Pelosi declares Afghan war "over"

[Jecks]

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050 ... -8873r.htm

Republicans slam Pelosi's comments as 'demoralizing'
By Stephen Dinan and Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 23, 2005


Seven Republican members of Congress said yesterday House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was "demoralizing" U.S. troops by saying twice Tuesday that the war in Afghanistan is over during a press conference she held to call for an investigation of detainee abuses.

"Would you prefer that they gave up the fight, stopped hunting for Osama bin Laden and allowed the terrorists to run free?" the Republicans, all members of the House Armed Services Committee, wrote in a letter to the California Democrat.

On Tuesday, Mrs. Pelosi and three other top Democrats called for a commission to investigate reported abuses of detainees from the war on terror. Mrs. Pelosi said it is past time that the administration established a policy on determining the fates of the detainees at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, arguing that most are from Afghanistan and that the conflict there has ended.

"I assume that the war in Afghanistan is over, or is the contention that you have that it continues?" she said to a reporter.

A few moments later, she said: "This isn't about the duration of the war. The war in Afghanistan is over."

House Democrats tried but failed this week to force a floor vote on creating the commission to study reported abuses. Some Democrats and a few Republicans have gone further, calling for the Guantanamo facility to be closed.

But most Republicans rejected that idea, and a new poll shows that a strong majority of Americans think the detainees at Guantanamo are being treated fairly.

A Rasmussen Reports survey conducted this week found that 36 percent of Americans say the detainees are being treated better than they deserve, and another 34 percent say they are being treated about right. Just one in five say the detainees are being treated unfairly, with 10 percent saying they do not know.

The poll asked: "Most of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are members of al Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist groups. Generally speaking, is the United States treating these prisoners unfairly, treating them better than they deserve, or treating them about right?"

The telephone poll of 1,000 Americans, conducted Monday and Tuesday, also found that only 14 percent agree with Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, who charged that prisoner treatment at Guantanamo is similar to the tactics used by the Nazi or Soviet regimes.

But Mrs. Pelosi and the top Democrats on the Armed Services, Government Reform and intelligence committees, at their Tuesday press conference, said a commission must look at the training and supervision of troops at detention facilities, at the "atmosphere created that permitted detainee abuse," and how high up the chain of command responsibility for the abuses should go.

They also said the commission should look at conditions determining when a detainee should be released.

"Many of the detainees have been in U.S. custody since October 2001. Why have they been in custody for nearly four years without being charged? Why has so little been done to resolve the status of the detainees?" Mrs. Pelosi said.

A spokeswoman for Mrs. Pelosi said the president himself has indicated that the war to remove Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime was over.

"The war to remove the Taliban government from power was over in 2001 and the president has said the mission was a success," said Jennifer Crider, Mrs. Pelosi's press secretary.

She said President Bush's failure to prosecute the war there, and his effort to go to war in Iraq, have complicated the conflict in Afghanistan.

"One of the main reasons that our troops continue to be attacked by al Qaeda and Taliban fighters today is because President Bush decided to invade Iraq, diverting critical resources needed to secure Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the demands of the war in Iraq have made the job of our brave troops in Afghanistan much more difficult," the spokeswoman said.

The Republicans who signed yesterday's letter said Mrs. Pelosi is wrong about the war being over. They pointed to a battle that left 40 insurgents and a police officer dead in southern Afghanistan this week, as well as eight U.S. troops wounded in Afghanistan last week.

The letter was signed by Reps. John Kline of Minnesota, Joe Wilson of South Carolina, Kay Granger of Texas, Geoff Davis of Kentucky, Candice S. Miller of Michigan, H. James Saxton of New Jersey and Bill Shuster of Pennsylvania.

[Jecks]

I think she might want to pay more attention to Fox News........


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160436,00.html

Afghans: 102 Taliban Killed in Battle
Thursday, June 23, 2005

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces surrounded a rebel hide-out in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, and the number of insurgents killed from three days of fighting rose to 102, the defense ministry said.

The battle was one of the deadliest since the Taliban's ouster more than three years ago and was sure to add to growing anxiety that an Iraq-style conflict is developing here.

Two Taliban commanders, Mullah Dadullah (search) and Mullah Brader (search), are believed to be fighting alongside hundreds of rebel holdouts, said Defense Ministry spokesman Zahir Marad. Both are well known names in the Taliban rebellion, accused of orchestrating attacks across much of Afghanistan's violence-ridden south.

"A total of 102 Taliban have been killed since the fighting started on Tuesday," Marad said, 26 more than were reported on Wednesday evening. "These deaths will have a huge impact on the rebels. Many are trying to flee. But we have them surrounded."

The U.S. military Wednesday put the rebel death toll at 49. Lt. Cindy Moore, a spokeswoman for the force, said there had been no update since then and referred questions to the Afghan government.

Gen. Salim Khan, commander of 400 Afghan policemen who took part in the fighting, said the insurgents had been hit hard.


"Their camps were decimated. Bodies lay everywhere. Heavy machine guns and AK-47s were scattered alongside blankets, kettles and food," he told The Associated Press. "Some of the Taliban were also killed in caves where they were hiding and U.S. helicopters came and pounded them."

