A great man is gone: Cambodian-born photographer and reporter Dith Pran, whose personal story of escaping the enslavement and genocide of 1970s Cambodia under dictator Pol Pot became the film “The Killing Fields,” died Sunday of pancreatic cancer.
Dith, 65, is credited with coining the terrible term “killing fields,” according to The Associated Press, whose obituary [...]

Another phony number from the Pentagon
Even for the bizarre world of Pentagon accounting, this is appalling:  “At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries,” according to USA Today.

“Greater flexibility” to bury mistakes
Anytime an American diplomat or diplomatic facility is attacked, the State Department is required by law to investigate the incident. Unless, it turns out, the attack happens in the places such attacks are most likely to happen– Iraq and Afghanistan.

Counting the cost in Iraq and Afghanistan
On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that 2007 has been the deadliest year for American troops in Iraq. Today, the Associated Press reports that 2007 has also become the deadliest year for American troops in Afghanistan.
Of course, it’s not just Americans who are dying in Afghanistan. As the [...]

A new economy blooms in Afghanistan
If you remember when we first invaded Afghanistan, there was a lot talk from the Bush administration about how this was going to be an invasion done right. There would be security, freedom, new infrastructure, and the economy would blossom. Then, after we invaded Iraq, Afghanistan ended up with little [...]

The Schwarzeneggerian future of warfare
As the governor knows all too well, when you start outsourcing combat to machines, there’s always the potential of a murderous future in which killer robots inexplicably speak with Austrian accents. Now comes word that the MQ-9 drone is airborne and “has mown down its first fleshies”, as The Register colorfully [...]

Bush League Accounting
“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money”, Senator Everett M. Dirksen is supposed to have said. If a few billions are real money, then what’s a few trillion? Nothing to worry about, according to White House Press Secretary Dana Perino.