President Obama's plan to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan in July 2011 has emboldened terrorists and increased distrust of U.S. intentions in the region, Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Thursday. "The administration's withdrawal date was music to the ears of the militants and terrorists," Qureshi said in an exclusive interview with The Washington Examiner. "This sends the wrong signal, and you will have chaos and confusion in Afghanistan if this comes to fru... (more)

So far it’s mostly American citizens of Haitian descent, but we need to get emergency visas for some of the Haitians themselves—especially the orphans. It seems clever to send the planes to the island with supplies, and then back here with human beings who may need better medical care than can be provided there. (more)

President Obama’s troop surge has divided the American public, but in Afghanistan where those troops will be stationed a clear majority favor U.S. presence in their country. Conducted between December 11-23rd of 1,534 randomly sampled Afghan adults the survey was a joint effort between ABC News, the BBC and the Afghan Center for Socio-Economic and Opinion Research (ACSOR) in Kabul. (more)

The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan had been courted by the US as a possible informant, US intelligence sources have said. (more)

Here is a video report on a suicide bomber in Afghanistan that has killed eight Americans today. Those killed are reportedly "not from the military": Eight Americans were killed in a suicide bombing Wednesday at a military base in eastern Afghanistan, according to a U.S. military official and a U.S. Embassy official. (more)

More on the murky aftermath of a joint U.S.-Afghan raid in Kunar province this weekend that left nine Afghans (civilians? insurgents?) dead and generated further acrimony between the Afghan government and the U.S. military. As accusations fly from Afghan politicians about inappropriate military activities, the International Security Assistance Force — NATO’s Afghanistan command, led by Gen. Stanley McChrystal — has released this statement, calling for an “immediate joint investigation to reach an imparti... (more)

As I pointed out a couple weeks ago when reporting on a joint press conference, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, seems more comfortable with increasing U.S. troops in Afghanistan than Defense Secretary Bob Gates does. And today, when Mullen, testified for his Senate hearing to be renominated as chairman, he made that very clear, as The New York Times reports (more)

Three prominent Senate voices on foreign relations are now calling on the Obama administration to heighten its commitment -- and its troop deployments -- to the war-torn state of Afghanistan. In the op-ed, published in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday evening, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) ask the White House to consider a "significant increase in U.S. forces" in the struggling state, asserting that any other course of action would be a "guarantee... (more)

Big news from The Washington Post: Hundreds of prisoners held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan will for the first time have the right to challenge their indefinite detention and call witnesses in their defense under a new review system being put in place this week, according to administration officials. The new system will be applied to the more than 600 Afghans held at the Bagram military base, and will mark the first substantive change in the overseas detention policies that President Obama inheri... (more)

Support units will be replaced by up to 14,000 'trigger-pullers,' and noncombat posts will be contracted out, Defense officials say. The swap will allow the U.S. to keep its troop level unchanged (more)