Udall, DeGette commend Obama Afghanistan troop withdrawal plan, hoped for more

The senior Democratic members of Colorado’s congressional delegation, Senator Mark Udall and Representative Diana DeGette, applauded President Obama for announcing Wednesday night that he would be withdrawing roughly 30,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by November of next year, a commitment he had made when he ordered the same number of troops into battle as part of the “surge” last year. The two lawmakers expressed frustration, however, that the president had not been more bold in seeking to draw down U.S. commitments in the country.

Electronic Arts bows to pressure, makes minor change to ‘offensive’ video game

Electronic Arts today announced that it has responded to pressure from veterans and families of soldiers and made a change to its upcoming Medal of Honor game, slated to be released Oct. 12.

Markey, Salazar join effort to cool U.S.-Afghanistan relations

Colorado members of Congress Betsy Markey and John Salazar visited Afghanistan last week to take a read on President Hamid Karzai, who has been under fire as a waffling ally at best and a traitor at worst. As analysts increasingly train their focus on the country’s engagement with Afghanistan, the American relationship with Karzai has grown volatile. Pres. Obama has been pressuring Karzai to retain foreign election fraud commissioners and to endorse the Kandahar offensive the U.S. is planning for later in the spring, but Karzai has been erratic, feeling undermined by Obama and America and seeming increasingly like an unraveling power-hungry dictator. Karzai said at the beginning of the month that if “foreign interference” in his government continues, he might join the Taliban as a legitimate force of resistance.

The ultimate Bush Administration torture timeline

The New York Times and Sunday morning political talk shows are contorting themselves into linguistically-torturous positions in a feeble attempt to avoid using the word “torture” to describe the immoral and criminal techniques employed at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and CIA black sites against suspected al Qaeda-linked prisoners.

Now, Foreign Policy magazine has produced the euphemism-free “ultimate guide to the Bush Administration’s journey to the dark side.”

‘Hot Winter’ of fighting expected in Afghanistan

Our Washington Independent colleague Spencer Ackerman is embedded with U.S. troops on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border through Sept. 19. We’ll reprint his dispatches from the field over the next eleven days.

KABUL, Afghanistan — Since Afghans took up arms against the Soviet occupation in 1979, insurgency in war-torn Afghanistan has followed a cyclical pattern. The spring and the summer are for fighting. The winter — which, particularly along the mountainous, porous eastern border with Pakistan, can feature six-foot snowbanks — is for regrouping. Until, perhaps, now.