Drop Afghan pullout deadline, Barack Obama told

BARACK Obama is being urged to drop his deadline of July next year to start US troop withdrawals from Afghanistan Fears are rising that the deadline has emboldened the Taliban.
The US President's deadline was yesterday branded unrealistic and the cause of uncertainty about the White House's long-term commitment to the Afghan war.

Critics said it sent the wrong message to the Taliban, that they only had to wait for the US-led forces to leave the country. Afghanistan's ambassador to Washington, Said Jawad, was blunt in declaring the date to start withdrawing troops was unhelpful.
"If you over-emphasise a deadline that is not realistic, you are making the enemy a lot more bold," Mr Jawad said. "You are prolonging the war. That deadline should be realistic. The line should be based on the reality on the ground, and we should give a clear message to the enemy, to the terrorists who are a threat to everyone, that the US, NATO, Afghans, are there to finish this job."
Former Republican presidential candidate John McCain cast aspersion on a "firm date" for the US pullout.
He said Mr Obama's message about withdrawal while at the same time committing not to "turn out the lights in the middle of 2011" was indecipherable.
It made a long-term US commitment appear uncertain. "I'm all for dates for withdrawal, but that's after the strategy succeeds, not before," Senator McCain said.
Mr Obama faces growing pressure over his decision in December to declare -- in the same speech he announced plans to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan -- that the troop withdrawal would start in the middle of next year.
With 93,000 US troops and 43,000 NATO forces in Afghanistan, including 1500 Australians, new allied commander General David Petraeus insists: "We are in this to win."
But progress in the eight-year war is not as fast as the Obama administration would like. The Taliban is entrenched in key parts of Kandahar, and a military surge in the town of Marja this year delivered mixed results. But Mr Obama is sticking with the deadline to begin a US withdrawal, which he is believed to have added to his December troops announcement to appease opponents of the war in his Democratic Party.
The remarks by Mr Jawad, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai's top envoy to Washington, indicate nervousness in Kabul about the US strategy and the message it send to Mr Karzai's enemies.
Prominent Republican Lindsey Graham sounded a warning about the White House strategy. "If you send a signal to your enemy you're going to leave at a certain date, they'll wait you out," he said.
But not all the criticism went against Mr Obama yesterday, as Republican national committee chairman Michael Steele faced pressure to resign after claiming the US could not win the Afghan conflict, which he called a war "of Obama's choosing".
The remarks, made by the Republicans' titular head at a fundraiser, prompted outrage in his own party.
Senator McCain said Mr Steele would have to assess whether he could still lead the Republican Party, which supports the Afghan conflict as a war against terrorism over the attacks on the US of September 11, 2001. "Those statements are wildly inaccurate, and there's no excuse for them," Senator McCain said.
Republican Tom Cole said Mr Steele's gaffe, the latest in a long line to have embarrassed his party, would justify his resignation. Mr Steele has not spoken publicly since his comments, but issued a clarifying statement yesterday: "There is no question that America must win the war on terror."
Source:theaustralian
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Tages:Taleban  Tora Bora 911 Nato Battle of Saigon 

(1955)  2001 in Afghanistan Commission911

I saw Afghans kicked in head

A DROWNING medic who was desperately trying to climb aboard a Navy rescue vessel after a boat exploded off Ashmore Reef said one of her rescuers kicked two Afghan asylum seekers in the head as they tried to save themselves.

Cpl Sharon Jager, on secondment from the RAAF to help with border protection duties under Operation Resolute, was on guard duty aboard suspected illegal entry vessel 36 when it blew apart on April 16 last year.

A coronial hearing in Darwin into the deaths of five Afghan men who drowned or burned to death after asylum seekers deliberately spilled petrol and lit the vapours has heard that Cpl Jaeger was blown 15m off the side of SIEV36.

Struggling in heavy gear, and with a life jacket that failed to open, she swam away from two asylum seekers who were coming towards her. She feared they would cling to her and drown her.

Then she noticed a rigid-hulled inflatable boat coming towards her.

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Able Seaman Quinton Boorman was unable to lift Cpl Jager aboard.

She said she saw the boat's helmsman, Able Seaman Adrian Medbury, leave his position and come to assist as the two asylum seekers also tried to get aboard.

"He's moved along and physically removed the two asylum seekers and said, 'Get the f--- off her.' I saw him raise his feet and connect with the asylum seekers," she said.

Cpl Jager said the two asylum seekers were at her side in the water, but were not pulling her under. "The three of us were competing for the same position," she said.

It is not clear at this stage what happened to those two men, although counsel assisting the coroner, Stephen Walsh, QC, said in his opening address on Monday that lives could have been saved if the Navy had a less rigid policy of rescuing its own staff first.

As Mr Walsh yesterday asked Cpl Jager further questions about her evidence of witnessing the kicking, counsel for the Defence Department, Richard Niall, objected that she had only used the word "connect".

But coroner Greg Cavanagh said there was no doubt Cpl Jaeger was describing a kicking.

Mr Niall said evidence would be heard from Able Seamen Boorman and Medbury that Medbury's foot only kicked out near the struggling men.

Cpl Jager told the inquiry she felt under-trained and frightened in being sent from HMAS Childers to form a "steaming party", which maintains security.

Cpl Jager said she would leave the RAAF for good once the inquiry, expected to last three weeks, was concluded.

Source:heraldsun.com.au/