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War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

When Obama stated that he was going to reach out to the Islamic world, he was not kidding. The weakness of Obama has lead to the Taliban getting stronger. He has even given the Taliban the OK to participate in the future political landscape of Afghanistan. Apparently none of this was enough though, and now Obama is willing to share power in Afghanistan with the Taliban thugs. This is straight out of the Twilight Zone. US Offers Taliban 6 Provinces for 8 Bases By Aamir Latif, IOL Correspondent

President Obama's lack of leadership is beginning to effect morale in the United States. Its been three months since General McCrystal sent his report on next steps for the War In Afghanistan. Since the President has been sitting on his military assets, confidence in the War on Terror has plummeted, and now the confidence is falling for both Iraq and Afghanistan. A Rasmussen study that reports that only 34% of voters say the United States and its allies are winning the War on Terror. That’s down nine points from a month ago and 14 points since McCrystal first filed his...

War On Terror: Sen. John Kerry, who was so wrong about Iraq, now says our commander in Afghanistan is "reaching too far, too fast" and that a "good enough" policy should suffice. It won't. Offering his advice on how to micromanage the war against the Taliban, Kerry said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, President Obama's hand-picked general to fight what he called a "war of necessity," is wrong in saying he needs 40,000 more troops to fight and win it. Speaking before the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, Kerry advocated a "good enough" policy designed not to achieve victory in al-Qaida's...

According to an Associated Press story featured in the Chicago Tribune: "WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will not commit more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until he is convinced that the central government can be a credible and effective U.S. partner, a senior White House aide said Sunday." Obama’s hard line is interesting. If the American people would take such a stance against our own government, perhaps things would get accomplished, since our own president and Congress are neither credible nor effective. Video of this comedy available at the original article.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama has no plans to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. After eight years of war there, withdrawal is not among the options the administration is considering as it designs a new strategy. Also not being considered is any exploration of possible peace talks with the Taliban, the indigenous Islamic group that once controlled large swaths of Afghanistan. When asked whether the U.S. could withdraw from Afghanistan -- a country known as the "graveyard of empires" -- White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: "That’s not something that has ever been entertained." "I don’t think we have...

Obama got this question last night at the presser in Pittsburgh on Afghanistan... Watch how hesitant he is with the answer, does this sound like a President who wants victory?...Listen Carefully

<p>Just announced by Jennifer Griffith in a live interview, WH has asked Pentagon for a formal assessment of a withdrawal from Afghanistan, that the Afghan Wart is no longer in our nations interest, blamed the Afghan elections.</p>

President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday. SNIP The sweeping reassessment has been prompted by deteriorating conditions on the ground, the messy and still unsettled outcome of the Afghan elections and a dire report by Mr. Obama’s new commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. Aides said the president wanted to examine whether the strategy he unveiled in March was still the best approach and whether...

It astonishes us how quickly Afghanistan is moving from being a "war of necessity" to "too tough to do." President Obama's comments over the weekend gave the clearest signal yet that his administration is seeking an exit strategy from a conflict he described in August as "not only a war worth fighting" but "fundamental to the defense of our people." Commitment to that fundamental defense is eroding.

WASHINGTON -- We are seeing the stirrings of a cross-ideological revolt against American military involvement in Afghanistan. On the right, some who accepted the Cold War as a great moral cause view the war on terror as a bother -- even as a dangerous excuse for global social engineering. Such tinkering, the argument goes, is particularly doomed in Afghanistan, brimming with warlords both primitive and invincible. And because Afghanistan is now Barack Obama's war, no partisan motive remains to support it. On the left, some view every conceivable war as a "war of choice" that should never be chosen. With...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) -- Sarah Palin's not a quitter, she wants the public to know. "I am not a quitter. I am a fighter," Palin told CNN on Monday while on a family fishing trip, on the heels of her Friday bombshell announcement that she was resigning as Alaska's governor. Palin did her interview standing on the shores of Dillingham, Alaska, wearing hip waders. She granted 10-minute interviews to CNN and three other news networks Monday. She resigned because of the tremendous pressure, time and financial burden of a litany of ethics complaints in the past several months, she said....

