Free Republic

An Afghan soldier turned his gun on American troops at a checkpoint in the country's east, killing two Americans and at least two fellow members of Afghanistan's army in a shooting that marked both the continuance of a disturbing trend of insider attacks and the 2,000th U.S. troop death in the long-running war, officials said Sunday. The string of insider attacks is one of the greatest threats to NATO's mission in the country, endangering a partnership key to training up Afghan security forces and withdrawing international troops. Saturday's shooting took place at an Afghan army checkpoint just outside a joint...

Barack Obama is set to reject the advice of the Pentagon by announcing on Wednesday night the withdrawal of up to 30,000 troops from Afghanistan by November next year, in time for the US presidential election. The move comes despite warnings from his military commanders that recent security gains are fragile. They have been urging him to keep troop numbers high until 2013. The withdrawal has created deep divisions in Washington. The defence secretary, Robert Gates, argued for a modest reduction – at one point as low as 2,000 – citing the advice of US commanders in Afghanistan that they...

As of July 31, almost half of all U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan have happened on President Barack Obama’s watch. Since Obama took office in January 2009, 558 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan, out of 1,127 since the war began nine years ago, according to CNSNews.com’s tally. And the violence is escalating. July 2010 was the deadliest month for U.S forces in Afghanistan, with 66 combat and non-combat fatalities. Counting for both combat and non-combat deaths, the top three bloodiest months for U.S. forces all happened during Obama’s term: July 2010 (66 dead), June 2010 (60 dead), and October 2009...

Not just her nose, though: They ordered her husband to saw off her ears too for the crime of running away from home. Time’s editor insists that “We do not run this story or show this image either in support of the U.S. war effort or in opposition to it,” but that’s nonsense, of course. The image is as stark an argument as you’re likely to see for continuing the war, which is why lefties naturally have been griping about it all day. Some offer legit complaints — instead of putting a mutilated girl on the cover to make the...