about not just incompetence but immaturity and the skewed priorities that come with it. Exactly because anyone can make a mistake, large organizations — presidential administrations included — build layers of vetting into the disclosure of information to the public. In this instance, because the commander-in-chief made a surprise visit...

President Barack Obama slipped into Afghanistan for a surprise visit Sunday and made clear that the U.S. will likely maintain a limited role here even after its combat mission ends this year and America’s longest war comes to a close. “America’s commitment to the people of Afghanistan will endure,” he pledged. Speaking to troops gathered in an airplane hangar on this sprawling military base, Obama said the war had reached a pivotal point, with Afghan forces assuming primary responsibility for their country’s security. But while many of the 32,800 U.S. forces now in Afghanistan will leave in the coming months,...

President Obama made a surprise appearance in Afghanistan on Sunday. There is now buzz that the White House revealed the name of the CIA station chief in Kabul to a pool of reporters:

President Barack Obama is promising U.S. forces in Afghanistan that America’s longest war will come to a close at the end of the year. The president made a surprise visit Sunday to Bagram Air Field to celebrate the Memorial Day holiday weekend with troops. He says the war is at a pivotal moment, with Afghan forces taking over primary responsibility for the security of their country. …

President Obama has made an unannounced visit to Afghanistan this Memorial Day weekend, Fox News has learned.

It's one of the most famous military mysteries of the past decade, Pat Tillman, the former ASU and Cardinals player turned Army Ranger killed in 2004 after he left the NFL to fight in Afghanistan. The Army said it was friendly fire, but never said whose shots killed Tillman. Three soldiers acknowledged firing at his position, but none have spoken publicly until now. Steven Elliott told ESPN's "Outside the Lines" that two convoys entered the mountains, but got separated. He said Tillman's group scaled a ridge line to help fellow rangers under attack, but a squad leader mistakenly thought an...

Nearly a decade after Mohammad Gulab and his fellow villagers rescued and protected wounded Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, they remain Taliban targets—but they’ve never regretted their kindness. Nearly eight-and-a-half years after Mohammad Gulab and his fellow villagers harbored and saved the life of a gravely wounded U.S. Navy SEAL, they say they are still proud of their courageous action and would do it again in spite of the disappointments and troubles that have followed. In the face of point-blank Taliban threats to overrun the small village of Sabray in remote Kunar Province, along the porous and mountainous frontier with Pakistan,...

Tom Cruise not only thinks he trains harder than Olympic athletes, he believes his job as a professional actor is as grueling as fighting the war in Afghanistan -- this according to legal docs obtained by TMZ. As we reported, Cruise recently sat for a deposition in his $50 million libel suit against a magazine publisher that claimed he abandoned daughter Suri -- and his quotes are GOLD. First, the Middle East -- Tom says his location shoots are just like serving a tour in Afghanistan, "That's what it feels like. And certainly on this last movie, it was brutal....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRBwNgfVL58#t=80 This is the amazing story of the OEF enduring tribute for our 89 fallen heroes that traveled from sea to shining sea; Vermont to San Mateo and was finally unveiled in the 5th Marine Memorial Park at the journey's end. The OEF Monument, built by "Rock of Ages Corporation" in Graniteville, Vermont, was made possible by the generous outreach of so many "Friends of the Fifth," Adoptive Cities, and Marine Supporters. Please allow the time to watch this documentary. The 10 day journey of the OEF Monument to San Mateo, home of the 5th Marine Regiment, was delivered by...

U.S. and Afghan politicians are in the middle of a heated debate over whether a small American and NATO force will remain in Afghanistan at the end of next year. But what's a political and strategic question at the negotiating table is an emotional question at bases around Afghanistan, where soldiers watch the discussions with one eye on their sacrifices over the past 12 years and the other on the American withdrawal from Vietnam four decades ago. In short, they don't want to go home without the win. After repeated combat tours, an untold number of divorces and nearly 2,300...

In the course of his rambling monologue on national security policy delivered at the National Defense University, President Obama gave only glancing attention to the most significant military undertaking of his term in office -- the Afghanistan war. The president scarcely ever mentions Afghanistan except to note that Bush's war there was "paid for with borrowed dollars." The word Afghanistan is nearly always mouthed in the context of "winding down" or "ending" our commitment. And, of course, because Obama still cannot help himself, he again chastised his predecessor for supposedly "shifting our focus" and prosecuting a war in Iraq. Perhaps...

(Reuters) - Four U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan's Kandahar province on Tuesday, the coalition and officials said, a day after three Georgian soldiers were killed in nearby Helmand. The soldiers were in a vehicle on patrol in Kandahar's Zhari district when they were killed, provincial spokesman Jawid Ahmad Faisal said.

Relatives of Navy SEALs who died when their helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan in August 2011 spoke at a press conference Thursday to condemn the Obama administration and claim that the U.S. military presented a Muslim cleric at the dead SEALs’ funeral who disparaged “sinners and infidels who are fodder for the hell fire.” FreedomWatch president Larry Klayman, the attorney representing the families, claimed at the press conference, which Republican Rep. Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota and former Florida Republican Rep. Allen West also attended, that the U.S. military presented an anti-American speaker at the SEALs’ 2011 funeral.

Seven US service members were killed on Saturday in one of the deadliest days for Americans in Afghanistan in recent months and the latest of attacks against international troops since the Taliban announced the start of their spring offensive. The renewed violence came as Afghan president Hamid Karzai acknowledged at a news conference that regular payments his government has received from CIA for more than a decade would continue. Karzai also said that talks on a US-Afghan bilateral security agreement to govern future American military presence in the country had been delayed because of conditions the Afghans were placing on...

even U.S. soldiers and a member of the NATO-led coalition were killed on Saturday in one of the deadliest days for Americans and other foreign troops in Afghanistan in recent months, as the Taliban continued attacks as part of their spring offensive. The renewed violence came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai acknowledged at a news conference that regular payments his government has received from the CIA for more than a decade would continue. Karzai also said that talks on a U.S.-Afghan bilateral security agreement to govern future American military presence in the country had been delayed because of conditions the...