US President Barack Obama's top ally in the House of Representatives has accepted but did not explicitly endorse his planned surge of troops in Afghanistan, saying she wanted more information.
"The president has spoken, the decision has been made," Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said today.
But Ms Pelosi said she had asked the White House for briefings for rank-and-file Democrats sharply divided on the war from Mr Obama's top national security and diplomatic aides before lawmakers make up their minds.
She said those sessions should come "hopefully very soon, so that we can make some judgments about the nature of the threat, the nature of the mission and the need for the resources".
"I think we have to handle it with care, listen to what they present, and then members will make their decisions," she said.
Ms Pelosi said she had asked for briefings from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, Mr Obama's top uniformed military adviser, Michael Mullen, US national security adviser Jim Jones, and other officials.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
12/03/2009 15:33 Comments ||
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#2
Way to go, Gal! Will the house Dems support her or Obama? Probably some will stay with her and others will go the other way. This could mean a mighty split in the Democrats dam against the Republicans. The Republicans may regain some real power in the aftermath of this great division.
#4
She'll squawk for a while to placate her base, but she'll go along.
The surge is supposed to end a few months shy of the 2010 election. If it goes well, she'll stay quiet or figure out a way to get the Democrats the praise. If it doesn't, she can always claim she "had doubts" and buff her antiwar credentials.
#5
A few months shy of the 2012 elections. Same deal, slightly different time fame. The Bus can handle the 2010 elections.
Posted by: Perry Stanford White ||
12/03/2009 19:04 Comments ||
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#6
No, the withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan is supposed to be completed by mid 2012. The surge itself is supposed to be done by 2010. The former helps the President. The latter target-date is designed to help the Democrats in the House and Senate.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Obama’s timetable for American forces in Afghanistan rattled nerves in that country and in Pakistan on Wednesday, as American diplomats worked to convince the two countries at the center of the president’s war strategy that the United States would not cut and run.
Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta, the only minister who commented on the speech, said the announcement that American troops could begin leaving in 18 months served as a kind of shock therapy, but caused anxiety. “Can we do it?” he asked. “That is the main question. This is not done in a moment. It is a process.”
In Pakistan, Mr. ObamaÂ’s declaration fed longstanding fears that America would abruptly withdraw, leaving Pakistan to fend for itself.
Many in Islamabad, PakistanÂ’s capital, argued that the short timetable diminished any incentive for Pakistan to cut ties to Taliban militants who were its allies in the past, and whom Pakistan might want to use to shape a friendly government in Afghanistan after the American withdrawal.
“The most serious issue, as far as we see it, is the exit date,” said a senior Pakistani security official who spoke anonymously because he was not allowed to speak publicly. “It will have serious implications.”
Though American officials went out of their way to brief senior leaders of both countries before Mr. Obama’s speech, many of the people whose support will be crucial to carrying out the strategy — lower-ranking politicians and military or intelligence officials — did not receive briefings.
Leaders in both countries, at least publicly, offered near silence or only a tepid embrace of the Obama plan on Wednesday. President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, who has been lashed in the Pakistani media for being too close to the United States, did not comment on the speech. Neither did President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, who has been smarting ever since he was forced to accept that he did not win the presidential election outright.
In Afghanistan, a statement from the presidential palace noted only that the government welcomed Mr. ObamaÂ’s new strategy for the support it offered in development and training for Afghan institutions and in protecting the Afghan people. It also commended the plan for the recognition that terrorists were operating in the region beyond AfghanistanÂ’s borders in Pakistan.
That acknowledgment was precisely what offended many in Pakistan, where the official reaction was limited to a short statement issued by the Foreign Office welcoming Mr. Obama’s “reaffirmation of partnership.”
Politicians, analysts and media commentators, meanwhile, filled the void with skepticism, concern or outright rejection of the Obama plan, and particularly its timetable.
“Is it in Pakistan’s interest to antagonize the Afghan Taliban now, if they will be in power two or three years down the road?” said Ahmed Rashid, author of “Descent Into Chaos,” explaining the thinking in Pakistani political and military circles. “Will the Americans actually deliver after the withdrawal, when the value of Pakistan decreases?”
Pakistani analysts and security officials expressed skepticism that the United States would be able to achieve in 18 months what it had failed to do in eight years, and they said they considered the military buildup to be more resources poured into what was essentially a losing strategy.
“Pakistanis are not convinced that another military surge will address the issue,” said Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States. “This is bombs and bullets bereft of a political strategy.”
