TALIBAN OPEN NEW FRONT IN NORTH

"... the Taliban have steadily staged a resurgence in Kunduz, where they now threaten a vital NATO supply line and employ more sophisticated tactics... The turnabout vividly demonstrates how security has broken down even in unexpected parts of Afghanistan... the government, and American military trainers, failed to remain vigilant to signs of Taliban encroachment, and reduced deployments in the northern provinces.."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/world/asia/27kunduz.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sudsredirect=true

U.S. UNVEILS EXTENDED BAGRAM PRISON

"... The new prison wing cost some $60 million to build... could hold up to 1,000 detainees, but was at present holding around 700 inmates, including 30 foreign prisoners... a former detainee at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay, said the Bagram prison resembled a concentration camp. "People were beaten, dragged, tortured in it..." an investigator of secret prisons and renditions from the human rights organisation, Reprieve, said Bagram is seen as "Guantanamo's lesser-known evil twin".
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/11/20091115114337109563.html

U.S. AMBASSADOR ADVISES OBAMA NOT TO SEND MORE TROOPS

"... the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, has sent classified messages to Washington in the last few days, advising President Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan... The substance of Eikenberry’s advice went directly against the plan the military commander in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, has been pushing for in recent months. Eikenberry’s intervention is highly significant. A Harvard and Stanford-educated general, he had served in Afghanistan twice before retiring and was immediately appointed America’s envoy in that country in April 2009..."
http://www.juancole.com/2009/11/tripathi-afghanistan-and-presidential.html

U.S. INDIRECTLY FUNDING THE TALIBAN

"New Report Reveals US Indirectly Funding the Taliban... the Pentagon’s civilian contractors in Afghanistan end up paying insurgent groups to protect American supply routes from attack... The practice of buying the Taliban’s protection is not a secret. US military officials in Kabul... (say) that a minimum of ten percent of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts consists of payments to the Taliban... That translates into millions of dollars being funneled to the Taliban. This summer, anticipating a surge of US troops, the military expanded its trucking contracts in Afghanistan by 600 percent to a total of over $2 billion... (but) if these companies did not pay these bribes or this extortion, then the US military would have to actually defend these convoys to be able to get supplies to its troops, which would mean more American casualties, so this is, in effect, a way to avoid more American casualties in the war..."
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/12/taliban