In the Grand Scheme of Things, John Nagl and I are on the same “side” of the Afghanistan strategy debate, and I hope he takes this post in the spirit of fair-weather criticism. His op-ed in the Daily News might be more persuasive to the Afghaniskeptic if it dealt with the realistic prospects for (a) [...]

Not the sort of press release I expected to receive from Afghanistan, but it appears today is Go Skateboarding Day, “an international holiday recognizing the value of skateboarding to youth in societies around the world.” Rad! In Kabul from 2 to 11 p.m. — so the tail end of it should be going on when [...]

Speaking of institution-building in Afghan governance, over at the Washington Independent, I took a look at what Saturday’s U.N. update on Afghanistan assessed about its current levels of development. It’s actually more of a mixed picture than I thought, with the U.N. finding improvements on the national level for directing and implementing a short-term-impact development [...]

Congratulations to friend and occasional guestblogger Jamelle Bouie, who’ll start next month as a writing fellow at the American Prospect, a platform that has launched many to bright journalistic futures. Consistent readers know that I consider Jamelle to be one of the most promising members of the next blogospheric generation, and you’ve seen him demonstrate [...]

Over at Small Wars Journal, two officers from Task Force Stryker in southern Afghanistan eulogize their friend and partner, the Argandab district governor Hajji Abdul Jabar, whom the Taliban assassinated in Kandahar last week. By coincidence, James Traub ran a piece in the New York Times Magazine yesterday focusing on U.S. military partnership in Argandab, [...]

Nine years of contractor-enabled war later, the military has created a new task force to see that U.S. contractor money doesn’t inadvertently subvert U.S. war strategy. It’s called Task Force 2010, and it’s the subject of my Washington Independent story this morning: While it’s too new to have a specific agenda delineated yet, U.S. officials [...]

Oh, Adam Gadahn, you dumb Hesher. No one thinks this makes you look reasonable: Al Qaeda’s American-born spokesman has repeated the terror group’s conditions for peace with America, calling on President Barack Obama to withdraw his troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, end support for Israel, stop intervening in the affairs of Muslims and free Muslim [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 508-10 June 19, 2010 DOD Identifies Army Casualty The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Capt. Michael P. Cassidy, 41, of Simpsonville, S.C., died June 17 in Mosul, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the [...]

The ultimate victory for the Mavi Marmara: Israel has decided to ease the blockade of Gaza, shifting its policy closer toward what supporters of the blockade said it was always supposed to accomplish, preventing Hamas from stockpiling weapons. We’ll have to wait to see how much so-called ‘dual use’ material — stuff that could have [...]

I’d say there’s always next year, but the blogosphere is so 00s. At least Crispin and Roger got theirs.