Below The Beltway

So much for the good war, apparently:
WASHINGTON — With security and economic conditions in Afghanistan already in dire straits, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday that the situation there would probably only worsen next year.
“The trends across the board are not going in the right direction,” the chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, [...]

Give the government power, and it will be abused:
Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) [...]

What happens when a country with nuclear weapons, an unstable political system, and radical Islamic terrorists hiding within it’s borders goes through a complete economic collapse ?
Well, we may find out whether we want to or not:
Officially, the central bank holds $8.14 billion (£4.65 billion) of foreign currency, but if forward liabilities are included, the [...]

A bit of a shooting war with our Pakistani allies:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan warned U.S. troops not to intrude on its territory Friday, after the two anti-terror allies traded fire along the volatile border with Afghanistan.
Thursday’s five-minute clash adds to already heightened tensions at a time the United States is stepping up cross-border operations in [...]

Since there isn’t anything better I can write about what September 11th means to me than what I wrote last year, here it is again.

This is the third fourth year that I’ve been blogging during the anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Each time I’ve tried, in one way or another, to articulate how that [...]

Quite honestly, I don’t really care what the rest of the world thinks after reading nonsense like this:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, there is no consensus outside the United States that Islamist militants from al Qaeda were responsible, according to an international poll published Wednesday.
he survey of 16,063 people in [...]

I’m guess that this isn’t exactly the kind of news that John McCain wants to have come out right before the Republican convention:
SHANGHAI, China (AP) — China and Iraq have signed a $3 billion deal revising an earlier agreement for China’s biggest oil company to help develop the Ahdab oil field, an official at the [...]