Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen talked with Jim Lehrer on PBS Newshour last night, about President Obama’s plan to send an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, and the timetable for US withdrawal.

Listen to the interview

Listen live at 12pm ET/9am PT

If you want more perspective on Afghanistan, we have another choice that goes beyond the network talk shows: KUOW’s Weekday with Steve Scher. Today, Scher will talk about the shift in Afghan policy and its ramifications.

The guest list includes Todd Zwilich, The Takeaway’s Washington correspondent; Alex Their, director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the US Institute of Peace; and Larry Goodson, a South Asia specialist at the US Army War College.

Listen live or on-demand.

Here’s Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies on WNET’s Worldfocus. Cordesman discusses President Obama’s decision and what a shift in warfare tactics will look like. For one thing, he predicts more US casualties.

Listen live at 11am ET/8am PT

In addition to the network shows, we’re highlighting a few notable local talk shows that will focus on Afghanistan today. The first is MPR’s Midmorning with Kerri Miller.

Miller’s guest list for the discussion includes the Brookings Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon; and Christine Fair, Assistant professor in the security studies department at Georgetown University.

Listen live or on-demand.

As President Obama announced plans to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, some Afghans voiced their concern about the continuing troop presence; others fear what could happen once the US begins to withdraw.

Here’s a report from David Chater of Aljazeera English.

From The Newshour, here’s syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks with their 5 minute take on President Obama’s Afghanistan policy and his address.

If you missed it last night, here’s President Obama’s address on Afghanistan at West Point.

You can also listen to the address.

Listen live at 8pm ET/5pm PT

President Obama will address the nation tonight from the United States Military Academy at West Point, as he announces his decision on future American troop levels in Afghanistan.

NPR News will have live coverage beginning at 8pm ET. Michele Norris will host, and a number of NPR reporters will be on hand to analyze: White House correspondent Don Gonyea, NPR Pentagon reporter Tom Bowman, Capitol Hill correspondent David Welna, and National correspondent Mara Liasson.

We expect most NPR News stations will carry this address live, but you can also hear it live at npr.org or on the NPR iPhone app.

The Newshour’s Ray Saurez spoke to Eric Schmitt of The New York Times yesterday about the logistics of the new troop deployment expected in Afghanistan, as well as how the Obama administration will determine whether the mission is successful. Also in this conversation, how Pakistan fits into the Afghan strategy. It opens with a short interview with Senator Bernie Sanders.

Watch the interview

This is a good moment to revisit an interesting conversation from NPR’s Talk of the Nation last month. Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars, and Neil Sheehan, author of A Bright Shining Lie, talk about the parallels between the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Listen to the conversation

NPR’s Don Gonyea provides some perspective on the past 7 years of the war in Afghanistan, in a piece on Morning Edition today.

He pairs President Bush’s address to graduating cadets at West Point on June 1, 2002 with President Obama’s address there tonight, announcing an increase in troop deployment.

This is a good scene-setting piece – recommended.

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From The Newshour last night, here’s an interview with Global Post correspondent Ben Gilbert in Kandahar. He tells Judy Woodruff about what he’s hearing from US troops about the Obama plan to increase troop levels in Afghanistan.

Watch the interview

Listen live at 10am ET/7am PT

You should carve out some time in your schedule either this morning (while it’s live) or later to check out WNYC’s Brian Lehrer. Thomas Friedman headlines the show today, as he discusses Afghanistan, and other issues including climate change and health care.

We expect a smart exchange.

Listen live or on-demand.

Listen live at 1pm ET/10am PT

Malalai Joya was born in Afghanistan, and returned from living in exile in 1998. In 2005, she was elected to the Afghan Parliament. But in 2007, she was suspended from Parliament because she began denouncing the warlords who were serving with her.

Joya has written A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice. In it, she argues that democracy in Afghanistan is a sham (a view many agree with, post-election), and she also argues that US involvement is making the situation worse.

Today on KUOW’s Weekday, Joya will talk to host Steve Scher about Afghanistan, her story, and the future of the US presence in the country.

Listen live or on-demand.

Retired General Rick Hillier was Canada’s former Chief of Defence Staff to the Canadian Forces from 2005-2008. His charge was Afghanistan.

Hillier has never been shy about the press, and he openly expressed his frustrations with funding for the troops, bureaucratic infighting, and the lack of progress in Afghanistan.

Hillier has written a new memoir, A Soldier First: Bullets, Bureaucrats and the Politics of War. In this interview on CBC Radio One’s The Current, Anna Maria Tremonti, he talks about the obstacles to progress.

Listen to the interview.

Last night, The Newshour broadcast an exclusive interview with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

In this conversation recorded Sunday in Kabul, Karzai talks with The Newshour’s Margaret Warner about the recent election, corruption, and his views on a potential revision in US military strategy in the region.

There’s a full transcript of the interview here.

Here’s a roundup of some of the interesting conversations in public media about the official victory for President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan.

On The Newshour, Margaret Warner reports from Afghanistan on the sudden end to the vote controversy with the withdrawal of Abdullah Abdullah.

Here’s another on-the-scene report from Jonah Hull of Al Jazeera English.

On NPR’s Morning Edition today, Former US Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad told Renee Montagne that Karzai needs to fight corruption and establish a more effective government.

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