War Glance
An Israeli human rights group says many more Palestinian civilians were killed in the Israeli military's campaign this year in Gaza than the army admits.
B'Tselem said detailed research showed that out of 1,400 Palestinian deaths, 773 were civilians - many of them children. This contradicts an Israeli army report stating that fewer than 300 civilians died in the fighting earlier this year.
Gaza death toll 'was much higher'
Afghan highway symbol of mission in crisis
Paid for with U.S. dollars, Afghanistan's Highway 1 was supposed to symbolize a path toward a bright future when it was repaved five years ago.
The $300 million project smoothed over the highway's rough potholes and cut in half the 12-hour drive time from the capital, Kabul, to the country's political center, Kandahar. But today, roadside bombs have re-scarred the road, and Taliban militants routinely stage brazen attacks on its travelers.
Last orders for troops arriving for daily duty with hangovers: No more alcohol!
After a Nato airstrike killed as many as 125 people last week, General Stanley McChrystal was keen to get the situation under control — fast. When he tried to contact his underlings to find out what had happened, however, he found, to his fury, that many of them were either drunk or too hungover to respond.
Complaining in his daily Commander’s Update that too many people had been “partying it up”, General McChrystal, head of International Forces in Afghanistan (Isaf), banned alcohol at his headquarters yesterday, admonishing staff for not having “their heads in the right place” on Friday morning — a few hours after the deadly attack.
Sole Informant Guided Decision On Afghan Strike
An Afghan informant was on the phone with an intelligence officer at the center, however, insisting that everybody at the site was an insurgent, according to an account that German officers here provided to NATO officials.
Based largely on that informant's assessment, the commander ordered a 500-pound, satellite-guided bomb to be dropped on each truck early Friday. The vehicles exploded in a fireball that lit up the night sky for miles, incinerating many of those standing nearby.
New Afghan 'poll frauds' emerge
Further evidence has come to light of widespread fraud during the recent Afghan presidential election. One tribal elder has admitted to the BBC that he tampered with hundreds of ballots in favour of incumbent President Hamid Karzai.
More than 600 serious complaints are being investigated, but the deadline for new complaints has now passed.
Are US taxpayers funding the Taliban?
The United States Agency for International Development has opened an investigation into allegations that its funds for road and bridge construction in Afghanistan are ending up in the hands of the Taliban, through a protection racket for contractors.And House Foreign Affairs Committee member, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) vowed to hold hearings on the issue in the fall, saying: "The idea that American taxpayer dollars are ending up with the Taliban is a case for grave concern."
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Contractors Outnumber U.S. Troops in Afghanistan
On a superficial level, the shift means that most of those representing the United States in the war will be wearing the scruffy cargo pants, polo shirts, baseball caps and other casual accouterments favored by overseas contractors rather than the fatigues and flight suits of the military.
More fundamentally, the contractors who are a majority of the force in what has become the most important American enterprise abroad are subject to lines of authority that are less clear-cut than they are for their military colleagues.
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