Afghanistan War

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Signs of War: The Afghanistan War 10th Anniversary Highway Banner Project

I'd climbed onto the guardrails of the Dorchester Avenue overpass in Boston to tie a recycled bed sheet to the chain-link fencing. The sheet bore the inscription, 1ST LT. TIMOTHY STEELE, 25, DIED AUG. 23, 2011, KANDAHAR PROVINCE, and it puffed with wind
Questions on the Overpass
By GREG COOK | October 14, 2011

Videos: Selections from the Afghanistan War YouTube Video Fest

To mark the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. war in Afghanistan on Oct. 7, Phoenix art critic Greg Cook presents the “Afghanistan War YouTube Video Fest,” a screening of videos documenting the conflict.
Scenes from a decade of war
By GREG COOK | October 07, 2011

Judicial ups and downs

It was about time that Rogeriee Thompson was finally confirmed (unanimously, we might add) by the United States Senate for what amounts to an historic spot on the Federal Court of Appeals.
Plus poppy hypocrisy, pressuring the Pope, and even more ‘Buttercup’ trivia
By PHILLIPE AND JORGE | March 26, 2010

In the land of the stoner cops

Major Jim Contreras was awaiting his marching orders. Literally.
On the front lines of Obama's campaign in Afghanistan
By NIR ROSEN | February 26, 2010

Ransom Notes

While reporting from Afghanistan two years ago, David Rohde became, for the second time in his career, an unwilling participant rather than an observer. On October 29, 1995, Rohde had been arrested by Bosnian Serbs. And then in November 2008, Rohde and
Was the NY Times being hypocritical when it suppressed coverage of its journalist who was kidnapped by the Taliban?
By ADAM REILLY | February 12, 2010

Trying times for Obama

It was only a matter of time before President Barack Obama turned into a deficit hawk. But it is a measure of the desperation sparked by Scott Brown's election to Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat that Obama hatched before the conclusion of the 2010 congre
Tough times for the nation
By EDITORIAL | January 29, 2010

An Obama confidant on the surge in Afghanistan

Twenty-four hours before President Barack Obama announced a 30,000-troop escalation of the Afghan War, one of his key foreign policy advisors provided a view of the president’s thinking at Brown University.
War Dept.
By STEVEN STYCOS | December 04, 2009

Airman punk

Perhaps the clearest sign that Afghanistan is not your father's war comes in the person of Airman First Class Peter Bourgeois, who, while deployed at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, has been busy managing the career of his former band, Jodi Explodi.
Running a band and writing music in Afghanistan
By SAM PFEIFLE | December 04, 2009

Has Obama peaked? Yes, he has

To listen to some pundits, Barack Obama's public image began taking a serious beating when the off-year election returns came in a week ago. Or maybe it was the undeserved Nobel Prize, his approach to the war in Afghanistan, or when he revved up his pur
Yes, he made history. Unfortunately, it’s all downhill from there.
By STEVEN STARK | November 13, 2009

Narrative truth

For the majority of us Americans, Iraq and Afghanistan are a series of news-data points — number of Americans killed today, number of car bombs, spending tallies, estimates of civilian deaths.
Krzysztof Wodiczko’s war story at the ICA
By GREG COOK | November 13, 2009

Publicity stunts for the War in Afghanistan

Ignored by most Americans
Big Fat Whale
By BRIAN MCFADDEN | October 30, 2009

Afghanistan: Just say no!

The idea that the war in Afghanistan has reached a critical junction, a “now-or-never” moment that requires an additional 40,000 troops to win, is rubbish.
Plus, Obama and the Nobel
By EDITORIAL | October 16, 2009

Robert McNamara, RIP

As secretary of defense under President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara prosecuted the Vietnam War on a day-to-day basis, just as Donald Rumsfeld orchestrated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for George W. Bush.
Memories of Vietnam should speed Obama's exit plans for Iraq and Afghanistan
By EDITORIAL | July 10, 2009

Debating the Middle East muddle

US military aid to Pakistan and Afghanistan is being wasted and should be redirected to the police and moderate non-violent groups working for education and the rule of law, according to two Middle East experts who spoke Sunday at the Community Church
Global Politics
By STEVEN STYCOS | June 19, 2009

