Oct 10, 2009 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) — Heavily armed militants were holding up to 15 soldiers hostage inside Pakistan's army headquarters early Sunday after they stormed the complex in an audacious assault on the heart of the most powerful institution in the nuclear-armed country. Ten people were killed in the attack, including two ranking officers. The standoff was ...
Continue ReadingOct 10, 2009 10 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hours after winning a Nobel Peace Prize, President Barack Obama assembled his war council in the White House basement to talk about how many troops might be needed to right the 8-year-old Afghanistan conflict that military commanders are pressing him to escalate. The president and his top national security advisers huddled for three ...
Continue ReadingOct 8, 2009 4 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Politico: The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee cast serious doubts on whether Democrats can back a major military expansion in Afghanistan, calling the country’s government “almost useless†and drawing a comparison with Vietnam. After emerging from a Thursday congressional briefing with National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones, Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) said he has concerns about ...
Continue ReadingOct 8, 2009 3 Comments ›› Erik Wong
Politico: The eye roll said it all. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid emerged from the White House Tuesday with broad, bicameral smiles — until Reid put his arm around Pelosi to announce that “everyone†would support “whatever†Afghanistan policy the president produces. Pelosi doesn’t agree with that — not at all — and ...
Continue ReadingOct 8, 2009 15 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
You heard it hear first...a week ago.... WASHINGTON — President Obama’s national security team is moving to reframe its war strategy by emphasizing the campaign against Al Qaeda in Pakistan while arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the United States, officials said Wednesday. As Mr. Obama met with advisers for ...
Continue ReadingOct 7, 2009 8 Comments ›› Erik Wong
Rasmussen Reports: Al-Qaida is becoming the weapons of mass destruction of the Obama administration's war in Afghanistan. Or, to be more precise, it is a reverse WMD. For the George W. Bush administration, the likely presence of WMD in Iraq was a major justification for going to war. For Vice President Joe Biden and some senior ...
Continue ReadingOct 7, 2009 2 Comments ›› Erik Wong
KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan Taliban pose no threat to the West but will continue their fight against occupying foreign forces, they said on Wednesday, the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion that removed them from power. U.S.-led forces with the help of Afghan groups overthrew the Taliban government during a five week battle which started ...
Continue ReadingOct 7, 2009 7 Comments ›› Erik Wong
Politico: A YouTube of Nancy Pelosi's appearance alongside Harry Reid at the White House yesterday is making the rounds today -- painting a vivid picture of the two leaders' differing approaches to Afghanistan. Pelosi, who has said she's "agnostic" about President Obama's unannounced new strategy, seemed way less than comfortable when the Senate majority leader put his ...
Continue ReadingOct 7, 2009 13 Comments ›› Erik Wong
Wall Street Journal: Democrats have found someone worth fighting in Afghanistan. His name is Stan McChrystal.
Continue ReadingOct 7, 2009 12 Comments ›› Erik Wong
The Christian Science Monitor: Kabul, Afghanistan - When Medea Benjamin stood up in a Kabul meeting hall this weekend to ask Masooda Jalal if she would prefer more international troops or more development funds, the cofounder of US antiwar group Code Pink was hoping her fellow activist would support her call for US troop withdrawal. She was ...
Continue ReadingOct 6, 2009 3 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Fox News: Sen. John McCain lashed out at President Obama's National Security Adviser on Monday, casting doubt on Gen. James Jones' decision-making in Afghanistan and saying the military strategy Jones recommended in Iraq was "wrong." The Arizona Republican also criticized Jones for saying on Sunday that he "took exception" to McCain's claim on the Senate floor last ...
Continue ReadingOct 6, 2009 5 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
When you are waging war on the Pentagon's Afghanistan policy and both Generals Petraeus and McChrystal, you are waging war on the heart of the Pentagon and the military itself. And there goes the ultimate check for balance...and let's be clear: Obama already delayed McChrystal's delivery of his urgent troop request by a month, ...
Continue ReadingOct 5, 2009 22 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called on Monday for patience and discretion as President Barack Obama decides how to conduct the war in Afghanistan, urging advisers to speak "candidly but privately" on strategy. Gates did not single out anyone in his address at an Army convention in Washington, but his comments followed very ...
Continue ReadingOct 5, 2009 3 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
NY Times: WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the face of the Iraq troop surge and a favorite of former President George W. Bush, spoke up or was called upon by President Obama “several times†during the big Afghanistan strategy session in the Situation Room last week, one participant says, and will be back for two ...
Continue ReadingOct 5, 2009 6 Comments ›› Erik Wong
Telegraph: According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week. The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful ...
Continue ReadingOct 5, 2009 Comments Off Erik Wong
ABC News: Think the White House may want to work on its vote-counting operation before the health care bill makes it to the Senate floor? Think the CBO might be just as brutal as the IOC -- with scoring that counts just as much? Think the public debate over Afghanistan strategy gets any easier as events shape perceptions? Nobody ...
Continue ReadingOct 5, 2009 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
SARAROGHA, Pakistan (AP) - Flanked by heavily armed fighters, the new leader of the Pakistani Taliban sat on a blue blanket, amiable and relaxed as he cracked jokes and mixed in threats of vengeance for deadly U.S. airstrikes. One day later, a suicide bomber attacked a U.N. office in Islamabad. Hakimullah Mehsud met with reporters Sunday for ...
Continue ReadingOct 2, 2009 4 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Photo-op taken during Obama's phony, rushed, 25-minute meeting with General McChrystal, aboard an Air Force One impatiently waiting to leave. At the meeting's conclusion, the genral was shown the door to the lonely tarmac. Why does Obama have to be shown the way to behave as Commander in Chief by average citizens? I ...
Continue ReadingOct 1, 2009 22 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
CBS News: Sen. John McCain continued his lobby for a troop surge in Afghanistan as President Obama reconsiders his overall strategy for the region. "It's not as tough as when the surge started in Iraq," McCain said today during an interview with NBC's David Gregory at The First Draft of History, a conference in Washington, D.C., ...
Continue ReadingOct 1, 2009 7 Comments ›› Erik Wong
The Washington Examiner: The Senate defeated on a party-line vote a move by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz to set a Nov. 15 deadline for the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan and other military brass to testify before the Senate about the need for additional troops and resources to fight the war. McCain's provision, an effort to put ...
Continue ReadingOct 1, 2009 5 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is confronting a split among his closest advisers on Afghanistan, reflecting divisions in his own party over whether to send in thousands more U.S. troops and complicating his efforts to adopt a war policy he can sell to a public grown weary of the 8-year-old conflict. With top military commanders ...
Continue ReadingSep 30, 2009 4 Comments ›› Erik Wong
FOX News: President Obama met with his national security team Wednesday but did not make a decision on America's reshaped military strategy for the Afghanistan war. The meeting -- the first of a series of sessions -- took place in the Situation Room as the White House fended off charges that the president has been stalling ...
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