10.07.09 Eight Years In: Chances Lost in Afghanistan

Afghanistan stopped being anything about 9/11 when the talk and the beating of the war drums started and got louder for invading an absolutely innocent people and country, a country led by our once good friend, and brutal dictator, that some wanted silenced.

Now we enter the ninth year of occupying a country that if we had really kept our promises, as we didn't once before, and helped them might look and be a completely different country, for the innocent Afghans.

Osama bin Laden remains at large with a $50 million bounty on his head. Tora Bora was a missed opportunity for the U.S. to capture him, but it wasn't the last. Lara Logan reports.

The fall of Kabul in 2001 was greeted with jubilation, the momentum then with the U.S.

But reluctant to commit its own troops, the U.S. allowed Osama bin Laden to escape from the Tora Bora mountains, reports CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan......>>>>>Rest Found Here

Who Are the Taliban?

As U.S. military forces continue to fight in Afghanistan, CBS News takes an in-depth look at the covert operations of the Taliban, one of America's greatest enemies. Lara Logan reports from Kabul.

Obama's War

Coming on air and online October 13th at 9PM

Warning: This video contains graphic language and imagery

As President Obama approaches a decision point on Afghanistan strategy and whether to increase troop levels, a 24-minute rough cut of the first act of Obama's War.

Preview


Sixty-one people were arrested Monday at the White House during an anti-war protest.



Afghanistan patrol shows limits of U.S. equipment, supplies

As the sky hinted at dawn, U.S. soldiers went hunting for Taliban in the Arghandab Valley. They had satellite-linked monocles to display the locations of platoons. They could summon an aerial drone to buzz overhead with a surveillance camera. They could call on Kiowa helicopters for search-and-destroy missions.

On this mission, however, one of their most valuable assets was an informant: a farmer with a taste for opium.

"It all came down to one guy who said, 'The Taliban stole my motorcycle.' He was high, and he was pissed, and he give us the tip on where to find them," said Sgt. Kenneth Rickman, 34, of Vandalia, Ill......>>>>>

On The Eighth Anniversary

Afghan War Anniversary Marked by Debate Over More Troops

Retired Military Leaders Debate Necessity of Increased Troops in War-Torn Afghanistan

Chris Cuomo talks to those on the frontlines about the debate on strategy.

On the eighth anniversary of the Afghan war, the once-defeated Taliban are surging across the battered country while the Obama administration is hunkered down in Washington debating what strategy to deploy....>>>>>

Bodies of soldiers killed in Afghanistan back in U.S.

October 6, 2009

The bodies of U.S. soldiers arrive to a somber homecoming at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware.

The flag-draped coffins of five U.S. soldiers killed during a weekend onslaught against a U.S. military outpost in Afghanistan arrived Tuesday at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, the military said.

The bodies include Sgt. Joshua J. Kirk of South Portland, Maine; Spc. Michael P. Scusa of Villas, New Jersey; Spc. Stephen L. Mace of Lovettsville, Virginia; Spc. Christopher T. Griffin of Kincheloe, Michigan; and Pfc. Kevin C. Thomson of Reno, Nevada, according to the Air Force mortuary affairs office.

Coverage of the troops' return is allowed with the permission of their families under a policy the Obama administration instituted this year....>>>>>