http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/quagmire/ en-us Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:03:39 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2412953/posts EATONVILLE, Wash. -- A Pierce County sheriff's deputy and a sergeant were seriously wounded in a shooting near Eatonville on Monday night. Sheriff spokesman Ed Troyer said the two were responding to a domestic violence call at a cabin in the 34300 block of Tanwax Court East at the time. Investigators said a man, his brother and his 15-year-old daughter were at the cabin when some sort of trouble broke out, prompting the call. "When our two deputies arrived, they were invited in to the house by one of the brothers," Troyer said. Investigators said a man, his brother and... KOMO News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2412953/posts#comment Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:03:39 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2384383/posts Recently on ABC television news, one of their videos showed a U.S. Marine hunkered down in Afghanistan complaining on camera that he was not allowed to shoot back when under fire. This situation resulted from Obama’s new rules of engagement from his new Afghanistan commander. General McChrystal explained it to BBC news that they are now advising troops to break off from firefights with the Taliban, "If you are in a situation where you are under fire from the enemy... if there is any chance of creating civilian casualties or if you don't know whether you will create civilian casualties,... Backpacker http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2384383/posts#comment Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:52:34 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2382513/posts Officials said President Obama will not announce his decision until after he returns from his upcoming trip to Asia and stressed that no final decision has been made, even in private. But the plan under consideration would represent a middle ground between different requests made from the top commander in Afghanistan. But the plan under serious consideration would split the difference between troop requests made by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. McChrystal had put forward a "high risk" request for only 10,000-15,000 troops, and a "medium risk" request of 40,000-45,000. Foxnews.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2382513/posts#comment Mon, 9 Nov 2009 23:19:47 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2372494/posts 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... Investors.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2372494/posts#comment Wed, 28 Oct 2009 02:00:35 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2372440/posts 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... Investor's Business Daily http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2372440/posts#comment Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:52:35 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2359865/posts Barack Obama we are told is a smart man. He attended Columbia University and Harvard Law. He lectured Constitutional law at the University of Chicago, but does any of this qualify him to be Commander-in-Chief? On the campaign trail, candidate Obama famously called Afghanistan the “good war”. But the truth of the matter, Afghanistan was the stagnant war. The enemy shifted its focus to Iraq because that is where we chose to fight. The Taliban and al Qaeda where chased out of Afghanistan and into Pakistan and needed to be regrouped. So they called on Islamic “freedom fighters” to engage... Young Gun Conservative http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2359865/posts#comment Sun, 11 Oct 2009 06:19:14 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2349869/posts The president appears to be dragging his feet on more troops for the struggle, but that's what an effective counterinsurgency strategy requires. During last year's campaign, Barack Obama stressed that while he wanted to withdraw from Iraq, he was no pacifist. "As president," he said on July 15, 2008, "I will make the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be. This is a war that we have to win." He began to make good on his word on March 27 when he announced a "comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan" that included... Los Angeles Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2349869/posts#comment Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:40:29 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2349291/posts Tom Engelhardt: Petraeus, McChrystal, And The Surgettes On Next Moves In AfghanistanGen. Stanley McChrystal, America's military commander in Afghanistan, tells David Martin the spread of violence in that country is worse than he expected. PHOTO Gen. David Petraeus (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool) STORIES Poll: Afghanistan Troop Increase Unpopular U.S. Commander May Revise Troop Request (CBS) Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. He also edited The... CBS News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2349291/posts#comment Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:19:21 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2345708/posts An astonishingly honest assessment — one that I fear is accurate — from the lefty blog Hullabaloo: Escalation is a bad idea. The Democrats backed themselves into defending the idea of Afghanistan being The Good War because they felt they needed to prove their macho bonafides they called for withdrawal from Iraq. Nobody asked too many questions sat the time, including me. But none of us should forget that it was a political strategy, not a serious foreign policy. There have been many campaign promises "adjusted" since the election. There is no reason that the administration should feel any more... NRO http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2345708/posts#comment Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:18:10 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2344957/posts President Obama is resisting pressure from the Nato commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, for a rapid troop increase and shift away from judging success in the war by the