Obama, Medvedev Call for Cut to 1,500-1,675 Nuclear Warheads Title only - story to follow

Sarah is now unelectable on a national stage. The “quitter” specter will hang around her neck like “swimmer” does to Ted Kennedy. You’ll be able to spot the realistic, clear thinking conservatives because they see and admit this early so we can put it behind us get on with identifying the candidates who can win in ‘12. BTW - This doesn’t rule out a tangential private career ala Newt or a run for a House or Senate seat (although I don’t know where at this point) but as a national candidate she is toast. That so many conservatives can’t see...

Richard at The Belmont Club is taking a hard look at the Obama Effort in Afghanistan and wondering if the President realizes what he's getting himself into. I think he does. I think he realizes what his needs are in Afghanistan. What he needs to do is end a war in an American defeat while being seen as "trying for a victory." To do that he has to engineer an American defeat. Iraq is already, in the public mind at least, in the win column. So how do we engineer an American defeat? It is simplicity itself. You begin, not...

Imagine that last fall before being elected, Barack Obama had outlined the positions he has embraced since being inaugurated as president. An honest campaign speech could have gone something like this: "As we approach Election Day, the American people should not waste the crisis we find ourselves in. "Consequently, if elected, I promise to get us over the Bush financial meltdown with a stimulus program that will borrow $787 billion -- which, of course, will add to the already sizable budget deficit (nearly $500 billion) projected in the Bush administration's last budget. "By March of next year, my new $3.6...

President Obama said the military was not winning the counter insurgency war in Afghanistan as he opened the door for peace negotiations. By persuading Iraqi Sunni insurgents to turn on al-Qaeda extremists, US commanders engineered a sharply drop in violence in Iraq. President Obama said deals similar to those implemented by General David Petraeus in Iraq could be cut in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work...

President Barack Obama probably will scale back U.S. ambitions for troubled Afghanistan to redefine victory in a war that his closest military and foreign affairs advisers say cannot be won on the battlefield. Even before a planned doubling of U.S. forces in Afghanistan this year, the new administration is lowering its sights and lowering expectations. Although general agreement exists that the United States will be in Afghanistan for years to come, the new focus is on how to show even small security gains and development progress quickly. "That's clearly the message I'm getting is, 'what are the near-term goals going...

Cuba, Jan 22: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi advised President Barack Obama to give Osama bin Laden a chance to reform, telling the new president that America's most wanted man was looking for "dialogue". Gaddafi hailed what he called "positive signals" so far from the new Obama administration, including plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Speaking to students at Georgetown University via a satellite link-up from Libya, Gaddafi said Washington must review its approach to bin Laden, who is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and tops the U.S. Most Wanted List. "Terrorism is a dwarf...

The leader of a jihadi group in Iraq argued Friday that the election of Barack Obama as president represented a victory for radical Islamic groups that had battled American forces since the invasion of Iraq. In his address, Mr. Baghdadi also said that the election of Mr. Obama - and the rejection of the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain - was a victory for his movement, a claim that has already begun to resonate among the radical faithful.

(CNSNews.com) – As the U.S. troop surge in Iraq has succeeded, leading to a dramatic decline in the number of U.S. casualties in that country, The New York Times’s coverage of the Iraq war also has declined, falling to an all-time low in the last two months, according to a CNSNews.com analysis of stories retrieved on the Nexis database. At The Washington Post, coverage of the war has been significantly lower this year than in previous years. In the months leading up to the 2004 and 2006 elections, when U.S. casualties were running higher in Iraq, coverage of the Iraq...

.....Kosachyov also said Obama's softer stance on the planned U.S. missile-defense system in Eastern Europe makes him Russia's preferred candidate....

