AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Gov. John Baldacci says a soldier who was raised in Maine has died in combat in Afghanistan. Baldacci says Staff Sgt. Eric Shaw was killed Sunday by enemy gunfire in Afghanistan on his third combat tour. His wife was notified while visiting her parents in Maine. She and three children live […]
Afghanistan
Posted inMaine
Marine with Maine ties killed in Afghanistan
Another soldier with Maine ties has been killed in combat. The Department of Defense announced Monday afternoon that Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard, 21, of New Portland died Friday during operations in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. Bernard, who joined the Marine Corps in November 2006, was a rifleman assigned to 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine […]
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Posted inOpinion
Afghan officials urge speeding the pace of aid
After three weeks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I find it easier to be hopeful about the latter. Across the board, the Afghans I met, from government officials to elders to students, did not want a return of harsh Taliban rule. But they were frustrated with their government’s failure to provide security and jobs or to […]
Posted inOpinion
U.S. officials would be wise to listen to Afghan elders
MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan — Can Afghanistan make progress against its Taliban insurgency if neighboring Pakistan fails to curb its own increasingly powerful jihadis? This is the question that shadows President Obama’s “AfPak” policy as the United States dispatches 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Afghan officials complain bitterly that Pakistan’s military helps Taliban fighters cross the […]
Posted inOpinion
Afghanistan and Pakistan pose very real threat
I am writing this column en route to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of all the pressing foreign-policy items on President Obama’s plate, bar none, AfPak is the most troubling. The nightmare scenario used by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq war — the possibility that terrorists might obtain nukes — was applied to the wrong […]