I have serious reservations regarding Karzai return to office. The interview is political for votes, but, backs Taliban in an unrealistic way.

I like President Karzai and admire his contribution to Afghanistan for the past seven years, however, he sounds a bit scared no different than Musharraf. His perspective may have been sculpted out of the negligence of the Bush/Cheney administration and his necessity to balance the Taliban's interest to maintain a stable government in Kabul.

I believe it will take a new President with a relationship with a new American General to 'begin again.' The Central Government in Kabul cannot be another 'Baghdad' where a 'figure head authority' debates the global affairs of the country while the country is allowed to breed extremism.

What concerns me is the close proixmity of a Taliban Headquarters so very close to Kabul and no concern raised about that at all. How is the Capital of Afghanistan EVER going to be a secure city with an oppressive regime having a hostile facility nearby? There is a lot of power the Taliban have enjoyed in Pakistan under Musharraf and they have become accustomed to being 'catered to' by President Karzai due to the abandonment by the USA.

He raises a legitimate question in that Afghanistan is betweeen a rock and hard place when it comes to USA commitment. It is that commitment that will determine the path of Afghanistan. The USA moving to Iraq was NOT a good idea, it compromised the Karzai administration in Afghanistan, hence, the national security of the USA.

So.

While I am more than concerned about President's Karzai's openly connected alliance to the Taliban within Afganistan, it is the commitment of NATO and the USA to 'succeed' in Afghanistan that will determine the outcome of the defeat of al Qaeda and the defeat of the oppression of the Afghan people by the Taliban. It may be that if the USA and NATO return to 'Bushesque' strategies it would return the outcome that President Karzai came to realize and enforce it.'

I believe at the real core to the interview with President Karzai on GPS is the issue of money and more of it. He'll accept more troops so long as it comes with financial assistance, but, the troops on all levels will be impuned from defeating any Taliban stronghold, which, in my opinion is a hideous circumstance. I don't see the current status of the Taliban lasting at all.

Abdullah supports troop increase, but within a broader plan (click title to entry - thank you)
By John Amick and T. Rees Shapiro
FOX NEWS SUNDAY - Abdullah: Afghans must have faith in runoff
Afghan opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah said he would not fully support the Nov. 7 runoff vote against incumbent president Hamid Karzai if reforms did not take place to improve transparency and reduce fraudulent ballot numbers in the electoral process.
Abdullah also ruled out the possibility of a power-sharing agreement with Karzai, and said he believed his constituents did not have faith in Karzai's ability to clean out the country's corrupt government and reduce the threat of extremist violence....

Given this view by Foreign Prime Minister Abdullah Abdullah it is clear he in no way supports the current Karzai government and could not participate even after the election. I think Afghanistan has a real crisis in leadership due its abandonment by Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld. The question is can General McCrystal work within any parameters that include the Karzai priorities. And. I believe he has already answered that.

Iraq is going to split. It may be painful at times.

Additionally, this is an al Qaedaesque bombing. Al Qaeda would love to have the USA back in Iraq and out of Afghanistan with a weaker effort both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. These events are unfortunate, but, there isn't much that is going to stop them except the people of Iraq themselves.


Iraqis gather at the site of the massive bomb attack at the Ministry of Justice in Baghdad Photo: AP

...The car bombs, at least one of them a suicide bombing, according to police, blew up by the justice ministry and a Baghdad provincial office, sites separated by one broad city block. The attacks, the bloodiest in Iraq this year, hit the nerve center of Baghdad's national and local governments, shattering windows, sending debris flying and tearing down parts of buildings....


Kurdish initiative tests tide to change status quo in Turkey (click here)
...These sentences belong to Mahiye Aşar, from the eastern province of Van, which has suffered its share from the Kurdish conflict in Turkey that has cost the lives of about 40,000 people since 1984. She was talking about her daughter, who joined the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) 19 years ago.
“My son-in-law's family was revolutionary. They faced a lot of pressure in the 1990s. Their home was raided by security forces every day. My daughter's husband would be arrested and tortured. They could not take it anymore and they went up to the mountains. I have not seen my daughter since. She has a son raised by his grandparents,” Aşar told journalists....


The Kirkuk conundrum (click here)
Iraqi democracy is stuck in a constitutional hiatus over the Kurdish-dominated region that threatens to derail elections
Ranj Alaaldin
guardian.co.uk,
Saturday 24 October 2009 08.00 BST
Iraq has once again met what very low expectations remain of it. Despite a 15 October deadline, the Iraqi parliament is yet to agree on a new election law for the national elections due to be held in January, and this may, as a result, throw its political, legal and constitutional framework into disarray.
Disagreement among parliamentarians centres on whether to use an open- or closed-list voting system. Under the former, voters elect their own preferred candidates into parliament, while under the latter system, the electorate votes for a political entity, as opposed to an individual, and that entity then awards parliamentary seats to its own fixed list of candidates, submitted to the electoral commission prior to the elections....

No "State Based Public Option" - It will ONLY be used against the uninsured and be a poltical football. Manipulated for statistics.

This is a 'faux fear' AGAIN ! We have witnessed in several provisions in the House Bill read on this blog, the Federal government increases its support to States for their health care citizens in need.

There is no way there should be a State Based Public Option. It will be a political football, no different than we have witnessed with the Stimulus Package and the States that opted out. The 'impact' of the Stimulus was effected in Republican dominated States that would not participate and their unemployment rates went up rather than down.

What will occur in the USA with 'State Opted Public Option' is that people without insurance or insurance that is too expensive will migrate around the country seeking relief from their plight. That will only place heavier burdens on States that supply the Public Option and therefore quite possibly increase unemployment rates and welfare rates, school systems and local taxpayers will become stressed and there will be disproportionate financial burdens placed on local economies.

ABSOLUTELY NO STATE BASED PUBLIC OPTION. If the Senate undertakes this approach they need to be replaced! It is grossly irresponsible to all citizens and not just the uninsured.



President Barack Obama is actively discouraging Senate Democrats in their effort to include a public insurance option with a state opt-out clause as part of health care reform. In its place, say multiple Democratic sources, Obama has indicated a preference for an alternative policy, favored by the insurance industry, which would see a public plan "triggered" into effect in the future by a failure of the industry to meet certain benchmarks....