Yes, yes, of course, everyone is talking about healthcare and the
"mobs" of foes and supporters of reform confronting members of Congress
during this month's House and Senate recess.
I'm with the small "d" democrats on this one: bring on the mobs.
The more citizens the merrier. The more raucous debate the better.
But let's also bring on the issues. All of them.
Healthcare is important. But its not the only challenge that Congress will have to deal with in the fall.
Supporters of President Karzai are preparing to rig voting in next week's presidential elections in unstable parts of Afghanistan's south as Taleban violence threatens to intimidate voters and hit turnout in his traditional support base.
The Times has talked to several witnesses whose reports will bolster suspicions within the international community that there will be electoral fraud across the south, some of it allegedly orchestrated by Mr Karzai's half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai.
As the Obama administration expands U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that the United States is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that will probably eclipse that of the Iraq war.
Since the invasion of Afghanistan eight years ago, the United States has spent $223 billion on war-related funding for that country, according to the Congressional Research Service. Aid expenditures, excluding the cost of combat operations, have grown exponentially, from $982 million in 2003 to $9.3 billion last year.
The UK's commitment to Afghanistan could last for up to 40 years, the incoming head of the Army has said.
Gen Sir David Richards, who takes over on 28 August, told the Times the Army's role would evolve, but the process of "nation-building" would last decades.
Troops will be required for the medium term only, but the UK will continue to play a role in "development, governance [and] security sector reform," he said.
"There is absolutely no chance of Nato pulling out," Gen Richards added.
BRUSSELS — Top U.S. officials have reached out to a leading Vietnam
war scholar to discuss the similarities of that conflict 40 years ago
with American involvement in Afghanistan, where the U.S. is seeking
ways to isolate an elusive guerrilla force and win over a skeptical
local population.
The overture to Pulitzer Prize-winning
historian Stanley Karnow, who opposes the Afghan war, comes as the U.S.
is evaluating its strategy there.
With less than two weeks to go until national
elections, the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, is trying to cut a
secret deal with one of his rivals to knock out his leading contender
and ensure a decisive victory to avoid the chaos that a tight result
might unleash.
Afghanistan's second
democratic polls threaten to split the country along sectarian lines.
That would risk undermining US and British-led peace efforts which are
already under pressure from a resurgent Taliban.
GENEVA - The Afghan battlefield is spreading into residential areas where more people are being killed by air strikes, car bombs and suicide attacks, according to a U.N. report published on Friday.
The U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan said that 1,013 civilians were killed on the sidelines of their country's armed conflict from January to the end of June, compared to 818 in the first half of 2008 and 684 in the same period in 2007.
LONDON - Most Britons believe the increasingly bloody war in Afghanistan is "unwinnable" and want troops pulled out, an opinion poll said Tuesday, as more soldiers' bodies were flown home.
The dead servicemen were honoured a day after Britain announced the end of a major offensive in southern Afghanistan and outlined a change of strategy following a sharp spike in deaths.
What, what, what,
What's the news from Swat?
Sad news,
Bad news,
Comes by the cable led
Through the Indian Ocean's bed,
Through the Persian Gulf,
the Red
Sea and the Med-
Iterranean -- he 's dead;
The Ahkoond is dead!
-- George Thomas Lanigan
KABUL - Afghanistan has struck a ceasefire deal with Taliban insurgents in a remote province, a presidential spokesman said on Monday, the first move of its kind amid an escalation of violence ahead of elections next month.
The truce was reached on Saturday in northwestern Badghis province, near the border with Turkmenistan, spokesman Seyamak Herawi said. The government wanted to make similar deals with the Taliban in other parts of the country in a bid to improve security for the August 20 presidential election, he said.
