Just Foreign Policy News
November 6, 2009

Rep. Eric Massa calls for a conclusion to the war in Afghanistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJqnWIQ3o1c

NoEscalation.org: Help Us Push and Track Congress on Afghanistan Escalation
No decision has been announced. Call Members of Congress, ask where they stand, and report the results.
http://NoEscalation.org

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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) An agreement to end a four-month political crisis in Honduras collapsed early on Friday, Reuters reports. President Zelaya declared the pact dead just a week after it was signed and called on Hondurans to boycott presidential elections this month because, in a surprise move, de facto leader Micheletti moved to form a new government without him.

2) Fort Hood, the base stricken in Thursday's shooting rampage, has a large share of the military's overall instances of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide, the Wall Street Journal reports. Since the start of the Afghan war in 2001, the base has lost hundreds of soldiers in combat. The base has also lost at least 75 of its soldiers to suicide, one of the heaviest such tolls in the U.S. military. Through October, 10 Fort Hood soldiers had taken their lives in 2009, the second-highest tally in the Army behind Kentucky's Fort Campbell, which had 16 suicides.

Just Foreign Policy News
November 5, 2009

Washington Post Slants Afghan News with Biased News Header
The Washington Post prefaces news articles about Afghanistan and Pakistan with the header: "The AfPak War: Combating Extremism in Afghanistan and Pakistan." Even the article on Matthew Hoh's resignation - in which Hoh argued the opposite, that the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan was fueling the insurgency - carries this header. Urge the Washington Post to retire this biased news header.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/wapo-header

Background: WaPo Slants Afghan News with Biased News Header
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/394

NoEscalation.org: Help Us Push and Track Congress on Afghanistan Escalation
No decision has been announced. Call Members of Congress, ask where they stand, and report the results.
http://NoEscalation.org

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Summary:
U.S./Top News

Just Foreign Policy News
November 4, 2009

Joint Chiefs: Don't Mess With Dwell Time
The Joint Chiefs have urged President Obama not to send new troops to Afghanistan unless they have spent 12 months in the U.S. That may disappoint Fred Kagan, who wants new troops in place for the "spring fighting season." But the U.N.'s Kai Eide has a better idea for the "spring fighting season": let's give it a miss.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/392

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No decision has been announced. Call Members of Congress, ask where they stand, and report the results.
http://NoEscalation.org

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Summary:
U.S./Top News

Just Foreign Policy News
November 3, 2009

Obama's Decision on More Troops to "Someone Else's Civil War"
In his letter of resignation, Matthew Hoh wrote, "I fail to see the value ... in continuous U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war." A prominent American agrees: "It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else's civil war." That was Senator Barack Obama, announcing his candidacy for President in Springfield, Illinois, on February 10, 2007. A search through the New York Times and the Washington Post for the last 12 months turns up exactly one article mentioning the idea that there is a civil war in Afghanistan: the Post article on Hoh's resignation.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/389

NoEscalation.org: Help Us Push and Track Congress on Afghanistan Escalation
No decision has been announced. Call Members of Congress, ask where they stand, and report the results.
http://NoEscalation.org

Rethink Afghanistan: "Congressman Alan Grayson on Afghanistan"
"I think that the aid program is a fig leaf to try to make Congress and the American people feel better about war...I think the basic premise that we can alter Afghan society is fatally flawed…everywhere you go, people want to be left alone. And that's the best foreign policy of all: just to leave people alone."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVLJUUgIOv4

Veterans Brock McIntosh & Rick Reyes on Afghanistan

Just Foreign Policy News
November 2, 2009

Obama's Decision on More Troops to "Someone Else's Civil War"
In his letter of resignation, Matthew Hoh wrote, "I fail to see the value ... in continuous U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year old civil war." A prominent American agrees: "It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else's civil war." That was Senator Barack Obama, announcing his candidacy for President in Springfield, Illinois, on February 10, 2007. A search through the New York Times and the Washington Post for the last 12 months turns up exactly one article mentioning the idea that there is a civil war in Afghanistan: the Post article on Hoh's resignation.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/389

NoEscalation.org: Help Us Push and Track Congress on Afghanistan Escalation
No decision has been announced. Call Members of Congress, ask where they stand, and report the results.
http://NoEscalation.org

Jon Stewart Interview with Anna Baltzer and Mustafa Barghouti
The Daily Show introduces Jewish-Palestinian cooperation for Palestinian human rights to television-watching America.
http://www.indecisionforever.com/2009/10/29/jon-stewarts-extended-interview-with-anna-baltzer-and-mustafa-barghouti/

Malalai Joya and the Tale of 2 CNNs
CNN US objects to Joya's reference to the US "occupation" of Afghanistan, but CNN International has no problem with it.

