Danfung Dennis '05 directs a stunningly candid and three-dimensional look at the struggles of war, both there and back home.

U.S. Air Force Special Agent Phil Caruso ’08, who deployed to Afghanistan in February, said he feels lucky to be alive after he saw an Afghan child tug at wires buried beneath the ground.

After learning that Osama bin Laden, the terrorist behind the Sept. 11 attacks, was killed by U.S. forces, Cornellians erupted in celebration on campus and throughout Collegetown.

New York Times journalist Jeffrey Gettleman '94 spoke at Cornell Monday.

In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted at the end of September, only 11 percent of those polled believed that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should be the number one priority of the federal government.  These numbers have changed little since then.  However, a terrorist attack in the United States or a dramatic turn of events in Operation Enduring Freedom could quickly propel the Afghan War to the forefront of Americans’ minds.

Just because George W. Bush has passed you the baton does not mean it is OK to use it as a bludgeon.

Next month will mark the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, a war instigated by Bush and inherited by President Barack Obama.

For the last six of those years the Afghan conflict has shared the public stage with, and played second banana to, the Iraq war. But as Obama vows to wind down the Iraq war and rev up the Afghan war, Afghanistan may end up taking centre stage — and defining Obama’s legacy.

FORT DRUM, N.Y. (AP) — No more than an estimated 30,000 additional troops will be sent to Afghanistan as the U.S. ramps up forces there, the nation's top military officer told soldiers Monday.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen also called U.S. efforts in Iraq a success, even though "we're not done."

Mullen, speaking to fresh-faced soldiers and war-weary military wives, sought to boost morale and soothe concerns at the Army base that has seen a constant revolving door of troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan over the last eight years.

"I don't see us growing a force well beyond the 20,000 to 30,000 for Afghanistan — American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines — beyond that 30,000 or so," Mullen told about 800 soldiers and specialists gathered for a town hall meeting.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.S. is preparing to pour at least 20,000 extra troops into southern Afghanistan to cope with a Taliban insurgency that is fiercer than NATO leaders expected.

The new troops will augment the 12,500 NATO soldiers — mainly British, Canadian and Dutch — in what amounts to an Afghan version of the surge in Iraq.

New construction at Kandahar Air Field foreshadows the upcoming infusion of American power. Runways and housing are being built, along with two new U.S. outposts in Taliban-held regions of Kandahar province.

And in the past month the south has been the focus of visiting U.S. and other dignitaries — Sen. John McCain, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, U.S. congressional delegations and leaders from NATO headquarters in Europe.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A U.S.-led coalition airstrike mistakenly hit an Afghan army checkpoint Wednesday, killing nine soldiers and wounding three, Afghan officials said.

The strike hit a checkpoint in the Sayed Kheil area of Khost province in eastern Afghanistan, said Arsallah Jamal, the province's governor.

The U.S. said its forces "may have mistakenly killed and injured" Afghan soldiers in what may have been a case of mistaken identity "on both sides."

"As a Coalition forces convoy was returning from a previous operation, they were involved in multiple engagements," a U.S. military statement said. "As a result of the engagements, ANA (Afghan army) soldiers were killed and injured."

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A senior U.N. official says the number of civilians killed in fighting in Afghanistan has soared by nearly two-thirds.

The top U.N. humanitarian official, John Holmes, said Sunday that the world body has recorded 698 civilian deaths for the first half of this year, compared to 430 in the first six months of 2007.

Holmes said militants caused most of the civilian casualties this year and that the figures reflected efforts by foreign troops to reduce civilian deaths in military operations.