It’s not the economy. Sure – if the economy was better, it would be good for Republicans. Everybody knows that, which is why the McCain campaign could never bet too many chips on the economy as part of a winning formula. Sure, the Democrats – including Barack Obama and Joe Biden – did cause the financial industry meltdown but what does it matter? There is a Republican in the White House and it’s easier to imagine that presidents rule with magic wands than to learn the basics of the American democratic system, let alone learn the modern history of financial...

The troop surge in Iraq has been more successful than anyone could have imagined, Barack Obama conceded Thursday in his first-ever interview on FOX News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.” As recently as July, the Democratic presidential candidate declined to rate the surge a success, but said it had helped reduce violence in the country. On Thursday, Obama acknowledged the 2007 increase in U.S. troops has benefited the Iraqi people. “I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,” Obama said while refusing to retract his initial opposition to the surge. “I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest...

WASHINGTON – Republican Rep. Terry Everett of Alabama unleashed an unusually harsh attack on a House colleague, calling decorated Vietnam War veteran John Murtha, D-Pa., a cut-and-run idiot.

Senator Barack Obama Delivers the Democratic Radio Address This is Senator Barack Obama. This morning, I’d like to talk to you about why America needs to move in a new direction. In recent days, we’ve seen two stark examples of exactly what’s wrong with Washington, and what’s at stake in this election. First, we learned that the federal budget deficit could reach nearly half a trillion dollars next year. Eight years after we had a record surplus, we’re now faced with record deficits. This mortgaging of our children’s future is a direct result of the Bush Administration’s dangerously failed fiscal...

Freepers and other bloggers should be proud as we the members of the new media were able to get the early skinny on Nancy Pelosi shutting down the House and turning out the lights on a GOP Sponsored Drilling Bill. If not for the efforts of Freerepublic and other new media sites, Democrats would have gotten away with this mockery today. I got a call from Kristinn at 3 pm today and headed for the Hill, I arrived a bit after 3:30 and meet the staffers for 3 GOP Congressional Member, who gave me a quick SITREP. This is what...

NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN? | Gov offers to send state troopers and National Guard copters to fight gang violence Calling violence in Chicago "out of control," Gov. Blagojevich on Wednesday offered to lend state troopers and National Guard helicopters to the city to augment the Chicago Police. The governor is considering forming an "elite tactical team" to help the Chicago Police fight gang problems, a source said, adding that the unit could later be sent across the state to deal with gang problems at any city's request. It's fair to say that violent crime in Chicago is out of control....

Despite the rise of “South Park Conservatives,” it is the Democratic Party’s foreign policy that is guided by The Cartman Doctrine: “Screw you guys, I’m going home.”The media reported a May 2008 report card for the Iraqi government rates that fractious body “satisfactory” on 15 of 18 benchmarks. The Associated Press buried the lede beneath two sentences emphasizing “the most frustrating realities” of Iraq’s “achingly slow” progress, and a quotation from Sen. Carl Levin calling for withdrawal. For a year, the Surge’s success has been undeniable.Except on the Left. Barack Obama’s website asserts: The goal of the surge was...

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-PA), who recently gained media attention for his videotaped admission that, due to "temptation to want to win back the Congress," Democrats "stretched the facts" regarding their ability to actually end the war in Iraq, appears to be back for a video encore. This time, the Democratic Congressman appears in a video making two distinct statements regarding the 'Surge' strategy that has been so effective in Iraq. The video is below; below that is a transcript.

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) told Cybercast News Service on Tuesday he will move to end the Iraq War with an immediate termination of funding if a Democrat becomes president next year. "I will move to cut funding immediately," said Frank. "I have already done that. I voted against the war and voted to cut the funding. I would hope a Democratic President would put in place a plan that would begin a total withdrawal."

A lesson of Vietnam that applies to Iraq is “the deeper you bog down in a morass, the more difficult it is to get out,” Sen. Chuck Hagel said Friday. “The more troops you put in, saying you need another six months or another year, a surge, five more combat brigades.” All of that runs counter to the reality that “we’re going to have to unwind,” Hagel said. “No foreign policy, no war policy can be sustained without the support of the American people,” he said. “Most of them say (Iraq) was a mistake and we want out.” Hagel’s remarks...

