Explosions, shooting heard at U.S. base in Afghanistan

The idea that we will be able to stay in Afghanistan until 2014 and be able to hold off the Taliban is foolish. And the politicians and Generals who think that we can have no business governing this great nation. Either that or they are lying to us:

Two explosions and shooting were heard at a U.S. base in the Afghan city of Islamabad on Sunday, a Reuters witness said.

The Taliban said they carried out an attack on the compound and inflicted casualties. NATO officials were not immediately available for comment.

Senate backs quicker withdrawal from Afghanistan

How ironic is this. It's President Obama that wants to keep troops in Afghanistan for a longer time than the "war mongering" Republicans. And this who the anti-war left continues to support. What these fools don't understand is that those troops in Afghanistan a mere pawns. There aren't enough American soldiers in Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from coming to power. This means our troops are there just to die before they are taken out. The U.S. government is not committed to winning. So why are we there for 1 more year?:

Reflecting a war-weary nation, the Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday for an accelerated withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan after more than a decade of fighting.

The strong bipartisan vote of 62-33 sends a clear message to President Barack Obama and the military as they engage in high-stakes talks about the pace of drawing down the 66,000 U.S. troops there, with a White House announcement expected within weeks.

Although the vote was on a nonbinding amendment to a defense policy bill, its significance could not be discounted amid the current discussions.

Thirteen Republicans, including Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top GOP lawmaker on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, backed the measure.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., its chief sponsor, argued that al-Qaida is stronger in other parts of the world and that nation-building in Afghanistan has gone off track. His measure endorsed Obama's timetable to withdraw all combat troops by the end of 2014 but pressed for a quicker pace, without specifying how that would be achieved.

"It is time to end this war, end the longest war in United States history," Merkley said during Senate debate.

Feinstein, Rogers Agree the Taliban is Stronger

So tell me why we are still in Afghanistan again? Oh, yeah, It's an election year:

The heads of the Senate and House intelligence committees said Sunday the Taliban was gaining ground, just days after President Barack Obama made a surprise trip to Afghanistan and touted the progress made in the war on terror.

“I think we'd both say that what we found is that the Taliban is stronger,” said Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein on CNN’s “State of the Union,” while sitting with Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan.

Full article

"Afghan Insurgency Stronger Than Ever"

Video and Article from CBS:

The war President-elect Barack Obama is inheriting in Afghanistan includes an insurgency that's stronger than ever.

And it's creeping ever-closer to the Afghan capital.

In a video obtained by CBS News, a U.S. convoy is attacked less than 20 miles from Kabul.

"I think in Afghanistan, we really dropped the ball for a long time," said Karin von Hippel of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

It's now widely agreed America's new president needs a new approach, CBS News cheif foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan reports.

President-elect Obama's emerging strategy appears to shift focus to a regional solution to Afghanistan's problems.

"A regional approach really means looking at Afghanistan and Pakistan through a similar lens but also it should also mean bringing in China, bringing in India, bringing in Iran, bringing in the neighbors to make sure that everyone is part of the same solution," von Hippel said.

As Logan reports, this is the cost of not bringing in Afghanistan's neighbors. An exclusive video from Pakistan's tribal areas shows young boys being indoctrinated as suicide bombers.

According to the Taliban, the fate of becoming suicide bombers is what awaits them over the Afghan border. The teenage boy seen in the video is about to blow himself up.

The tape shows him saying goodbye to the men who packed his vehicle with explosives and heading off to find an American target.

The boy's mentors erupt in victory cries as they film the suicide.

Taliban attacks and U.S. casualties are the highest this year since the war in Afghanistan began.

The region is so connected, that any of Afghanistan's neighbors could facilitate peace and security - or as has been seen, make the situation a lot worse.

The Surge is Failing

There goes McCain's last argument. You can bet the Republicans are livid this report leaked to the press.

A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year.

These leakers should be considered patriots.

More than a half-dozen officials spoke to McClatchy Newspapers on condition of anonymity because NIEs, the most authoritative analyses produced by the U.S. intelligence community, are restricted to the president, his senior aides and members of Congress except in rare instances when just the key findings are made public.

McCain is toast.

The new NIE, which reflects the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, has significant implications for Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, whose differences over the Iraq war are a major issue in the presidential campaign.

The findings seem to cast doubts on McCain's frequent assertions that the United States is "on a path to victory" in Iraq by underscoring the deep uncertainties of the situation despite the 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge for which he was the leading congressional advocate.

