Afghanistan

One of the key initiatives that President Obama announced during the State of the Union address was a freeze on federal spending increases, and one key area of spending he made a point of exempting was the defense budget.   That reminded me of this essay on US military spending by the Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow.  He does a fine job of listing the threats the United States faces in the world and our analyzing our ability to meet them, but one statistic jumped out at me: for 2010 the Pentagon budget will be roughly $700 billion, this, Bandow notes, is only a little more than the inf

The Supreme Court of Canada handed down its ruling Friday in the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian child soldier who was captured by US forces in Afghanistan during a fire fight that left one US medical officer dead. Instead of being returned to Canadian authorities, Khadr, then only 15, was sent to Guantanamo Bay where he suffered interrogation and threats of torture.

When putting together my “Stories You May Have Missed in 09” post, I was surprised to see that two of the six news stories I highlighted involved Canada.  I suppose that I share the same conceit as many of my fellow Americans, we tend to view our neighbors to the north as just too familiar to really consider them a “foreign” country.  Our two lands share the longest de-militarized border in the world, we’ve been at peace for nearly two full centuries since the end of the War of 1812 – save for a little mid-19^th century

The campaign to bring democracy and human rights to Afghanistan is still an ongoing uphill battle. NATO forces have been at war in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001. Afghanistan hasn't had a moment's peace in decades. The current war being fought is the fifth phase of civil war, following a long history of power coups, bloody battles and terrorism that has left millions dead and scores homeless.

As 2009 fades into history the urge for anyone with access to a media outlet is to compile some sort of year-end list. I am not going to put together a list of top stories or year end awards, but in the column below I am going to highlight seven stories that I think deserved more attention than they received, either because they challenged the conventional wisdom in international affairs, help to explain where our world is or where it may be heading, or, in the case of the science story at the end, because it is just too bizarre not to note. So without further ado, here is my humble year-end collection:

The US Navy, Climate Change Believers

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach this week when the Canadian Federal Government and Prime Minister Harper's Conservatives voted to bury an inquiry into the abuse and transfer of Afghan detainees. It isn't the first time our military has been accused of a human rights scandal during peacekeeping missions and the move to postpone the inquiry suggests the government wants nothing more than to stop the flow of information and deflect any kind of responsibility.

“It was Dr. Abdullah’s right to choose to withdraw from the runoff election. My future actions will all be guided by the Afghan Constitution and I will accept the decision made by the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan.” (Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai on his rival’s decision to withdraw from presidential elections.)

By now you’ve likely heard that there will be a run-off election in Afghanistan between the current President Hamid Karzai and his former Foreign Minister, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.