Pakistan is a prickly ally, harboring deep suspicions of American efforts in a region it believes the United States betrayed in the 1980s, when it stopped all aid after the Soviet UnionÂ’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Afghanistan then collapsed into civil war, with more than a million refugees pouring into Pakistan, and Al Qaeda set up shop in Afghanistan once the Taliban seized control.
Today, PakistanÂ’s relationship with the United States remains fraught, with much of it taking place out of the public eye. The United States runs a program of covert airstrikes that it does not acknowledge publicly. It is one of the only tools available to Mr. Obama in Pakistan, but its use is costly as it inflames Pakistani public opinion.
While Mr. Obama has sought to highlight America’s contribution to Pakistan — it is the third largest recipient of American aid, after Israel and Egypt — the support goes largely unnoticed inside the country, because Pakistan’s leaders shrink from talking about it, out of fear the government will become a target of the rabidly anti-American media.
As if to illustrate the point, as cool as the government embrace of the Obama speech was, an opposition politician criticized the government for not publicly registering its displeasure with parts of the speech.
Newspapers struck a skeptical tone. One daily, The News, acknowledged in an editorial that Mr. Obama was trying to change the substance of American-Pakistani relations, but said that the trust deficit was so deep that “it is unlikely that Islamabad will be more attentive to an apparently war-weary U.S. and NATO than it was to a fire-breathing Bush administration eight years ago.”
#1
All the Pakis are worried about is the lack of handhouts they will receive once the war is over.They are a bigger version of the paelos in my eyes-Dont offer anything to the world but always have their hands out for aid!
What is the main export from Pakistan apart from Jihadism and heroin?
'The problem with Afghanistan is Pakistan' is the quote that sticks in my mind!
#2
But Pakistan doesn't hold its hand out for aid, Paul2. It merely outlines the alternative should the Friendlies currently running things not be given the financial support necessary to keep a lid on that portion of the populace living as they did under the Moghuls. "Do have a whiskey while you ponder, old boy, and think of us, having to live amongst such people... it would be such a shame if they were to pile up at Heathrow, seeking to immigrate."
Afghans and Pakistanis Wednesday greeted President Barack Obama's plan to send 30,000-35,000 additional troops to Afghanistan with limited enthusiasm, skepticism that the U.S. has enough staying power to defeat the Taliban -led insurgency and even suspicion that the rapid surge will be followed by a speedy exit.
Posted by: ed ||
12/03/2009 08:07 ||
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#1
Obama sure sc**ws them so they should be pi***d. Still, I have to give him credit for taking a couragous stand against his base.
As he justified sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan at a cost of $30 billion a year, President Barack Obama's description Tuesday of the al Qaeda "cancer" in that country left out one key fact: U.S. intelligence officials have concluded there are only about 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country.
A senior U.S. intelligence official told ABCNews.com the approximate estimate of 100 al Qaeda members left in Afghanistan reflects the conclusion of American intelligence agencies and the Defense Department. The relatively small number was part of the intelligence passed on to the White House as President Obama conducted his deliberations. You've kinda gotta define "al-Qaeda" in this case. There's Binny's relatively small staff, mostly Arabian Arabs, which is probably what's being referred to here. There are also probably a couple thousand Uzbeks belonging to IMU, and an unknown number of Chechens, plus Pak hard boyz affiliated with organizations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. All of these guys are as likely to be on one side of the border as the other, depending on how hot things are.
President Obama made only a vague reference to the size of the al Qaeda presence in his speech at West Point, when he said, "al Qaeda has not reemerged in Afghanistan in the same number as before 9/11, but they retain their safe havens along the border."
Yes, yes. When the Punjabi Taliban have been wiped out to the last unwilling pearl-faced boy, and the Pashtun/Pakhton Taliban have been at least decimated, perhaps then we can start to think about talking about having made progress on the real problem.
A spokesperson at the White House's National Security Council, Chris Hensman, said he could not comment on intelligence matters.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
ION WMF > TALIBAN: OBAMA WILL SEE MORE THAN A NUMBER OF COFFINS COMING FROM AFGHANISTAN BACK TO USA.
* SAME > TALIBAN: RESISTANCE STRATEGY TO DEFEAT OBAMA'S NEW AFGHAN TROOPS SURGE [30,000] INCLUDES OPTION OF TERROR STRIKES INSIDE THE US.
Methinks the CHIN have discovered where IRAN'S US$20.0MILYUHN to various Militant Groups will be spent???
#6
GATES: DEFEATING THE TALIBAN KEY TO DEFEATING AL QAEDA
Crikey! I think they would be more successful if the State Dept would get on board with the military and quit paying them protection money. Designate them a terrorist org and hunt them down with all the weapons of our warfare, taking no prisoners! The Afghan people are quite content to live in meager circumstances if not terrorized by Talibunnies.