Just Foreign Policy News
October 29, 2009

NoEscalation.org: Help Us Push and Track Congress on Afghanistan Escalation
Help us by calling Members of Congress, asking where they stand, and reporting the results. You can also post press clips documenting Congressional opposition to the war.
http://NoEscalation.org

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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Anti-war activists have seized on U.S. Foreign Service officer Matthew Hoh's resignation to make their case against the war in Afghanistan, NPR reports. "He's challenging fundamental premises of the war. He's not just saying this is going badly. He's saying what we are doing doesn't make sense," said Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy. The Hoh letter suggests that the U.S. is essentially intervening in an ongoing civil war in Afghanistan, Naiman said.

Just Foreign Policy News
October 28, 2009

NoEscalation.org: Help Us Push and Track Congress on Afghanistan Escalation
Help us by calling Members of Congress, asking where they stand, and reporting the results. You can also post press clips documenting Congressional opposition to the war.
http://NoEscalation.org

Matthew Hoh: Q&A
The Washington Post ran an online Q&A with Matthew Hoh, a former Foreign Service officer who resigned in protest over the Afghan war, to discuss why he thought the war "wasn't worth the fight."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/10/27/DI2009102703143.html

Congress Members Denounce Mixed US Messages on Honduras Coup
Rep. Raul Grijalva and 15 Members of Congress have written to President Obama, urging him to end the de facto policy of mixed messages regarding the coup in Honduras.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/384

Kerry, Berman Protest Law Library Report Justifying Honduras Coup
Senator Kerry and Rep. Berman have written a letter of protest to the Librarian of Congress over a Law Library of Congress report that sought to justify the coup in Honduras.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/385

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Summary:

Just Foreign Policy News
October 27, 2009

Just Foreign Policy News on the Web:
[To receive just the Summary and a link to the web version, you can use this webform:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/switchdailynews]

NoEscalation.org: Help Us Push and Track Congress on Afghanistan Escalation
Help us by calling Members of Congress, asking where they stand, and reporting the results. You can also post press clips documenting Congressional opposition to the war.
http://NoEscalation.org

"Lessons in Disaster": If Obama Caves to the Pentagon, He's No Jack Kennedy
The Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama has read Gordon Goldstein's book on the path to U.S. military escalation in Vietnam. So he knows that President Kennedy said no to the U.S. military on sending combat troops to Vietnam, and he knows that the notion that you have to do whatever the military says is madness.
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/382

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Summary:
U.S./Top News

Just Foreign Policy News
October 26, 2009

NoEscalation.org: Help Us Push and Track Congress on Afghanistan Escalation
Help us by calling Members of Congress, asking where they stand, and reporting the results. You can also post press clips documenting Congressional opposition to the war.
http://NoEscalation.org

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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Bringing all Afghan parties, including the Taliban, into talks is essential to long-term stability in Afghanistan, writes East Timor President and Nobel Laureate Jose Ramos-Horta for the Wall Street Journal. The Taliban is strong enough to make Afghanistan ungovernable for the U.S. indefinitely. The U.S. is strong enough to keep the Taliban from ever cementing its hold on the country if the US wants to do so. In East Timor and elsewhere, a stalemate opened the door to dialogue and compromise. The U.S. should use this moment to explore ways for a transitional arrangement that allows the Taliban to share power, brings an end to the fighting and provides for the timely exit of U.S. forces.

Just Foreign Policy News
October 23, 2009

Just Foreign Policy News on the Web:
[To receive just the Summary and a link to the web version, you can use this webform:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/switchdailynews]

NoEscalation.org: Help Us Push and Track Congress on Afghanistan Escalation
Help us by calling Members of Congress, asking where they stand, and reporting the results. You can also post press clips documenting Congressional opposition to the war.
http://NoEscalation.org

Bill Moyers Journal talks with Justice Goldstone
Moyers talks with Justice Richard Goldstone, who headed up the UN Human Rights Council investigation into fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10232009/profile.html

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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) President Obama will soon make what could be the defining decision of his presidency - whether to send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, writes Katrina vanden Heuvel in The Nation. Security in the US and the region depend not on this misguided "surge," but on commonsense counterterrorist and homeland security measures, vanden Heuvel writes. She urges Nation readers to press Members of Congress to oppose escalation via the website http://NoEscalation.org.