Even Petraeus admits victory is elusive.

The findings of the intelligence estimate appear to be reflected in recent statements by Army Gen. David Petraeus, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, who has called the situation "fragile" and "reversible" and said he will never declare victory there.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice echoed that tone on Monday during a State Department awards ceremony for Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker.

"Ladies and gentlemen, nothing is certain in this life. And success in Iraq is not a sure thing," Rice said in an uncharacteristically downbeat comment.

The NIE findings parallel a Defense Department assessment last month that warned that despite "promising developments, security gains in Iraq remain fragile. A number of issues have the potential to upset progress."

That's on top of the critical situation in Afghanistan. Because of the quagmire in Iraq the U.S. government is forced to go hat in hand to our allies begging for help.

NATO allies face calls on Thursday to send more troops to fight Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan and boost military spending, despite the prospect of budget cuts due to the global financial crisis.

That same report paints a grim picture in Afghanistan.

A draft report by U.S. intelligence agencies concludes that Afghanistan is in a downward spiral and casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban's influence there, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Pentagon: The War on Terror will Last for Decades

The administration is doing it's usual scaremongering in time for the elections. But they are right about terror staying with us indefinitely - thanks to Bush.

"Success in Iraq and Afghanistan is crucial to winning this conflict, but it alone will not bring victory."

You can't win the war on terror if you can't even win wars unrelated to terrorism and only make it worse.

"The use of force plays a role, yet military efforts to capture or kill terrorists are likely to be subordinate to measures to promote local participation in government and economic programs to spur development, as well as efforts to understand and address the grievances that often lie at the heart of insurgencies," the document said. "For these reasons, arguably the most important military component of the struggle against violent extremists is not the fighting we do ourselves, but how well we help prepare our partners to defend and govern themselves."

Like what isn't being done in Afghanistan.

Defense sources said Gates's strategy met resistance among the Joint Chiefs of Staff because of its focus on irregular warfare. Gates met with the Joint Chiefs to present the rationale behind his strategy, and they expressed concerns over the long-term risks of shifting the focus too far from conventional threats. The service chiefs have worried publicly about shunning preparation for conventional warfare because it could give adversaries a competitive advantage in key arenas, such as in the skies or in space.

Sounds to me like Gates is not much different from Rumsfeld. They still miss the point.

James Jay Carafano, a military expert at the Heritage Foundation, said he finds it refreshing that the Defense Department acknowledges that China and Russia are potential adversaries, but he said he believes the strategy is too heavy on battling extremism.

I got news for you - China and Russia are adversaries. Once again, Bush has made it worse.

UN Survey: Afghan Opium High in 2008

Just part of Bush's legacy. It won't be long before Americans are dying from Heroin grown in U.S. occupied Afghanistan. So not only can't King George find Bin Laden but he is also funding al Qaeda:

Opium growth in Afghanistan's unstable south and southwest continues at an alarming rate, and is a windfall for anti-government forces who tax farmers, a U.N. report said Wednesday.

The report also predicted a further rise in cannabis cultivation this year.

"Europe, Russia and the countries along the Afghan heroin routes should brace themselves again for major health and security consequences," said Antonio Maria Costa, chief of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

Overall cultivation of opium the main ingredient in heroin is likely in 2008 to be similar to or slightly lower than it was in 2007, according to UNODC's latest Afghanistan Opium Winter Rapid Assessment Survey.

"Opium cultivation in Afghanistan may have peaked, but the 2008 amount will be shockingly high," Costa said in a statement.

At least the Bushies admit failure:

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the NATO-led military mission in Afghanistan is "bumpy," and the international aid effort needs firmer coordination among the many nations participating.

[...]The United States is also seeking to bridge a rift among NATO allies participating in unequal measure in Afghanistan.

"It's bumpy and it's a lot of maturing that the alliance is having to do to do this," Rice told reporters.

Some major European allies failed to send significant number of troops to the southern front lines, leaving troops from the United States, Britain, Canada and the Netherlands to bear the brunt of a resurgence of Taliban violence in the region. Canada has threatened to pull out unless other allies do more of the hard work.

"It's true and we've made no secret about it that there are certain allies that are in more dangerous parts of the country and we believe very strongly that there ought to be a sharing of that burden throughout the alliance," Rice told reporters. "That said, I think we ought not to also dismiss the contributions that are being made by all alliance members."