By WILLIAM BLUM - January 7, 2009

The building and protection of oil and gas pipelines in Afghanistan, to continue farther to Pakistan, India, and elsewhere, has been a key objective of US policy since before the 2001 American invasion and occupation of the country...A planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline has strong support from Washington because...the US is eager to block a competing pipeline that would bring gas to Pakistan and India from Iran. But security for such projects remains daunting, and that's where the US and NATO forces come in to play.

Canada's 'paper of record' is propagandizing for Canada to stay in Afghanistan past 2011...

By GARY LEUPP - December 26-28, 2008

Joint Chief[s] of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen is reportedly recommending to President-Elect Obama that the U.S. increase by 30,000 its current force of 32,000 in Afghanistan. That...is about 20,000 more troops than Obama was proposing while on the campaign trail...Obama, who has enthused about refocusing the “War on Terror” back on Afghanistan, is likely to accede to the admiral’s request.

By Derrick O'Keefe - December 21, 2008

We can't wait until the end of 2011...[I]f we do, over the next three years a lot more Canadian and Afghan blood will be senselessly shed in defence of a pack of warlords, embezzlers and drug traffickers.

Canada's New Democratic Party continues to waffle and obfuscate on the subject of Afghanistan. NDP Defence Critic Dawn Black denies charges the party is pro-war but the evidence offered suggests otherwise.

US Defense Secretary Gates has asked Canada to stay beyond the 2011 deadline set to end the Canadian Mission. Although most Canadians don't support the war it appears their politicians do...

The NDP now supports the US Terror War in Afghanistan. The party has dropped it's purely nominal opposition to Canadian participation since joining the pro-war Liberals in an anti-Harper coalition.

The situation in Afghanistan is not as bad as you've heard – its worse. Nir Rosen reports from Kabul and its surrounding provinces as the Taliban attempt to wrest control from Hamid Karzai's government.

By Sonali Kolhatkar - November 30, 2008

President Elect Barack Obama wants to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan. But the US/NATO occupation is less popular than ever. Eman, an Afghan woman's rights activist with RAWA tells Uprising host, Sonali Kolhatkar, that Obama must end the occupation. RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, is the oldest women's political organization in Afghanistan, struggling non-violently against foreign occupations and religious fundamentalism for more than 30 years.

By Richard Tanter - November 21, 2008

By virtually every measure, the war in Afghanistan is getting much worse for both the western coalition and for the Afghan civilian population. The strategic benefits are minimal to non-existent, the risks of a widening war alarming, and the moral and humanitarian consequences appalling. Strategic confusion, institutional inertia and self-interest provide most of the answer as to why the US remains in Afghanistan...If the current logic of expansion of the war engulfs Pakistan, withdrawal and defeat will take place eventually, but later, and after an infinitely more catastrophic and dangerous war.

By David Montero - Christian Science Monitor

More U.S. and NATO troops have died this year in Afghanistan than any other year since the 2001 U.S. invasion, in part because Taliban militants are launching increasingly complex and deadly attacks.

by Amir Shah - October 30, 2008

Kabul, Afghanistan — Taliban militants stormed a government building in the center of the Afghan capital on Thursday and one of them blew himself up inside, killing five people, officials and witnesses said...The ministry is in the center of the city, at a busy intersection lined with shops.

By Larry Everest - October 22, 2008

Part 2 details how, immediately after 9/11, the Bush regime conceived and launched the so-called "war on terror" in order to achieve [its] imperialist aims, which had been a decade in the making. About five hours after hijacked jets crashed into the World Trade Center and then the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, George W. Bush's Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld turned to an aide and told him to begin drawing up plans for war. His instructions: "Go massive..."

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! - October 16, 2008

Investigative journalist Nir Rosen has just returned from Afghanistan, where he was with the Taliban, traveled far from [the] capital city of Kabul, "Afghanistan's version of the Green Zone." He doesn't think the U.S. or NATO forces are winning in Afghanistan..."The government no longer exists in much of the country. People no longer trust the government. People fear the police at least as much as they fear the Taliban."

By Larry Everest - October 19, 2008

Since 2005, between 2,700 and 3,200 civilians are estimated to have been killed by U.S and NATO forces, whose attacks and bombing raids are escalating. And all this is just the latest example of the enormous suffering the U.S.-NATO war on Afghanistan has inflicted since it was launched seven years ago on October 7, 2001.