Brooklyn architect David Grider had an interesting rebuttal to The Observer's story last week about the need for greater infrastructure investment in the country and the region, which challenges many assumptions about rail travel and even reminds us the Erie Canal was not the super success everyone likes to remember it as. Read More
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand reiterated her support of the July 2011 Afghanistan withdrawal date, despite Republican pressure to move the date back, in a conference call with reporters about her recent trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan this afternoon. She said the withdrawal date is useful as "a political tool."
"It creates a sense of urgency on Read More
Let’s just get this out of the way: The CIA doesn’t hire working journalists. Not American ones, anyway. It stopped in 1976 after an embarrassing investigation by Sen. Frank Church (D-ID) revealed that infiltrating news teams was just one of several bad habits dating to the 1950s. But we can’t help imagining the clinking of Read More
The maimed face of 18-year-old Aisha, her nose and ears cut off as punishment by her Afghan husband for fleeing his home, made the cover of Time magazine last week and changed the debate over the country's military involvement in Afghanistan. Hitting stands just as a growing chorus of pundits and lawmakers had begun to Read More
Yesterday, The Politicker reported on a rather bizarre interview that Congressman Ed Towns gave to the NPR morning show "The Takeaway," in which the one time Afghanistan war critic seemingly had seen the error of his ways after visiting the country with David Petraeus.
"Progress is really being made," he told the show hosts, Read More
It is hard to find people who are optimistic about the war effort in Afghanistan. But Brooklyn Congressman Ed Towns is now one after making a trip to the war-ravaged country, even during a particularly gruesome weekend.
He appeared on The Takeaway on WNYC this morning and said that despite reports to the contrary, Read More
Nearly 92,000 classified documents illustrating the realities of the war in Afghanistan over the last six years were published yesterday by The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and The Guardian, immediately drawing comparison to the Pentagon Papers, which changed the course of the Vietnam War when they ran on the frontpage Read More
A New York Times front page story from Monday by veteran James Risen about mineral riches in Afghanistan has quickly become a story about how The New York Times deals with criticism.
Critics questioned the news-worthiness and the timing of the story. For some, the article explained the American effort in Afghanistan too much, and Read More
From now on, the headlines about Afghanistan will be slugged “Obama’s War,” and perhaps that is fair enough given the president’s many endorsements of what he has called a war of necessity. It would be much less fair, however, to ignore the events that led us to this moment, when whatever choice he makes will Read More
Barack Obama’s Presidency is less than a year old, and he has already found himself on the roller coaster ride of American politics, media and celebrity. It must have been a pleasant surprise to wake to the news on October 9th that he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While it will be derided Read More
For three days next week, CBS is abandoning its standard evening news format to examine in-depth the war in Afghanistan. The project comes at a difficult time for overseas news coverage.
Felix Gilette writes:
In recent years, the big three networks have all been gradually dismantling their traditional foreign bureaus and testing out new models for covering Read More
"We're not doing it for ratings," said Sean McManus. It was the afternoon of Friday, Sept. 25, and Mr. McManus, the president of CBS News and Sports, was on the phone with The Observer talking about an upcoming, multi-day initiative at CBS News, which will focus on the state of the war in Afghanistan. For Read More
The Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations has a lovely new apartment. According to two deeds filed Friday, the group spent $4,235,000 on a 2,840-square-foot apartment at Trump World Tower, plus a $5.4 million commercial space at 633 Third Avenue.
H.E. Zahir Tanin, whose title is Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Representative of Read More
Speaking as the 100th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s birth approached last summer, biographer Robert Caro spoke of how Johnson’s presidency managed to be both triumphant and disastrous at the same time.
“You listen to the [people] who were concerned with what Lyndon Johnson did on the domestic side, and you say, ‘There never Read More
Speaking as the 100th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s birth approached last summer, biographer Robert Caro spoke of how Johnson’s presidency managed to be both triumphant and disastrous at the same time. “You listen to the [people] who were concerned with what Lyndon Johnson did on the domestic side, and you say, ‘There never was a Read More
