Agence France-Presse:

WASHINGTON — The US military plans to deploy a new intelligence drone in Afghanistan, which military experts say will allow US troops to monitor much larger operational theaters than before, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

The newspaper said the airborne surveillance system is called Gorgon Stare and will be able to transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town.

By Kathy Kelly

In the first-person voice of Abdulai, a 15-year-old Afghan boy, whose father was killed by the Taliban:

    "The place where I live is the worst place on earth in which to be born.[1] Good thing my mother survived her pregnancies.[2] But my father - he didn't survive the war. Isn't it strange that there is a graveyard marked out especially for children in my small remote mountain village? A quarter of all children do not live beyond five years of age[3] and they are buried there; we already have to find new space because the graveyard is filled. As 42 percent of Afghans live in poverty,[4] my family could not afford a proper grave for my father for five years. My father would have understood our predicament: in a land with the worst food risk in the world,[5] we make do with whatever food and clean water[6] we can get. Since we don't have electricity,[7] we are grateful for diesel lamps. And most importantly, my father would have understood that we still struggle to stay away from the killings.

By Jason Ditz 

Though officials were quick to point out that it had not yet been formally approved, top US commanders are pressing the Obama Administration to allow the massive escalation of ground raids against Pakistan’s tribal areas, turning what has been a secret (albeit poorly kept) war into an extremely overt one.

The New York Times, which carefully excised the word “ground” from their headline, reports that the commanders are looking for “a shift in policy (that) could allow for more routine incursions.”

By Kenneth J. Theisen

President Barack Obama unveiled his administration’s Afghanistan strategic review on Thursday, December 16th.  The summary made available to the public claimed “progress” for the U.S. in pursuit of its war aims in Afghanistan, but failed to provide details to demonstrate these claims.

By Jason Ditz 

By Jason Ditz

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