Iraq enters 2011 – the year in which American forces are supposed to finally leave – with all too many wounds from our occupation. While we hear little here in the US about the effects of our war and occupation, Iraqis live with the results daily.

On Thursday, President Obama announced the results of his administration’s latest review of our war on Afghanistan. As expected, he reported that it was “on track.”

On Thursday, December 16, 2010, the White House will use its December review to try to spin the disastrous Afghanistan War plan by citing “progress” in the military campaign, but the available facts paint a picture of a war that’s not making us safer and that’s not worth the cost.

As Marcy discussed here, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the Obama administration was looking at giving the CIA control over secret operations – including JSOC assassination teams and drones – in Yemen, supposedly in response to the still rather mysterious printer cartridge bombs announced last week. Today, the Pentagon was eager to deny these reports.

A response to Spencer Ackerman’s opening gambit on Pakistan diplomacy.

As we’ve previously mentioned in December, January and this month, Yemen is one of the “roughly a dozen countries” besides Iraq and Afghanistan where Obama’s administration is waging war. And as is the norm in these secret, undeclared wars, we are working hand in hand with unsavoury governments whose own agendas of repression are ignored [...]

David Petraeus took the “making good progress” line on Afghanistan today on Meet the Press, one that we’ve heard countless times before, but one that never gets backed up by any legitimate evidence. We know that this is part of a coordinated strategy to delay any serious withdrawals as part of the July 2011 timetable. Jim White has plenty more on this media blitz.

The argument that reducing U.S.-caused civilian casualties and contrasting their number with the Taliban’s brutality will contribute to a “strategically decisive” embrace of the U.S.’s allies in Afghanistan has been trumped.

Exclusive, on-the-ground interviews obtained by Brave New Foundation’s Rethink Afghanistan project confirm what U.S. and allied forces repeatedly denied: U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan killed dozens of people in the Sangin District of Helmand Province on July 23.

The New York Times continues to downplay the human rights abuses, amounting in some instances to war crimes, in its reporting on the classified documents released by Wikileaks. In contrast to the Guardian and Der Spiegel, the NYT’s failed to highlight the many accounts of atrocities committed by U.S. and coalition troops in the papers’ recent coverage.