Bush's Afghan Policy Raked at Hearing

[Muttocracy]

AP report via NY Times link:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Afghanistan.html

Skeptical senators from both parties swept aside the Bush administration's optimistic defense of its strategy in Afghanistan Thursday, suggesting weariness over the campaign against the Taliban.

Testifying for the administration before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Assistant Secretary of State Richard A. Boucher said ''no one can tell me that Afghanistan is not going in the right direction.'' In a country that was one of the poorest in the world, he said there now is electricity, an army, a police force, cellular telephones and children going to school.

...

Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., D-Del., the committee chairman, and the most senior Republican, Sen. Richard G. Lugar R-Ind., expressed disbelief at Boucher's optimism.


hearings on c-span 3, realplayer:
rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter013108_afghanistan.rm

[gateley]

1. Afghanistan is being ignored. What is the problem with this administration??? nt

[Muttocracy]

2. The GOP senators can't even take this anymore! n/t

[gateley]

3. I know - NOBODY was cutting them any slack. The R's seemed as disgusted

as the Dems.

[TahitiNut]

4. "No one can tell" them a FUCKING THING. They're deaf to reason. Fucking fascists!

Insane. :grr: :puke:

[muddrunner17]

5. The Bush administration lives lives in a fantasy world.

They see the world with blinders on and only see what the want to rather than what's actually there. They think it's easier to pretend there is no problem than to actually solve it.

[TahitiNut]

8. (Welcome to DU!) Yes, and they also see things that just aren't there. Like WMD.

So, they're either delusional, liars, or both. In any event, such pathologies deserve incarceration, not election.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. What with our borders in the state that they are, the Afghans just might

move the war over here, ya know, just for a change of scenery perhaps....

[Disturbed]

7. Afghanistan risks 'failed state'

Afghanistan risks 'failed state'

Afghanistan risks turning into a failed state and becoming a forgotten war, a study led by a US diplomatic and military team has concluded.

The study by former UN ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Marine Corps General James Jones is due to be released later on Wednesday.

One of its recommendations is for more Nato troops to be sent to Afghanistan, the AP news agency reports.

The Taleban have mounted a comeback in Afghanistan over the past two years.
The south of the country has seen the worst violence since the Taleban were thrown out of power in the US-led invasion of 2001.

'Mounting challenge'
"Afghanistan stands at a crossroads," says the study which has been seen by AP.
"The progress achieved after six years of international engagement is under serious threat from resurgent violence, weakening international resolve, mounting regional challenges and a growing lack of confidence on the part of the Afghan people about the future direction of their country," it says.
The study also recommends the appointment of a US special envoy, and for Washington's Afghan policy to be decoupled from its Iraqi one.

Democrats in the US Congress have long argued that the Bush administration has failed to contain terrorism in Afghanistan by diverting resources to Iraq.

More here : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7216833.stm