1) KABUL (Reuters) - Insurgents stormed remote outposts in eastern Afghanistan killing eight Americans in the deadliest battle in more than a year near the border with Pakistan, the U.S. military said Sunday.
WE WERE WARNED YEARS AGO ..Michael Yon in 2006:
There's been a lot of talk recently that I have "switched sides," or become pessimistic about the wars. The former is not true, the latter definitely is. We can win these wars, but we must radically change the way we are fighting. I'll not go into detail here, but suffice to say that I, too, do not like to deliver bad news. I greatly enjoyed getting to write about our incredible soldiers - though I did not like being in Iraq or Afghanistan. Readers should know that I funded the first 7 months in Iraq out of my own pockets, then finally began accepting support, and eventually started selling my book and photos. I learned that when I wrote stories that made people happy, I made money. When I wrote words that upset people, they stopped supporting my work, stopped buying photos and books. And so, I have great financial incentive to write lies and make people happy with lies. I do not get paid by anyone to travel to places like Afghanistan or Iraq. That all comes out of my pockets. So, imagine my plight when I am on the ground and am seeing mostly bad news in Afghanistan. Further, I predict an absolute slaughter of NATO forces starting in the spring of 2007. I hope to be wrong, but I doubt it. We and our Canadian, British and other friends, are going to lose a lot of good people needlessly in Afghanistan. I would not be surprised to see a base overrun in 2007.
I could sit here and lie, make you feel good, make you think we are doing better than the media is making out, but we are not. In fact, I was the first source saying that we are losing in Afghanistan. I wrote that six months before others picked up on it. People stopped buying my work. But more importantly, I told the truth. And I told the truth that Iraq was in a civil war fully one year before practically anyone else did. It hurts me very badly financially to tell you the truth, but you can't pay me enough to lie when our people are dieing.
Afghan provincial authorities said they had lost contact with scores of Afghan policemen after the day-long attack on Saturday and did not know whether they were dead or alive. NATO said at least two Afghan soldiers were killed.
The fighting took place in Nuristan province's Kamdesh district in high mountains along the eastern border with Pakistan. U.S. forces had already announced plans to withdraw from the area as part of commander General Stanley McChrystal's strategy to focus his forces on population centers.
2) Barack and Michelle Obama are, among other things, husband and wife. And tonight, they 
celebrated their 17th anniversary, their first in the White House.
The president and first lady went out. At 7:40 pm EDT, the presidential motorcade stopped in front of Blue Duck Tavern in the West End of Washington, between Dupont Circle and Georgetown.
"Taste cannot be controlled by law,'' Thomas Jefferson is said to have said -- it says so at the Blue Duck Tavern's Web-site.
The restaurant at 24th and M specializes in classic American fare, with a wood-burning oven
3) Ralph Peters :
When enemy action kills our troops, it's unfortu nate. When our own moral fecklessness murders those in uniform, it's unforgivable.
In Afghanistan, our leaders are complicit in the death of each soldier, Marine or Navy corpsman who falls because politically correct rules of engagement shield our enemies.
Mission-focused, but morally oblivious, Gen. Stan McChrystal conformed to the Obama Way of War by imposing rules of engagement that could have been concocted by Code Pink:
* Unless our troops in combat are absolutely certain that no civilians are present, they're denied artillery or air support.
* If any civilians appear where we meet the Taliban, our troops are to "break contact" -- to retreat.
These ROE are a cave-in to the Taliban's shameless propaganda campaign that claimed innocents were massacred every time our aircraft appeared overhead. (Afghan President Mohammed Karzai and our establishment media backed the terrorists.)
The Taliban's goal was to level the playing field -- to deny our troops their technological edge. Our enemies more than succeeded.
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INEXCUSABLE
IRRESPONSIBLE
SELFISH
UNCARING IN ACTION
ARROGANCE DEFINED
2010 - REMEMBER