Afghanistan

Comfortably out of harm's way and with a lot on our minds, we don't have much reason to think about the life-threatening reality facing more than 170,000 Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. They do their duty. We go about our business, inattention enabled by much of the media's withdrawal from those battlefields. But occasionally a report from the war zone -- like one last week by National Public Radio's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson on the death of a young Marine corporal in Afghanistan -- jolts us from our complacency.

Under a late winter sky, surrounded by mountains left verdant by recent rain showers, is one of Afghanistan's spookiest-looking and most dangerous places: the once-vibrant but now war-ravaged and virtually empty city of Now Zad. For decades, it was among Helmand province's largest and most prosperous cities, thanks at least in part to the profitable opium poppy crop grown by local farmers, many of whom are sharecroppers. Dozens of shops, numerous schools, government offices and mud-built homes for 25,000-plus residents were arrayed in a crowded pattern that resembled the Western idea of a city.

The Defense Department last week identified the following American military personnel killed in Afghanistan: Carlos A. Aragon, 19, of Orem, Utah; lance corporal, Marine Corps Reserve. Aragon was killed in combat Monday in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, on the Pakistani border. He was assigned to the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 4th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. Josiah D. Crumpler, 27, of Hillsborough, N.C.; specialist, Army. Crumpler was one of two soldiers killed Monday when insurgents attacked their unit with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire in the Bala Murghab district of western Afghanistan's Badghis province, which borders Turkmenistan.

Congressional opponents of the war in Afghanistan forced a debate Wednesday on the floor of the House of Representatives on a resolution to bring U.S. forces home and end the 8-year-old conflict. The measure ended up losing, 356 to 65, a margin that had been expected. Nonetheless, antiwar lawmakers welcomed the debate as a chance to express pent-up frustration with the continued troop buildup in Afghanistan, and to express their view that the original mission of U.S. forces, defeating Al Qaeda, had been lost.

There are two wars going on in Afghanistan. One is to defeat the Taliban, and that war is not going well. The other is to liberate women, and that war has hardly begun. If the first war is won but the second is lost, Afghanistan will turn into a failed state -- a caldron of violence and misery, home to extremism and totally outside the Western orbit of influence. Last week's election, however imperfect, is welcome, but it means little as long as women remain enslaved in this patriarchal, tradition-bound culture.

It started out as a projection from the military, intended only for the ears of the president and his top advisors. But in a war council meeting at the White House less than a month ago, Obama proposed making it public. "Let's name that date," he said, according to participants. And then on Tuesday, he did. The date, July 2011, is when the Afghan troop buildup is supposed to be working well enough against the Taliban-led insurgency that some troops can start to come home.

American military fatalities in Afghanistan doubled in 2009 compared with the previous year, and U.S. officials and analysts acknowledge that the new year is likely to prove even more lethal. The planned U.S. troop buildup and ever-deadlier tactics adopted by the Taliban and other insurgent groups are expected to result in at least a temporary surge in deaths and injuries among American troops. Nearly 70,000 are currently serving here and an additional 30,000 are to arrive in this year.

Everybody knows about Jay Leno's taste for topical humor. Far fewer are aware that his wife, Mavis, has long been one of Hollywood's most influential behind-the-scenes activists on behalf of women. For more than a decade Mavis Leno has made the plight of Afghan women her particular case and this month she and the organization in which she plays a pivotal role -- the Feminist Majority Foundation -- will hold what amounts to a coming out party for the next round in this cause.

In a further assault on the Afghan government, a suicide bomber killed six people Monday at the funeral of a provincial governor who had been assassinated by the Taliban. Four senior Cabinet ministers escaped injury. The attack occurred near a tent where more than 1,000 people had congregated in the Tani district of Khowst province in eastern Afghanistan. The bombing caused carnage and chaos, and police fired in the air to control panicked mourners who feared a second blast.

From his apartment in Las Vegas, Sam Nelson drove to work through the desert along wind-whipped Highway 95 toward Indian Springs. Along the way, he tuned in to XM radio and tried to put aside the distractions of daily life -- bills, rent, laundry -- and get ready for work. Nelson, an Air Force captain, was heading for his day shift on a new kind of job, one that could require him to kill another human being 7,500 miles away. Seated in a padded chair inside a low, tan building, he controlled a heavily armed drone aircraft soaring over Afghanistan.

