Army Holds Up Lighter Armor for Soldiers in Afghanistan

(NEWSER) - With a little push from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Army says it has completed its assessment of $3 million worth of high-tech, lightweight body armor and will send it immediately to soldiers in Afghanistan, the New York Times reports. The Army was dragging out testing on the new armor, which takes as much as 25 pounds off soldiers’ loads, worried that combat deaths resulting from the new equipment would raise public ire, the Times reported earlier. More»

Peter Fuller called Afghan leaders 'out of touch with reality'

(NEWSER) - One of the highest-ranking US commanders in Afghanistan didn't get that Stanley McChrystal memo about watching your tongue in the presence of reporters. Major Gen. Peter Fuller has been relieved of command after bad-mouthing Hamid Karzai and other Afghan leaders, reports CNN . Fuller made the comments in this Politico interview yesterday. Some choice highlights:

• Karzai: In response to the Afghan leader's comments about siding with Pakistan over the US: "Why don’t you just poke me in the eye with a needle! You’ve got to be kidding me. … I’m sorry, we just gave you $11.6 billion and now you’re telling me, ‘I don’t really care?'"
• Karzai II: In the next Afghan election, "you hope they get a guy that's more articulate in public."

Stress levels rise as fighting intensifies

(AP) - As fighting and casualties in Afghanistan's war reached an all-time high, US soldiers and Marines there reported plunging morale and the highest rates of mental health problems in five years. Only 46.5% of soldiers said their morale was medium, high, or very high last year, compared with 65.7% in 2005. For Marines, it was only 58.6% last year compared with 70.4% when they were surveyed in 2006 in Iraq. (The report compares numbers of the Marines to their time in Iraq because they were not in Afghanistan in significant numbers before the surge.) More»

Kunar province among Afghanistan's most violent

(NEWSER) - Six US soldiers were killed during an attack on an insurgent hideout near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, the Washington Post reports. The deaths that resulted from the helicopter-driven assault are the latest reminder of the US struggle in the isolated Kunar province. The US has lately shifted its attention away from the region—one of Afghanistan’s most violent since 2005—concentrating instead on population centers. More»

Sought to gain war support through propaganda techniques: Rolling Stone

(NEWSER) - In an illegal effort to build support for the war, a top US general in Afghanistan ordered troops trained in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting lawmakers, reports Michael Hastings for Rolling Stone . Over a four-month period last year, Gen. William Caldwell reportedly pushed the psy-ops team to focus their work on lawmakers—the list of targets included John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Sen. Carl Levin, who was a key backer of Caldwell’s request last month for another $2 billion to train Afghan troops. But when the leader of Caldwell's "information operations" unit tried to oppose the plan, he later found himself the subject of a military investigation accusing him of unrelated inappropriate conduct. More»