Soldiers committing suicide

On July 22, 2004, unable to handle the intensity anymore — the daily vomiting, the feeling that he was a murderer — Lucey wrapped a garden hose around his neck and hanged himself.
US troops are killing themselves in record numbers
By JASON NOTTE | March 11, 2009

Propping up a puppet

"If you ask me anything I don't know, I'm not going to answer," Yogi Berra once said. President Obama should do the same.
Obama gets it wrong on Afghanistan
By TED RALL | February 25, 2009

Explosively bad

Abroad and at home, the future looks grim.
The potential for even more public disillusionment and anger is huge as events outstrip the nation’s political imagination
By EDITORIAL | October 09, 2008

Running toward truth

The first wave of current-war fiction is washing up on American shores, and Alex Carr’s The Prince of Bagram Prison is a prime example.
A fast-paced spy thriller explores the ambiguities of wartime
By DEIRDRE FULTON | April 09, 2008

Kite club

In spite of being lovingly realized and creatively cast, The Kite Runner is a simplistic adaptation of a powerful, multi-layered story.
Simplified Runner not up to speed
By CHRIS WANGLER | December 12, 2007

Peaks Island veteran collects stories of war's atrocities

Thirty-six years ago, more than 100 Vietnam veterans gathered in Detroit to describe and expose war crimes perpetrated by themselves and their fellow soldiers.
Winter soldier
By DEIRDRE FULTON | December 05, 2007

Dance, Monkey: Jim Morris as President George W. Bush

Vice-President Cheney and I have just implemented a plan whereby we now deal with people who disagree with our plans for Iraq and Afghanistan by declaring them Enemy Combatants.
A comic in the hot seat
By SARA FAITH ALTERMAN | September 25, 2007

Flashbacks: September 29, 2006

These selections, culled from our back files, were compiled by Dan Peleschuk, Ian Sands, and Eva Wolchover.
The Boston Phoenix has been covering the trends and events that shape our times since 1966.
By PHOENIX FLASHBACKS | September 27, 2006

Welcome back, Castro

On Tuesday, the Cuban dictator announced his recuperation on Cuba’s state-run news Web site.
Around the world with Adam Reilly
By ADAM REILLY | September 06, 2006

Who might need - and get - a pardon?

Abuse of prisoners and detainees by US personnel has occurred, at the very least, at three overseas sites: Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, in Iraq; Guantánamo Bay, in Cuba; and Bagram Air Base, in Afghanistan.
Legal advisers, high-level officials, covert operatives
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | August 17, 2006

Extraordinary rendition

Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, directors of the flawed but inflammatory The Road to Guantánamo , go about telling the truth of injustice in a roundabout way. Fact or fiction? Mat Whitecross explains . By Peter Keough
The Road to Guantánamo can’t handle the truth
By PETER KEOUGH | June 21, 2006

George vs. George

President George W. Bush is the third man named George to hold the head office of our republic, after his father and George Washington.
Compare and contrast
By JEFF INGLIS | May 11, 2006

When GI Joe says no

A young former US Army sniper wearing a desert-camo uniform, an Iraqi kaffiyeh, and mirrored sunglasses scans a ruined urban landscape of smashed homes, empty streets, and garbage heaps.
What critics of the Iraq War must understand about the new culture of the military
By CHRISTIAN PARENT | April 26, 2006

The Beauty Academy of Kabul

Shot in Afghanistan just months after the seeming smashing of the Taliban, Liz Mermin’s engaging film already seems a nostalgia item remembering a better, more optimistic time.
Compelling doc avoids coming off too didactic
By GERALD PEARY | April 19, 2006

Books not bombs

It’s symbolic that Afghanistan’s largest school for girls occupies the building that used to house the country’s largest Taliban madrassa
Turning the page for Afghan girls
By DEIRDRE FULTON | January 18, 2006

Suicide Attacks Target Kabul Peacekeepers

KABUL, Afghanistan - Two separate suicide attackers rammed car bombs into vehicles belonging to NATO-led peacekeepers Monday in Kabul, killing at least one German soldier and wounding at least 13 people in the first major attack on foreign troops in the capital in more than a year.
By Mike Smith | December 18, 2005

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