The bicycle man prefers working in the sun, sitting on a cushion nailed to a wooden block, stretching out his right leg, the one with a missing foot, taken years ago in that instant when a man's life veers another way. Abdul Hibib has been fixing bicycles for almost 30 years. His hands are quick, clicking gears, moving across spokes as if he's plucking a harp. So much worn rubber and troubled history have rolled past him. His country tumbled from war to war while he tinkered with bicycles, outlasting the Soviets, surviving the Taliban.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed Saturday to allow foreign observers to sit on an election commission, reversing a decree that sidestepped international oversight and drew U.S. criticism that he was jeopardizing his government's credibility. Karzai's decision followed weeks of pressure from the international community to improve the legitimacy of elections. The president's reelection in August was widely regarded as fraudulent, and his recent decision to do away with foreign monitors further agitated the United Nations.

The Defense Department last week identified the following American military personnel killed in Afghanistan and Iraq: Aaron M. Arthur, 25, of Lake City, S.C.; sergeant, Army. Arthur was one of two soldiers killed Monday when their vehicle overturned north of Kut, Iraq, south of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 203rd Brigade Support Battalion, attached to the 1st Battalion, 10th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division at Ft. Benning, Ga. Lakeshia M. Bailey, 23, of Columbus, Ga.; specialist, Army.

Four suicide bombers struck the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Saturday evening, killing at least 31 people and destroying houses and shops, according to investigators. Officials said the bombs exploded near a hotel, a police station and at the city's main prison, possibly in an attempt to free Taliban militants. Other reports indicated that a large blast at the prison was followed by a barrage of rockets. "There were four suicide bombers, including two in cars, and all the attacks happened within the city about 7:30 p.m.," Mohammad Pashtun, chief of criminal investigations for Kandahar province, told The Times by telephone.

The bicycle man prefers working in the sun, sitting on a cushion nailed to a wooden block, stretching out his right leg, the one with a missing foot, taken years ago in that instant when a man's life veers another way. Abdul Hibib has been fixing bicycles for almost 30 years. His hands are quick, clicking gears, moving across spokes as if he's plucking a harp. So much worn rubber and troubled history have rolled past him. His country tumbled from war to war while he tinkered with bicycles, outlasting the Soviets, surviving the Taliban.

Congressional opponents of the war in Afghanistan forced a debate Wednesday on the floor of the House of Representatives on a resolution to bring U.S. forces home and end the 8-year-old conflict. The measure ended up losing, 356 to 65, a margin that had been expected. Nonetheless, antiwar lawmakers welcomed the debate as a chance to express pent-up frustration with the continued troop buildup in Afghanistan, and to express their view that the original mission of U.S. forces, defeating Al Qaeda, had been lost.

The men come at dawn, a ragged, anxious collection of faces peeking through scarves and hoping for work as they stand in a traffic circle beneath billboards advertising war heroes and washing machines. They are bricklayers, gardeners, hole diggers and carpenters. Sometimes they are tapped on the shoulder, most times they are not, so they hunch amid the cars and fruit stands, knowing that the higher the sun climbs the lower their chances of returning home with money in their pockets.

As soon as a U.S. Marine-led offensive swept the Taliban from Marja recently, a new civilian leader was rushed in, vowing to "bring back dignity" to the town. Turns out, he had served time in a German prison for stabbing his son, international officials said Saturday. Keeping Abdul Zahir in Marja's top post may complicate NATO's aim of urging people in southern Afghanistan to move beyond their violent past. "It's a concern," said a U.S. official, who asked not to be named because of the matter's sensitivity.

The Defense Department last week identified the following American military personnel killed in Afghanistan: Carlos A. Aragon, 19, of Orem, Utah; lance corporal, Marine Corps Reserve. Aragon was killed in combat Monday in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, on the Pakistani border. He was assigned to the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 4th Marine Division at Camp Pendleton. Josiah D. Crumpler, 27, of Hillsborough, N.C.; specialist, Army. Crumpler was one of two soldiers killed Monday when insurgents attacked their unit with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire in the Bala Murghab district of western Afghanistan's Badghis province, which borders Turkmenistan.

Under a late winter sky, surrounded by mountains left verdant by recent rain showers, is one of Afghanistan's spookiest-looking and most dangerous places: the once-vibrant but now war-ravaged and virtually empty city of Now Zad. For decades, it was among Helmand province's largest and most prosperous cities, thanks at least in part to the profitable opium poppy crop grown by local farmers, many of whom are sharecroppers. Dozens of shops, numerous schools, government offices and mud-built homes for 25,000-plus residents were arrayed in a crowded pattern that resembled the Western idea of a city.