[Dawn] The first deployments of a 30,000-strong 'surge' announced by President Barack Obama will start arriving in Afghanistan in two to three weeks, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday as a leading senator questioned President Barack Obama's plan for a speedy but limited surge to turn the tide against the Taliban.
'The essence of our civil-military plan is to clear, hold, build, and transfer,' Gates said.
However, Gates said that the transition to Afghanistan taking the lead on its security scheduled for July 2011 was not based on conditions on the ground, adding that the US will review in December 2010 whether July 2011 drawdown in Afghanistan was possible.
It was clear that many influential senators, including Obama's 2008 Republican rival for the presidency, John McCain, had serious doubts about the withdrawal timeline.
'I support the president's decision, and I think it deserves the support of all Americans, both Republicans and Democrats,' said McCain, ranking Republican on the Senate Arms Services Committee.
'What I don't support, and what concerns me greatly, is the president's decision to set an arbitrary date beginning the withdrawal ...(a) date for withdrawal sends exactly the wrong message to both our friends and our enemies,' he said.
Rising combat deaths and military costs have sapped US public support for the eight-year-old war, and Obama's pledge to start bringing US troops home after 18 months could help blunt a rebellion among his fellow Democrats who oppose escalating the costly war.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2009 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] After a Kuwaiti daily claimed that the Islamic Republic has called on the Islamic Resistance Movement of Hamas to swing into action in violence-ridden parts of Yemen, Iran moves to flatly reject the allegation.
I think it's a brilliant idea. Let them go over to be killed by the Saudis. The more that go over, the fewer will be left to try to kill Israelis.
In an article published on Wednesday, Kuwait's al-Seyassah newspaper claimed that after "the depth of Iran's involvement" in the conflict in Yemen was revealed, Iran called on the Damascus-based Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal, to take responsibility for Iran's alleged actions in Yemen's violence-ridden province of Sa'ada.
Meanwhile, Iran's Embassy in Damascus issued a statement on Wednesday, saying the Kuwaiti paper is "notorious" for spreading false and baseless information.
"Al-Seyassah daily is notorious for publishing unfounded reports and the public opinion in the region is well aware of the biased approach of this paper," read the statement.
Yemen has been fighting a war in its northern mountains near the border with Saudi Arabia against a Shia tribal group known as the Houthis, which has resulted in a humanitarian crisis in the region.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the fighting and shelling while hundreds have been killed and wounded in the clashes.
The government accuses the Houthis of seeking to restore a religious rule, which ended in a republican coup in 1962, as well as violating the terms of an armistice by taking foreign visitors hostage in 2009.
The Houthis say they demand an end to social, economic and political 'discrimination' against Shias in Yemen as well as Saudi-backed attempts to spread Wahhabism -- a sect that preaches controversial and violent actions -- in the north and accuse the government of widespread corruption.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Fred,
Why not export the entire population of Gaza Hamasniks to Yemen ?
I am sure the Saudis would love more targets for carpet bombing.
All we need is an Aerial train from Gaza dropping them on the Saudi border....
I would call this "poetic Justice"....
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
12/03/2009 13:03 Comments ||
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#2
I am ashamed. I read Elder of Zion's post, and the image of a very, very large potato canon popped into my mind, complete with a Physics 101 sketch of the curve of the Hamasnik projectile resulting from the propelling force of the canon vs. the downward pulling force of gravity. They've all gone through Hamas summer training camp as children, so they wouldn't have any trouble reversing from head-first to feet-first at the top of the curve, to prevent ending up with their heads deep in the Saudi sand at the end of the curve.
Turkish State Minister and Chief Negotiator for EU talks Egemen Bagis has urged Muslim nations to withdraw their money from Swiss banks.
Bagis' comments came in response to a recently approved ban on the construction of new minarets in Switzerland.
Following a weekend referendum, the construction of any new minaret was declared illegal in Switzerland, a move which drew sharp criticism from Muslim and European countries, as well as the UN and the Vatican.
"This will prompt our Muslim brothers who have deposited their money in Swiss banks to rethink their decision," the Turkish daily Zaman quoted Bagis as saying on Tuesday.
He suggested that Muslims could deposit their money in Turkish banks instead of Swiss banks.
"In 2008, when banks around the world were falling, no bank was affected in Turkey, and the door of Turkey's banking system is open to them," Bagis added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Yeah, put your money in Turkish banks. They will be your pals, through thick and thin.
/see ya in the funny papers
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/03/2009 0:33 Comments ||
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#7
Hey, Egemen Bagis still waiting for a response to this press release. You're cool with it ?
