It’s official.  Defense Secretary Robert Gates testified before the Senate Armed Services Comittee that, as per the new administration’s plan, 2 more brigades will be sent to Afghanistan by the end of this spring, with a third to join them by the end of summer.

Our favorite Afghanistan expert, Council On Foreign Relations’s Elizabeth Rubin, talked with Film at 11  about the proxy war that these soldiers are going to be joining in on.

More from our interview with Elizabeth Rubin, our favorite Afghanistan expert from the Council on Foreign Relations.

In this excerpt, she breaks down who The Taliban are, who they were when we first started fighting them, and who they are turning into, and who they are not.

Three years after our first trip to Afghanistan the country is spinning out of control. What are the candidates going to do to stabilize the region after seven years?

So who is going to work with us to keep Afghanistan from sliding into chaos?  And who should we be talking to?

The newly-found focus on the war in Afghanistan is the topic of our seventh episode of “Common Sense,” which will be up on Thursday. In 2005/2006, most of the “Common Sense” team went to Afghanistan–we arrived shortly after one of the first suicide bombs went off, and by the time we left in January, there was roughly one every day, across the country.

These photographs were taken by our Director of Photography, Nelson Villarreal, in Kabul:

Anti-Narcotic Afghan troops trained by Blackwater.

Even in the nicest neighborhood in Kabul, there are remnants of the last war (with the Soviets, for those keeping count).

A housing shortage due to influx of refugees from the countryside and high rent due to influx of ex-pats has driven many Afghan families into tents.

Friend? Foe? Does either guy running for President know what to do about the “war on terror” and Pakistan? Common Sense tracks down Bill Richardson, with a little help from a former SAS officer and other experts.

Friend? Foe? Does either guy running for President know what to do about the “war on terror” and Pakistan? Common Sense tracks down Bill Richardson, with a little help from a former SAS officer and other experts.