The Taliban government in Afghanistan – the nation that until recently produced 90% of the world’s heroin – has drastically reduced opium cultivation across the country. Western sources estimate an up to 99% reduction in some provinces. This raises serious questions about the seriousness of U.S. drug eradication efforts in the country over the past…

The war in Afghanistan, one of the longest conflicts in U.S. history, was marked by extensive waste, fraud, and corruption, resulting in trillions of dollars being spent by American taxpayers. The war was ostensibly launched to eliminate the threat posed by the Taliban and to find and capture Osama bin Laden, the purported mastermind behind…

In February, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) published an extensive investigation into the spectacular collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces’ (ANDSF), which the U.S. spent two decades and $90 billion building. In common with previous SIGAR reports, it offers a remarkably uncompromising, no-punches-pulled assessment, exposing corruption, incompetence, lies, and…

Throughout his campaign, Joe Biden railed against Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ foreign policy, claiming it weakened the United States and left the world in disarray. He pledged to reverse this decline and recover the damage Trump did to America’s reputation. While Donald Trump called to make America Great Again, Biden seeks to Make the American…

More than half a million Oregonians have been forced to flee their homes, as wildfires continue to ravage the West Coast of the United States. Amid record-breaking temperatures, the wildfires, which have charred one million acres of land, have caused the sky to turn a terrifying shade of red, with many comparing it to Mars, hell,…

This is not a column defending Donald Trump. Across my career, I have said more positive words about the scolex family of intestinal tapeworms than I have said about Donald Trump. (Scolex have been shown to read more.) No, this is a column about context. When The New York Times reports anonymous sources from the…

National Security Advisor John Bolton’s firing may be the 9/11 anniversary gift the war-weary American public wanted, but the support he received from the establishment demonstrates that the war machine is much greater than one man.  Bolton, the neoconservative movement’s standard bearer in the Trump administration, took up a crusade against high-level talks between Trump…

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — For the first time in recorded history, the U.S. and the Afghan government, whose forces are trained by Americans, killed more civilians than did the Taliban in the first quarter of 2019, according to a United Nations report. Increased bombing campaigns by the U.S. and increasingly reckless search operations by pro-government forces…

Here’s a statement it might be hard to disagree with: American war is off the charts. Still, I’d like to explain — but I’m nervous about doing so. I know perfectly well that the next word I plan to write will send most of you tumbling elsewhere in a universe in which “news” is the…

Well, not exactly like that, but in a way, yes. Now, finally, ‘the gloves are off’. The U.S. is openly threatening the historically timid ICC (International Criminal Court) and its judges. And unexpectedly, the ICC is hitting back. It refuses to shut up, to kneel, and to beg for mercy. Suddenly, even the Western mass…

NANGARHAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN — Elite CIA-backed special forces in Afghanistan are leaving a trail of carnage in the country. As such units do not operate under the umbrella of the Department of Defense, they have been given near-impunity despite standing accused of war crimes. Last month, the New York Times cited “senior Afghan and international…

In 1978, President Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbignew Brzezinski, decided to use the Muslim Brotherhood against the Soviets, and sent Arab combatants to support the Afghan opposition against the Communist regime. Responding to a call for help from the Afghan government, the Red Army became bogged down in an unwinnable conflict. In Afghanistan, the Muslim…