Oh yeah, also pony up some dosh for restorations. OK.
However I won't be holding my breath waiting, you hypocrite.
A U.S. Army cadet reads a book entitled "Kill Bin Laden" as he waits with other cadets for U.S. President Barack Obama to deliver an address on U.S. policy and the war in Afghanistan at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York December 1, 2009. Obama is expected to announce a plan to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan over six months in a bid to beat back the Taliban and bring a quicker end to a costly and unpopular eight-year war.
#1
Good. I read some comments from people who were hyperventilating over the 'disrespect' shown (think Code Pinko if you want to see nauseating disrespect) but it appears he was reading the book before 0bama made his appearance, so I do not see the problem. I do think it likely that he was baiting the media. If so, good for him. I hope his superior's have balls.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
12/03/2009 4:04 Comments ||
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#2
Note: He's wearing a Combat Infantry Badge and Campaign Ribbons. Must have spent some time as a grunt before getting his appointment to West Point.
#3
The cadets were seated 3 hours before Obama began talking. They were allowed to bring one book and could not nap while waiting.
BTW, next week is the last week of classes, with big projects due Monday & Tuesday, followed by a week of final exams. A lousy time to lose 5 hours or so to get work done.
#4
Speaking of petty: Exclusive: White House aides insisted F-22 be removed from Obama speech venue When President Obama spoke to troops at Alaska's Elmendorf Air Force Base last month, the unit there parked a shiny new F-22 fighter plane in the hanger. But according to multiple sources, White House aides demanded the plane be changed to an older F-15 fighter because they didn't want Obama speaking in front of the F-22, a controversial program he fought hard to end.
Posted by: ed ||
12/03/2009 7:15 Comments ||
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#5
The cadet merely wants to finish that book before AG Holder's book, "Why bin Laden Needs to See Judge Judy" comes our for a comparative review.
#6
I do think it likely that he was baiting the media.
Very good catch, Whiskey Mike. He was indeed, as can be seen in the photo sequence at the link. Another young man was reading something titled On Killing, which actually looked like heavy going. A wider angle photo shows all the cadets studying intently, so it seems they made good use of their enforced idleness.
Remove the hated F-22? It's not as if most of us civilians would have known, ed, and the cognoscenti have already made up their minds about the man.
#8
Forget about Bin Laden
Iran is piling up fissionable material.
Obama is still busy threatening with sanctions.
The Cadet should have been holding a book named:
"HOW DID WE LET IRAN BUILD AND LAUNCH THE BOMBS THAT DESTROYED NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES and TEL AVIV-THE TALE OF A SURVIVOR".
To watch your enemy accumulate plutonium while threatening with economical sanctions may look like deep thinking but it realy is SIMPLE STUPIDITY.
May Allan have mercy on us all !
Posted by: Elder of Zion ||
12/03/2009 12:51 Comments ||
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Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday lashed out at President Obama for claiming the Bush administration rebuffed commanders' repeated requests for more troops in Afghanistan.
In a rare break in his public silence since leaving the Pentagon, Rumsfeld rejected the claim as a "bald misstatement" and "disservice" that cannot go unanswered.
"Such a bald misstatement, at least as it pertains to the period I served as secretary of defense, deserves a response," Rumsfeld said in a written statement. "I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006."
The president leveled the charge in his speech Tuesday night outlining his plan to send 30,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan.
In his speech, Obama gave a detailed history of the Afghanistan war starting with the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He argued that the Iraq war drew needed resources away from Afghanistan, allowing the situation to deteriorate since 2003.
"Throughout this period, our troop levels in Afghanistan remained a fraction of what they were in Iraq," Obama said. "Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive."
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs explained Wednesday that Obama was referring to requests that came in during 2008, and suggested Rumsfeld was on thin ice with his criticism.
"I will let Secretary Rumsfeld explain ... whether he thinks that the effort in Afghanistan was sufficiently resourced during his tenure as secretary of defense," he said.
But if Obama were referring to the 2008 period, he would seem to have been pointing the finger at his own secretary of defense, Robert Gates, who served in the same position in the previous administration.
Rumsfeld said in his statement the White House should make public any such requests if they exist to back up the allegation.
"The president's assertion does a disservice to the truth and, in particular, to the thousands of men and women in uniform who have fought, served and sacrificed in Afghanistan," Rumsfeld said.
He urged Congress to review the claim in the upcoming debate to "determine exactly what requests were made, who made them, and where and why in the chain of command they were denied."
Unlike former Vice President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld has kept largely out of the public eye since leaving the administration after the 2006 mid-term elections in which Republicans suffered huge losses, largely the result of setbacks in the Iraq war.