American AC-130 gunships, AH-64 Apache helicopters, A-10 attack planes and Harrier jump jets bombarded the rebels and had a "devastating effect on their forces," said another U.S. spokesman, Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara.

Gen. Ayub Salangi, the police chief for Kandahar province (search) where much of the fighting has occurred, said the massive assault on the rebels was in response to a Taliban ambush of a government convoy last week that left a local police commander and six of his men dead.

The local government chief was believed kidnapped in that assault, but Salangi said investigators have determined that he was actually a member of the Taliban and may have orchestrated the ambush.

About 390 suspected insurgents have been reported killed since rebel attacks began increasing in March, after snows melted on mountain tracks used by the rebels. In the same time, 29 U.S. troops, 38 Afghan police and soldiers and 125 civilians have been killed.

The bloodshed has raised concerns that the war is widening, rather than winding down. U.S. and Afghan officials have warned that violence could get even worse before parliamentary elections scheduled for September.

Afghan officials blame the rise in violence on insurgents sneaking in from Pakistan and are urging the government in Islamabad to crack down on militants there. On Sunday, Afghan intelligence agents foiled a plot by three Pakistanis to assassinate Zalmay Khalilzad, the outgoing U.S. ambassador.

Meanwhile, Spain announced it will send 500 more soldiers to Afghanistan to help provide security for parliamentary elections in September, increasing its troop presence there to nearly 800. The new troops will start deploying in July for a 90-day mission.

[Ddrak]

Clearly Pelosi is taking a play from the Bush handbook. After all, the war in Iraq ended in May 2003, right?

Dd

[UltraBurz]

C'mon Jecks, we all know fox news is a fake news source and cannot be trusted. Only CNN, NYT, LAT, CBC, and BBC on this board

[Ddrak]

This board?

[UltraBurz]

This board?

Sorry was beekin

[Sabiar]

When are the democrats just going to leave the war on terror alone? It obviously didn't work 2004 and it isn't going to work for 2006 either. Keep up comparing marines to Nazi's and saying that our presence in Afganistan is unnecessary and they'll lose even more seats.

/napoleon dynamite Friggin..Idiot

[rj]

When are the Dems going to get off their asses and try to impeach Bush? Sure, the Repubs controlled shit then like they do now, but with the weak ass technicality the got Clinton on (lying under oath, but no ones dies from it) versus Bush's impeachable acts (providing false testimony to the senate on the reasons for war, LOTS of people die from it), it is a no-brainer.

The Downing street memos hit the news only recently, and already they are done talking about it. WTF?

I heard the other day on NPR that the (paraphrase) "Democrats are becoming less timid about challenging the Bush Administration". FUCK THAT! Why haven't they been doing it all along. I voted Democrat in 2004, but never again. Not that I'm going to vote for the neo-naz - I mean neo-conservatives- either.

[Hooch]

The Downing street memos hit the news only recently, and already they are done talking about it. WTF?

After the tabloid Newsweek and Rathergate, they're most likely waiting for it actually be authenticated rather than its current limbo state of factuality.

[UltraBurz]

The Downing street memos hit the news only recently, and already they are done talking about it. WTF?

After the tabloid Newsweek and Rathergate, they're most likely waiting for it actually be authenticated rather than its current limbo state of factuality.

News and docs. don't need factual backing when it attacks republicans. You should know that by now.

Not that I'm going to vote for the neo-naz - I mean neo-conservatives- either.

Wow, go adjust that tinfoil hat and grab a glass of kool-aid at DU.

[CroinctheNeoCon]

RJ = Partha on crack

[rj]

partha? crack? maybe greenery, but that has more of a mellowing effect.

You guys glossed over that my post was more in disgust with Dems for being so beholden to public opinion.

As for authenticity, check Blair and Bushes response to the memos at whitehouse.gov: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases ... 607-2.html

Did they deny their authenticity? No they did not. But it is true we don't have the rest of the memos to know the whole story...but the evidence is compelling enough to persue. Providing false testimony to the Senate is an impeachable offense. All I'm saying is where are the special prosecutors, the Ken Starr's? We had a huge investigation to get to the point of impeaching Clinton (and again, I'll emphasize that, to my knowledge, no one died as a result of Clinton's impeachable offenses).

The rhetoric as to why impeaching Clinton was so imperative was about the sanctity of the office, blah, blah. When the shoe is on the other foot, where is the zeal for the truth?

Bottom line - the evidence is compelling enough that we should, at the very least, follow the trail to see if it leads anywhere.

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org

[CroinctheNeoCon]

ZOMG!!!!!!! Shoe....other....foot....WTF, d00d!!! Impeach NOW K THX!!!!!!!!!!!

[rj]

ZOMG!!!!!!! Shoe....other....foot....WTF, d00d!!! Impeach NOW K THX!!!!!!!!!!!

Good summary.

[Jecks]

Hippy vs. NeoCon....hmmmm.....

CRIPPLE FIGHT!