While much of the focus on Tuesday's unveiling of President Obama's revamped Afghanistan strategy will be on the number of U.S. troops he's expected to send, that decision is really a sideshow to the critical battle now under way on the ground. Far more important to prospects of victory in Afghanistan is jump-starting a moribund effort to woo nonideological Taliban fighters to switch sides in exchange for paying jobs. Pentagon officials are hoping to repeat the success of similar ...

The Pentagon on Tuesday identified four U.S. Marines who died in one of two helicopter collisions Monday in Afghanistan.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Thursday the coalition in the war-torn country is going to have to do things "dramatically differently, even uncomfortably differently" in order to succeed. "We must operate and think in a fundamentally new way," Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in a speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a British think thank. He stressed the importance of connecting with the Afghan people, who he said are "frustrated" that more has not been accomplished in ...

Support for the war in Afghanistan is at an all-time low, according to a new national poll. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Tuesday morning indicates that 39 percent of Americans favor the war in Afghanistan, with 58 percent opposed to the mission. Support is down from 53 percent in April, marking the lowest level since the start of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The poll suggests that 23 percent of ...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to approve sending thousands of additional forces to Afghanistan to deal with the growing threat from roadside bombs, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Friday. Over the past two weeks, Gates has concluded that there are not enough forces or equipment in Afghanistan to protect U.S. troops from the threat of roadside bombs, Morrell said. The secretary, he said, wants to send these forces "as soon as possible." Morrell said the deployment would be separate ...

An Afghan militant group is willing to "help" U.S. and coalition forces, if they prepare to leave Afghanistan, the group's leader said in a statement given to CNN on Monday. "We are ready to help with the United States and ... other coalition forces if foreign troops announce the time frame for the pulling out their troops from Afghanistan," said Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister and leader of the pro-Taliban Hizb-e-Islami militant group. "I am sure Afghans will ...

Last year's howls of outrage when U.S. auto executives flew to Washington on private jets to seek government bailouts may soon be repeated, now that the House of Representatives has added $330 million to the 2010 defense budget to buy four new planes for the Air Force's VIP fleet. That's because the planes that usually fly generals and White House officials around the globe are also being used — on 15% of their flights — to ferry lawmakers around ...

A Jewish Holocaust survivor who later lived on the streets of New York City has left half of her $300,000 estate to Hebrew University, the school said Monday. The new plan is the first time the U.S. military has been directly involved in anti-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan, and commanders say it is an essential part of the overall plan to stabilize the country, which is under heavy Taliban influence. Until now the U.S. military has left the eradication programs to ...

The U.S. military hopes to kill or capture some 50 Afghan drug traffickers with financial ties to the Taliban in an effort to shut down one of the insurgency's biggest sources of revenue, a U.S. Senate report says. The new plan is the first time the U.S. military has been directly involved in anti-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan, and commanders say it is an essential part of the overall plan to stabilize the country, which is under heavy Taliban influence. Until ...

And now, the rejects. Three months after the White House released a single photograph taken during a photo op of "Air Force One" flying over New York -- a flight that caused panic on the streets below -- the U.S. Air Force on Friday released the remaining 145 photos taken during the flight. The photographs show the Boeing VC-25 -- a military version of a 747 -- making three passes by the Statue of Liberty, at one point accompanied by ...