#1
I thought it was well understood that Rummy had made it very clear during 2004 that he thought there were enough troops in Iraq, and that requests for more were not what he wanted. And so there were none. I presume the same MO was applied to Afghanistan.
#2
Right, LH. Perhaps instead of denied requests, someone can instead produce evidence of that. Ya know, something akin to Gen. Jones' comment to the Afghanistan brass earlier this year (!!!). How about the Bush strategy review that was handed over - was that based on a quiet suppression of military requests too?
Two things. First, this is a good example of the correction of misinformation and slander that should have been aggressively performed from 9/11 onwards - and which the Bush administration failed to perform even once in all those years. The gigantic mountain of lies and distortion so many important issues ranging from intel to war strategy to the Geneva Conventions and on and on now serves as "knowledge" for many.
Second, things are worse than people think within the military. Some senior Army brass in Iraq were so committed to a nutty strategy of reconstruction before security that they ended up in shouting matches with civilians who called them on the absurdity of their approach in meetings in Baghdad. That is, there is reason to believe that the ineffective strategy in Iraq in 05/06 was absolutely not crammed down the Army's throat.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Iran's envoy to the Vienna-based international bodies, Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, is appointed as the new head of the Commission of Narcotic Drugs.
In the commission's meeting on Wednesday, Soltanieh touched on the global threats of narcotic drugs and called for collective measures to be taken by world countries to fight drugs, IRNA reported.
"The world people have given us a great responsibility to protect the present and future generations against global threats of narcotic drugs that could ruin the foundation of family and consequently society," Soltanieh added.
"To shoulder such a historical responsibility in the best way, trivial disagreements should be resolved and we should not allow the responsibility to be politicized," the Iranian envoy added.
Soltanieh noted that thousands of Iranian security forces have been killed in the fight against drug trafficking.
Iran, that is the western neighbor of Afghanistan, is considered as the main barrier for transit of narcotics to Europe.
Afghanistan is believed to be providing close to 95 percent of the world's heroin.
The Economic and Social Council of the UN established the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in 1946 as the central policy-making body of the United Nations in drug related issues.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Shouldn't it be an Afghani representative? Or a Colombian?
#2
Given the number of young Iranians who've chosen to reduce the official unemployment numbers by giving themselves over to drug addiction, having an Iranian head the Commission of Narcotic Drugs sounds much like turning a kid lose in a candy store.
At least five women among 57 people massacred in an attack on an election convoy in the southern Philippines last week may have been raped, police said Thursday.
The forensic findings from the Nov. 23 carnage, blamed on a powerful clan that has ruled impoverished Maguindanao province unopposed for years, also indicated that some of the victims were mowed down with a light machine gun and others shot from a distance of only 2 feet (60 centimeters), said Arturo Cacdac, director of the police crime laboratory.
Twenty-one of the 57 people slain were women. More than half of those killed were journalists. What Would Mohammed Do?
Ambush unarmed caravan? √
Massacre ambushees? √
Rape the women? √
Sell women into slavery? Fail
3 moons piousness rating.
Posted by: ed ||
12/03/2009 07:35 ||
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Days after Iran announced that it would start building ten new industrial scale enrichment plants, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran will start enriching uranium to a level of 20 percent.
Addressing a crowd in Iran's central province of Isfahan, President Ahmadinejad said the West has been making efforts to get in the way of Iran's nuclear progress.
"We asked for 20 percent enriched uranium fuel which according to the regulations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) they can provide us with. However, they refused to do so," President Ahmadinejad said.
"God willing, Iran will produce [nuclear] fuel enriched to a level of 20 percent," the Iranian president announced.
The remarks came as earlier Deputy Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Baqeri warned that should the IAEA fail to provide Iran's needed fuel, the country would move to enrich uranium to a level of 20 percent on its own.
The new nuclear development comes as Tehran's research reactor has run out of fuel after years of operation and therefore Iranian nuclear officials called on the IAEA to provide the required fuel for the medical reactor.
"Based on legal terms, we have no problem to obtain the fuel for the Tehran reactor as enrichment to a level of more than 5 percent or 20 percent is not prohibited to be carried out by different countries [that are signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)]," Baqeri, who is a deputy to Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said earlier.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2009 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A U.S. Army cadet reads a book entitled "Kill Bin Laden" as he waits with other cadets for U.S. President Barack Obama to deliver an address on U.S. policy and the war in Afghanistan at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York December 1, 2009. Obama is expected to announce a plan to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan over six months in a bid to beat back the Taliban and bring a quicker end to a costly and unpopular eight-year war.