Most people have never heard of Operation Frequent Wind, which ended on April 30, 1975, 33 years ago. But every American has seen pictures of it: the Marine helicopters evacuating the last U.S. personnel from the embassy in Saigon, hours before communist tanks rolled into the city. Thousands of desperate Vietnamese gathered at the embassy gate and begged to be taken with them. Others committed suicide. Those scenes are a chilling reminder of what happens when a great power decides to cut and run. Two of the three presidential candidates are proposing to do just that in Iraq. We need...

A coalition of 16 Iraq War Veterans have united to support each other for a run at Capitol Hill. In a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. last week, timed to coincide with the arrival of Gen. David Petreus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to Capitol Hill, six members of “Iraq Veterans for Congress,” IVC, outlined their frustration over the lack of representation in Congress of the new generation of veterans. (snip) Lt. Col. William Russell, an Airborne Ranger, husband, father and small business owner has a tougher fight on his hands in his congressional race than...

In the latest episdode of Covert Radio, Brett talks to Aaron Klein from World Net Daily, about some of the outreach Syria is attempting in the Mid East. Brett also spoke to Rohan Gunaratna, from Signapore. He is the world's foremost authority on Al Qaeda, Dr. Gunaratna, author of Inside Al Qaeda contends that if the US leaves Iraq, it will be forced to return to fight Al Qaeda in 2-3 years. Finally gets the latest from NY Sun Correspondent Eli Lake, on the latest kookiness at the UN!

Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and leaders of veterans groups held a stakeout this morning following President Bush’s speech on Iraq. Below are the Speaker’s opening remarks: “I want to join Leader Reid in welcoming our special guests today, our friends from the veterans’ community, Bobby Muller, whom we've all worked with over the years, whether it's eliminating land mines and speaking out for veterans. “Thank you, Bobby, for your leadership. Jon Soltz, who has been very courageous in his statements of shining the light on troops on what is happening in Iraq. We're...

Newly elected Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of Hillsborough was sworn into Congress this morning and delivered a fiery speech criticizing President Bush's Iraq policy that led some Republicans to boo and walk out of the House chamber. Speier, who won a special election Tuesday to fill the seat of the late Rep. Tom Lantos, was always an outspoken lawmaker in her years as a San Mateo County supervisor, state Assemblywoman and state Senator. She served notice Thursday that she plans be just as aggressive as a member of the House. "The process to bring the troops home must begin immediately,"...

Many in America want the Iraq war to end now and believe if we "leave Iraq to the Iraqis," the Islamic extremists will leave us alone. That position recklessly ignores how America's decade-long refusal to deal more decisively with Islamic terrorism led to 9/11 and all that followed, and how every time America flinches in the face of Islamic aggression, the terrorists see it as a weakness to be exploited. In this environment, Gen. David Petraeus must have expected he would be criticized for recommending the suspension of further U.S. troop withdrawals in the face of the recent flare-up of...

ALIQUIPPA, Pa. -- Hillary Clinton said today she was the only candidate voters could count on to end the war in Iraq and bring troops home. The senator appeared with veterans and retired military officers at an event outside Pittsburgh that focused on military readiness. She said the war in Iraq must be ended and the military rebuilt and used yesterday's Senate hearings on the war's progress to argue presumptive Republican nominee John McCain was not prepared to end the war.

The outcome of the Iraq war may still be in the balance but U.S. President George W. Bush has already won the war about the war in Washington. In November 2006 elections, Bush's Republican Party lost control of both houses of Congress largely due to public anger about Iraq. Democrats pledged to end the war that started in March 2003 and bring the troops home. But testimony to Congress this week by the top commander on the ground, Army Gen. David Petraeus, indicates there will be about the same high level of U.S. troops in Iraq when Americans elect Bush's...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Democrats signaled on Friday that they don't see much hope in ending the Iraq war this year so long as President Bush insists U.S. troops remain committed there in large numbers. But party leaders wrote to Bush on Friday anyhow, telling him it's not too late to change course and pleading with him not to leave the war for the next president to handle. "We are deeply concerned that you and the congressional Republican leadership are intent on staying the current course throughout your administration and then handing the Iraq war off to future presidents," the Democrats...