numbers of Taliban killed, following the leak of a confidential 66-page report from McChrystal to the Pentagon. The report says "success demands a comprehensive counter-insurgency campaign" that shifts the emphasis to protecting and winning support from ordinary Afghans so as not to be seen as an occupying army. But the general warns that Nato forces must be prepared for an escalating rate of casualties as they take greater risks to... Guardian http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2344957/posts#comment Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:03:07 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2337498/posts WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she sees little support for sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, forecasting a potential showdown with the Obama administration over how to win the war. Pelosi's comments put President Barack Obama in an uneasy position as he considers whether to side with his top commander in Afghanistan, who is expected in coming weeks to ask for more troops and other resources. She is the highest-ranking Democrat to signal that any White House or Pentagon push for more troops will be resisted in Congress. "I don't think there's a great deal of support... AP on Yahoo http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2337498/posts#comment Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:24:23 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2335891/posts Four Marines died yesterday in Afghanistan when the Taliban laid a trap: Four U.S. Marines died Tuesday when they walked into a well-laid ambush by insurgents in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province. Seven Afghan troops and an interpreter for the Marine commander also died in the ambush and the subsequent battle, which lasted seven hours. Three American service members and 14 Afghan security force members were wounded. It was the largest number of American military trainers to die in a single incident since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. The battle took place around the remote hamlet of Gangigal, in a valley about... Flopping Aces http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2335891/posts#comment Wed, 9 Sep 2009 23:58:52 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2335336/posts GANJGAL, Afghanistan — We walked into a trap, a killing zone of relentless gunfire and rocket barrages from Afghan insurgents hidden in the mountainsides and in a fortress-like village where women and children were replenishing their ammunition. "We will do to you what we did to the Russians," the insurgent's leader boasted over the radio, referring to the failure of Soviet troops to capture Ganjgal during the 1979-89 Soviet occupation. Dashing from boulder to boulder, diving into trenches and ducking behind stone walls as the insurgents maneuvered to outflank us, we waited more than an hour for U.S. helicopters to... McClatchy http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2335336/posts#comment Wed, 9 Sep 2009 12:34:13 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2332730/posts More than 70 people reportedly died in the strike on hijacked fuel tankers, despite the new U.S. commander's emphasis on avoiding civilian casualties. Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Istanbul, Turkey -- In an incident that could seriously undermine the central U.S. aim in Afghanistan, dozens of civilians were killed or injured early Friday in a NATO airstrike, Afghan authorities said. The predawn strike on a pair of hijacked fuel tankers in a remote part of northern Kunduz province killed more than 70 people, most of them civilians, according to Afghan police, provincial officials and doctors. Dozens of villagers suffered serious... Los Angeles Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2332730/posts#comment Sat, 5 Sep 2009 08:09:08 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2332218/posts Nato has promised a full investigation into an air strike on two fuel tankers that killed up to 90 people in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province. The alliance said many Taliban insurgents who had hijacked the tankers were killed but it admitted it had reports of many civilian casualties. The Nato-led forces said they regretted "any unnecessary loss of human life". President Hamid Karzai said targeting civilians was "unacceptable" and announced his own investigation panel. A statement from his office said the president expressed "deep sorrow for the loss of our compatriots" and "emphasised that innocent civilians must not be killed... BBC http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2332218/posts#comment Fri, 4 Sep 2009 16:58:46 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2331715/posts Republicans should never do to President Obama what many Democrats did to President Bush.In his column for the Washington Post on Tuesday, the influential conservative George Will provided intellectual fodder for the campaign among some Republicans to hang the Afghanistan war around the Obama administration's neck. Washington, he wrote, should "keep faith" with our fighting men and women by "rapidly reversing the trajectory of America's involvement in Afghanistan." "Obama's war," a locution one is now beginning to hear from other conservatives, is an expression of discontent that has been smoldering beneath the surface for several months. The weakening public support... Wall Street Journal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2331715/posts#comment Fri, 4 Sep 2009 01:30:37 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2330519/posts Afghanistan has made strides in many spheres over the past eight years despite its problems, writes the BBC's M Ilyas Khan after a recent journey through the country to cover elections. From the Communist takeover of 1978 to the destruction of Kabul in 1992 and its subsequent fall to the Taliban in 1996, Afghanistan has been back from the brink many times before. There is no reason why it should be different this time. I was in Kabul in March 2001 when the Taliban blew up the two 2nd Century Buddha statues carved into a mountainside in central Bamyan province.... BBC http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2330519/posts#comment Wed, 2 Sep 2009 