Archive | November, 2010

Afghan intervention surpasses Soviet stay

The duration of the U.S. and allied intervention in Afghanistan now exceeds that of the Soviet intervention of 1979-1989. Sunday, 28 November 2010 marks the 3340th day since U.S. and allied forces entered Afghanistan in order to topple the Taliban government and capture Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, and it is now clear that […]

Is the Defence Department feeling the heat over F-35s?

The Defence Department has commenced a public relations campaign to sell the Canadian public on the Harper government’s decision to buy the F-35 fighter (Steven Chase, “PR blitz aims to sell “skeptical public” on need for F-35 fighter jets“, Globe and Mail, 24 November 2010). Roundtables targeting opinion leaders in academia and industry are being held in […]

WikiLeaks strikes again

After WikiLeaks’ controversial release in October of 400,000 Pentagon reports pertaining to the Iraq war, Washington is gearing up to respond to the release of another batch of secret files. Washington is also doing damage control in preparation for the release of internal documents that may contain reports of compromising “conversations with political dissidents and friendly politicians… […]

Peace talks with Taliban imposter?

Reports surfaced this week in the New York Times and Washington Times indicating that one of the high-ranking Taliban officials said to be leading the Taliban side of the informal peace talks with the Afghan government and coalition forces, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, was instead a shopkeeper from the Pakistani city of Quetta (Dexter Filkins […]