Obama Considers Reaching Out to Taliban

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Barack Obama said the United States is not winning the war in Afghanistan and hinted at possible talks with moderate elements of the Taliban.

Highlighting the success of the US strategy of bringing some Sunni Iraqi insurgents to the negotiating table and away from Al-Qaeda, Obama told The New York Times that “there may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani region.”

The strategy in Iraq had been developed by General David Petraeus, then commander of US forces in the country.

“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 with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of Al-Qaeda in Iraq,” Obama said in the interview published in the online edition of the Times.

But Obama warned that Afghanistan was not Iraq, and that reconciliation efforts could face difficulties …

Continue Reading

Biden Forges Old-School Vice Presidency, More Mondale than Cheney

By Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s been laying on the praise so thick for his vice president that even a guy as self-deprecating as Joe Biden might wonder if Obama’s messing with him.

“We call him ‘The Sheriff,’” Obama said recently, talking about how he’s asked Biden to oversee implementation of the $787 billion economic stimulus. “Nobody messes with Joe,” the president said in his first formal address to Congress.

After less than two months in office, Obama also has called on Biden, 66, to act as a foreign-policy emissary, run a middle-class task force, stand in on national network morning shows and round up support for the administration by tapping allies in organized labor and friends from both political parties on Capitol Hill.

Entrusted with far more than funerals and ribbon cuttings, Biden’s responded with deference and gratitude, but hasn’t quite curbed his penchant for stream-of-consciousness monologues and wisecracks that makes Obama uneasy …

Continue Reading

Amid Obama’s Change, There’s also More of the Same

By NANCY BENAC | Associated Press

WASHINGTON – For all the sweeping changes that President Barack Obama has delivered, there also has been an ample helping of more-of-the-same.

The Bush policy of imprisoning enemy combatants in Afghanistan without trial? The Obama White House is OK with that.

The Bush tax cuts for the rich that candidate Obama promised to wipe out early? President Obama will let them run their course.

The Bush team’s claim of a “state secrets” privilege to avoid releasing information? The Obama White House has agreed thrice over, even as it reviews the policy.

Across the landscape of government, there are plenty of other instances in which Obama is staying his Republican predecessor’s course — at least for now …

Continue Reading

Obama Backs Bush on Terror Prisoners

By JOSH GERSTEIN | Politico

The Justice Department told a federal court Friday that it shouldn’t consider legal challenges filed by prisoners being held in Afghanistan by the U.S. military — another example of the Obama administration hewing to one of President Bush’s war-on-terror stances.

In a short legal filing, Justice Department lawyers said they planned to maintain the Bush administration’s claim that the roughly 600 prisoners held in Afghaninstan have no right to contest their detention in the courts. “The Government adheres to its previously articulated position,” the attorneys said …

Continue Reading

Related News: Official: Pentagon Report says Gitmo is Humane

Kyrgyzstan Issues Eviction Notice to Key US Base

By LEILA SARALAYEVA | Associated Press

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – Kyrgyzstan ordered U.S. forces on Friday to depart within six months from an air base key to military operations in Afghanistan, complicating plans to send more troops to battle rising Taliban and al-Qaida violence.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, however, that he believed the base was not a “closed issue.” The U.S. has said it would consider paying more rent to keep the base open.

Pakistani militants have stepped up attacks on convoys traveling the primary supply route to Afghanistan in recent months pushing U.S. officials to secure alternative, northern routes through Central Asia.

The U.S. announced a small victory in that hunt Friday — saying neighboring Uzbekistan had granted permission for the transit of non-lethal cargo to Afghanistan …

Continue Reading

Obama OKs about 17,000 More Troops for Afghanistan

By ANNE GEARAN | AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says he’s sending additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan to battle insurgent threats and crumbling security along the Pakistan border. Obama has approved a Pentagon request to deploy Marines and Army troops to the region. Congressional officials say an estimated 17,000 troops will go in the coming months.

In a statement Tuesday, Obama called sending armed forces into harm’s way one of a president’s most solemn duties …

Continue Reading

Obama Slows Down Troop Boost Decision

By DAVID S. CLOUD | Politico

President Barack Obama is refusing to be rushed into his first decision to send troops into combat, an early sign he may be more independent-minded than U.S. military leaders expected.

The new president’s methodical decision-making offers an early insight into how the new commander in chief will approach the war in Afghanistan and has surprised some Pentagon officials, who had predicted repeatedly in the past two weeks that Obama would decide within days on additional forces, only to find the White House taking more time.

Rather than sign off quickly on all or part of a long-standing Pentagon request for three Army combat brigades and Marine units, totaling over 10,000 troops, Obama and his aides are questioning the timetable, the mission and even the composition of the new forces, officials familiar with the deliberations said …

Continue Reading

Obama: No Timetable on Afghanistan; Seeks ‘Face to Face’ Talks with Iran

By Jonathan Allen | CQ Politics

In his first prime-time news conference, President Obama said he has no timetable for the withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan.

Even as he tried to focus the nation on his plan for addressing an economic crisis that he warned will become a “catastrophe” without action by Congress, Obama vowed to stop al Qaeda from operating “with impunity” in Afghanistan and said his administration would be “looking for openings” to move “in a new direction” U.S. policy toward Iran.

“My bottom line is that we cannot allow al Qaeda to operate. We cannot have those safe havens in that region. And we’re going to have to work both smartly and effectively, but with consistency in order to make sure that those safe havens don’t exist,” Obama said Monday evening.

“I do not have yet a timetable for how long that’s going to take. What I know is I’m not going to make — I’m not going to allow al Qaeda or [Osama] bin Laden to operate with impunity, planning attacks on the U.S. homeland.”

On Iran, Obama said he envisioned looking for “openings that can be created where we can start sitting across the table, face to face” with Iranian leaders …

Continue Reading

Petraeus Pushes NATO Allies to Step Up Afghan Fight

By James G. Neuger and Tony Czuczka | Blommberg.com

Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. pushed European NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, warning of a resurgence in terrorist violence in the country that gave rise to the Sept. 11 attacks.

U.S. Army General David Petraeus said the security situation has “deteriorated markedly” since 2007 and appealed for more troops and war-fighting equipment to bolster stability as nationwide elections test Afghanistan’s ability to govern itself.

“I would be remiss if I did not ask individual countries to examine very closely what forces and other contributions they can provide,” Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, told the Munich Security Conference today …

Continue Reading

War on Terror Update

Rasmussen Reports

Sixty-two percent (62%) of likely voters now say the United States and its allies are winning the War on Terror. That’s the highest level of confidence found in five years of tracking, and is up from 55% in late January.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 14% believe the terrorists are winning, representing a new record low. Two weeks ago, 18% said the terrorists held the advantage.

Eighteen percent (18%) now say neither side is winning.

Over half (52%) of voters say the situation in Iraq will get better in the next six months. That is up from 46% last month and also a new high water mark of optimism.

Just 20% now say the situation in Iraq will get worse over the coming months …

Continue Reading