17:43:11 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2329961/posts IS PRESIDENT Barack Obama sliding down the slippery slope into a Vietnam-style quagmire in Afghanistan? By all accounts, the classified, 20-plus-page report that Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, delivered to his superiors at the Pentagon on Monday has not yet reached the president’s desk. Yet commentators yesterday warned it’s “time to get out of Afghanistan” and that “Afghanistan may be Obama’s Vietnam”. Gen McChrystal’s report is believed to prepare the way for a Pentagon request for further troop increases to protect Afghan civilians and train Afghan security forces. The Kabul government yesterday praised Gen McChrystal’s emphasis on... Irish Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2329961/posts#comment Wed, 2 Sep 2009 01:41:58 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2329703/posts The international community, with more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, does not have an exit strategy and will stay committed for the long term, Sweden's foreign minister said Tuesday. "There is no time line, it is clear that no one has an exit strategy, because we have a transition strategy," Carl Bildt, whose country is currently president of the European Union, told AFP. "It is vital that Afghans have the confidence that we will stay," he said. The emphasis of the foreign presence was shifting, he said, from military action against Taliban-liked insurgents, to training Afghan security forces and helping... AFP http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2329703/posts#comment Tue, 1 Sep 2009 20:08:55 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2329624/posts NATO’s war in Afghanistan could become an Iraq-like quagmire, if Western powers continue on their present pathTHIS IS THE just war, the "war of necessity," as Barack Obama likes to put it, in contrast to the bad war, the war of misguided choices in Iraq. But as a deeply flawed election went ahead in Afghanistan earlier this month, there were echoes, in the mission by the United States and its allies, of the darkest days of the Iraq campaign: muddled aims, mounting casualties and the gnawing fear of strategic defeat. Gloomy commentators evoke the spectre of the humiliations inflicted by... The Chronicle Herald http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2329624/posts#comment Tue, 1 Sep 2009 18:36:48 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2329570/posts President Barack Obama will review a new U.S. military report on Afghanistan this week and any decision on changing the U.S. presence there is weeks away, Obama's spokesman said on Tuesday. Obama would take some form of the report by U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal with him when he leaves on Wednesday for Camp David, where he will spend the rest of the week on vacation, spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters. The confidential report by the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has been described by officials as an assessment of the situation on the ground and does... Reuters http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2329570/posts#comment Tue, 1 Sep 2009 17:40:06 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2328873/posts George F. Will, the elite conservative commentator, will call in his next column for U.S. ground troops to leave Afghanistan, according to publishing sources. “[F]orces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters,” Will writes in the column, scheduled for publication later this week. Obama ordered a total of 21,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan in February and March, and casualties have mounted... Politico http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2328873/posts#comment Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:17:28 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2328380/posts A report by the top US general in Afghanistan is expected to admit the current strategy is not working, the BBC understands. General Stanley McChrystal will liken the US military to a bull charging at a matador [the Taliban] - slightly weakened with each "cut" it receives. His review is also expected to say that protecting the Afghan people against the Taliban must be the top priority. But the report will not carry a direct call for increasing troop numbers. The leak came as further results from last week's presidential election were expected to be released, at 1230 GMT. President... bbc http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2328380/posts#comment Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:25:00 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2327527/posts A senior British diplomat has said an "explosive" meeting between the US special envoy to Afghanistan and the country's president is very worrying.US special envoy Richard Holbrooke is believed to have complained about the use of fraud in last week's election. But Lord Ashdown, a former special envoy to Bosnia who was put forward as special envoy to Afghanistan, said foreign interference was "unhelpful". He said foreign criticism could "de-legitimise the whole process". Lord Ashdown told the BBC: "I think if there are doubts about corruption in the election, etc, it would be far better, at least in the first... BBC http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2327527/posts#comment Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:41:43 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2326070/posts By making the war in Afghanistan his own, declaring it a war of necessity and sending more troops, U.S. President Barack Obama has entered a race against time. The outcome is far from certain. To win it, the new strategy being put into place has to show convincing results before public disenchantment with the war saps Obama's credibility and throws question marks over his judgment. Already, according to public opinion polls in August, a majority of Americans say the war is not worth fighting. Almost two thirds think the United States will eventually withdraw without winning. There are similar feelings... Reuters http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2326070/posts#comment Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:17:56 GMT