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Subscribe to RSS“President Obama said Thursday that there will be no additional changes for now in his leadership team on Afghanistan, but that he will be ‘insisting on unity of purpose’ and ‘paying very close attention’ to its performance,” the Washington Post writes. “His comments came as senior Republicans called on Obama to replace the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and the State Department diplomat working most closely on the issue. Both were disparaged by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and his aides in published remarks that led Obama to relieve McChrystal of the Afghanistan war command this week.”
The AP adds, “With Gen. David Petraeus in charge, the president said Thursday he's assembled the team that will take the U.S. through the months ahead -- by all expectations the make-or-break stage of the conflict.”
"Obama said July 2011 should be seen more as a date for a transfer of responsibility to Afghan forces. He also said he will be relying heavily on Petraeus' advice when the pullout date and war strategy come up for another major administration review in December," the New York Daily News adds.
"The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he was 'nearly sick' when he read the magazine article that led to the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal," The Hill writes. "'I couldn't believe it,' Adm. Mike Mullen said at a Pentagon press briefing Thursday afternoon. 'I was stunned.'"
The New York Post's headline on President Obama and Russian President Medvedev going for a burger yesterday: "A peace of meat: Bam & Medvedev's burger-joint summit." Obama got a cheddar cheeseburger; Medvedev went with jalapenos on his. And check this: "In a sign of a diplomatic thaw, they shared a single order of fries."
The New York Daily News: "War is hell. But diplomacy is a Hell burger, at least in the Obama White House on Thursday. The chowhound in chief treated Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to a fat, juicy sampling of an all-American meal at Ray's Hell Burger, just across the Potomac in Virginia."
Do the Taliban have C-SPAN? "(Petraeus) is not smarter than McChrystal," Taliban spokesman Qari Muhammad Ahmed Yusuf said in a statement. "Also, his losing consciousness last week in an investigative hearing before the members of the U.S. Congress brought his physical competence and his courage into question."
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Really sad that President Obama is bowing to pressure from the repugnant one chickenhawks to stay the course in Afghanistan despite the growing costs and lack of substantial progress. Too bad the conservative chickenhawks are too chicken to pay for the war they started but never finished, if the dopes of nope want to stay in Afghanistan then let's raise taxes and pay for that losing war instead of pushing the costs to future generations.
It was good to see President Obama and President Medvedev getting together to bring our two countries closer. Ofcourse the repugnant ones are still stuck with their Cold War thinking that Russia has to be our enemy, no it does not. Obama and Medvedev have done a lot more to bring our countries together after WarMongers Putin and Bush did everything they could to put us at odds with each other.
Is having a hamburger really news? How about reporting about the policy discussions and agreements between the two instead of their flippin' lunch?!
Eric - President Obama isn't bowing to the chickenhawks to stay the course. This was his plan all along and he's sticking to it. It'll be interesting to see what the december assessment brings and wht, if any changes, to the plan.
President Obama has been absolutely consistent in his Afghanistan policy from day one in the Oval Office, and before.
This is his policy, and he has, in General Petraeus, his choice in place to implement that policy.
As Commander-In-Chief, he has the right to expect the loyalty and support of the military on this issue, and hopefully, he'll get the same from the American people.
On this one, I'm going to have to go with Mixed Bag and not Eric about the war in Afghanistan. I voted for President Obama and he has a hell of a lot more access to information about the war than I do. A plan was formulated based on that information and we should be behind him 100% to see it through.
He has said all along there will be a review in December and that troops will start switching over power and coming home in July 11.
Let's have this discussion again in December and July. :)
I agree with Steven on this also, in the end Pres. Obama will have to decide if it's worth it. The thought of al qaida getting a nuke from Pakistan is beyond scary! We all have our opinions about just about everything, but we don't have all the facts to base these opinions, I trust our president to keep us safe, which is his first duty.I see him as very pragmatic about realities, and what can be done with a opposition party that is determined to see him fail despite this being bad for the country.
There is an obvious very aggressive strategy being followed to dominate websites and to present an abundance of drastically slanted Republican dogma. Every website and interactive media currently displays these expansive efforts. The intent, much of it formally organized and some not, is apparent in intending to manipulate public opinion by using the belligerent Karl Rove tactic to say it boldly, say it often, say it strongly and don’t stop saying it hoping that it will at least block any countering offerings and could even saturate people’s thinking. Should the public not recognize and resist the onslaught aimed to capture their thinking, their ultimate decisions just may not be their own but rather the result of a constant barrage of subterfuge and being the equivalent of a brainwashing. It isn’t done just by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Michael Steele, Jon Kyl and those obvious people who are extremely active but there is an army of staff and volunteers and even zealous individuals taking up the cause. The public really needs to be skeptical and each to then take a close look for themselves, as it is very apparent and completely disturbing. Whatever anyone’s ultimate decision is, it should literally be their own, preferably being rational and objective after reasonable personal discernment but in any case literally their own. Just to question the reasonableness of the information, the forced emotion in the appeals and the all too obvious slanting of the positions, besides observing the persistent volume, should be enough to create real caution.
RGiles-
You are making me very, very paranoid.
Are the black helicopters on the way...?
RGiles -
I agree, everyone should,
especially when reading these comments.
Oh yea, I observed your volume was persistent, too.
The Republicans think Obama is God! They think he is capable of all things as they fault him for causing every problem and criticize him for not immediately resolving every crisis. Of course he isn’t a deity and is fallible no matter what they say we should expect and obviously their extensive efforts are really a devious conspiracy to manipulate public opinion into condemning and abandoning him. It is so bogus it is ridiculous and so aggressive, from the dishonest and even bazaar ranting of the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin to the idiotic slurs of bigots on the websites, that they should be quickly recognized as the low class they really are.
The reality is that the Obama administration inherited the problems, that the causes of the problems preceded them, and that they are actually responding to the problems as well as can be expected, especially without any bipartisan cooperation and when considering the all out efforts to obstruct and fault them. The real truth is that if the irresponsible actions of the corrupt critics ever succeed then we will be returned to ‘more of the same’ (their goal) that did cause the problems. Theirs is an arrogant self-focused mentality that literally inhibits their ability to responsibly govern and actually predestines the problems (read John Dean’s book, “Broken Government”).
The people need to be careful as there once more is a pervasive con going on intended to corrupt and manipulate people’s thinking and to take us to another era of down-sliding, of deceptively focusing on the very few while again neglecting the 90%+ majority. It was extremely costly before, putting us where we are, and definitely would be again.