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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged Afghanistan

1. June 23, 2011 02:36 PM

   Attack of the Drones

   Finding the real meaning in Obama’s Afghanistan speech

   By Greg Marx

   In the wake of President Obama’s big speech on Afghanistan last night, the basic points of his message—a reversal of the troop “surge” starting this year and concluding before the 2012 election, with further drawdowns through 2014; a shift from counterinsurgency to counterterrorism; a willingness to negotiate with the Taliban—have been widely reported. And if you’re looking for a little...

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2. May 5, 2011 12:59 PM

   COIN Stars

   Counterinsurgency bloggers help set the Afghanistan agenda

   By Maura R. O'Connor

   When Erik Smith accepted a one-year posting to Afghanistan as a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) official working with one of the U.S. military’s Provincial Reconstruction Teams, he received thirty minutes of Pashto language instruction and cursory training in counterinsurgency and stabilization strategy. “This is not the typical environment that USAID works in,” explained Smith (not his real...

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3. January 6, 2011 08:00 AM

   Crossfire in Kandahar

   Afghanistan’s new journalists navigate an ambiguous war

   By Vanessa M. Gezari

   One hot night in September, less than a week after Afghanistan’s parliamentary election, soldiers from NATO’s International Security Assistance Force arrived at the Kandahar home of Mohammad Nader. Nader, a cameraman for the Qatar-based satellite channel Al Jazeera, was sleeping shirtless on the floor near his front door. The door stood ajar so a breeze could blow in. He heard...

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4. January 27, 2011 12:16 PM

   Keller’s WikiLeaks Think Piece

   Assange bad; leaks good

   By Joel Meares

   Times executive editor Bill Keller has a 7,900-plus word piece in Sunday’s magazine called “Dealing with Assange and the Secrets He Spilled,” in which he takes us behind the scenes of negotiations with WikiLeaks and the Times’s WikiLeaks reporting, describes interactions with Julian Assange, and answers his critics—both those who say the Times ran soft coverage and those who say...

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5. July 7, 2011 05:31 PM

   Q&A: Sebastian Junger on Tim Hetherington

   “The ultimate truth about war is that you are guaranteed to lose your brothers.”

   By Michael Meyer

   It’s not often that one sees characters from a film gather to mourn a filmmaker. On May 24, soldiers from Second Platoon of Battle Company of the 173rd Airborne Division joined friends, colleagues, and family of Tim Hetherington for a memorial service in a crowded church in lower Manhattan. Hetherington was an acclaimed war photographer and the co-director of the...

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6. March 13, 2012 04:00 PM

   Stories I’d Like to See

   Afghan justice, Putin’s palace, and the Edwards trial

   By Steven Brill

   In his weekly “Stories I’d Like to See” column, journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill spotlights topics that, in his opinion, have received insufficient media attention. This article was originally published on Reuters.com. 1. International, Afghan and American law surrounding the accused soldier-murderer: With the Afghan Parliament demanding yesterday that the American soldier accused of killing 16 civilians there be put...

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