Four decades after the Central Intelligence Agency hired thousands of jungle warriors to fight Communists on the western fringes of the Vietnam War, men who say they are veterans of that covert operation are isolated, hungry and periodically hunted by a Laotian Communist government still mistrustful of the men who sided with America. “If I surrender, I will be punished,” said Xang Yang, a wiry 58-year-old still capable of crawling nimbly through thick bamboo underbrush. “They will never forgive me. I cannot live outside the jungle because I am a former American soldier.”

"U.S. Rep. John Murtha is seen in Washington in this March 7, 2007 file photo. Murtha, a leading congressional opponent of the war in Iraq, on Tuesday endorsed Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, saying her position on the war made her the best candidate to take over the White House."

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) made the case Monday that she is the only candidate who can be trusted to end the war in Iraq. Clinton is attempting to return the war issue to prominence in the campaign despite early questions about whether her vote to authorize it might cost her in a head-to-head contest with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who spoke out against the war before it started. Obama responded to her criticism by rehashing that vote. Delivering what was billed as a major speech at George Washington University, Clinton said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has the wrong plan...

At the rate Barack Obama is going, his lack of qualification to serve as commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces will be painfully obvious long before November. The man has far too few carefully considered opinions and far too many shoot-from-the-hip-and-hope-it-sounds-good opinions. Unfortunately, that weakness seems to be shared by the advisors with whom Obama has surrounded himself. Obama's latest pronouncements on Iraq are a good example of the problem. From James Taranto at WSJ's Best of the Web (emphasis added): Cut and Run and Then Run Back With Hillary Clinton being written off (perhaps prematurely), the eight-month...

Senate shelves Iraq U.S. troop withdrawal bill By Richard Cowan 26 minutes ago A liberal Democrat's attempt to impose quick U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq collapsed in the U.S. Senate, as expected, but leaders on Thursday insisted they will retool legislation and force votes in coming months. The Senate spent much of this week debating a plan by Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to begin withdrawing most American troops from Iraq by July. His effort, like one last December, faced deep opposition in the chamber, where members have repeatedly blocked steps to impose timetables for winding down a war that...

Murtha prepares war spending bill, with conditions Associated Press WASHINGTON - A top Democrat said Thursday he is preparing legislation that would give President Bush the war funding he wants this year, but on the condition that troops leave Iraq by the end of the year. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, said he'll propose that the House vote this March on the spending measure. In addition to the troop withdrawal, he said he'll ask for other conditions such as that all deploying troops must be fully trained and equipped. Similar bills scraped by on...

Alexander J. Madison – January 29, 2008 Fellow citizens, I was holding out hope that we could save the Republican Party from it’s slow, deliberate and painful march towards irrelevance. But with the only Reaganite in the primary election, Duncan Hunter, dropping out this past weekend, and Tom Tancredo long gone after being pilloried by the GOP cheerleaders on ‘conservative’ talk radio, and Fred Thompson, the only other reasonably traditional conservative, unable to get the necessary traction for a competitive race against the moderates, it is time to cut our losses and let the collapse take its natural course. The...

It seems like only yesterday. In 1990, I first entered politics in Oklahoma. I ran for a seat on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency tasked with regulating public utilities and our oil and gas industry. The nine-year incumbent against whom I was running gave me an issue that was like a gift from Santa Claus. One of our major utilities had overcharged ratepayers to the tune of almost $30 million, and he had voted to let the offending public utility keep the windfall to upgrade its infrastructure. I felt the ratepayers deserved their money back, whether it was $50...

Lindsey Graham is a supporter of John McCain. He went on Hannity and Colmes to support John McCain’s criticism of Mitt Romney and “setting time tables.” You will see that Sean Hannity catches Lindsey Graham in an outright lie.