GOP, Dems urge US 'stick to plan' in Afghanistan - Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans and Democrats alike insist the United States should stay the course in Afghanistan, sticking to President Barack Obama's timetable for withdrawing American troops despite the massacre of Afghan civilians and the burning of Qurans — two offenses blamed on the U.S. military that have stoked anti-American anger.

Key proponents of keeping troops in Afghanistan, like Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., say these tragic incidents shouldn't diminish the American resolve to finish a job begun more than a decade ago.

"When you look at the war through that terrible, violent act — it can seem hopeless and lost," McKeon, the House Armed Services Committee chairman, said of the American soldier suspected of killing 16 Afghan civilians, including women and children. "But the reason we liberated Afghanistan in 2001 was right then, and it is the same reason we fight today to keep it liberated."

McKeon's argument for a continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan more than 10 years after the war began reflects the view of the nation's military commanders and was echoed by several lawmakers, including the Senate's top Democrat and Republican. Support for the current policy puts them at odds with two Republican presidential candidates — Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul — and a growing number of Americans exasperated with the drawn-out conflict and clamoring for the 90,000 troops to come home.

McKeon was scheduled to deliver his remarks in a speech Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. The Associated Press obtained excerpts of his remarks.

The current U.S. plan calls for a drawdown of 23,000 American troops by the end of September and a complete withdrawal by the end of 2014, when Afghan forces are to take charge of the country's security. After the burning of Qurans by U.S. soldiers last month, anti-U.S. protests and the killing of at least six U.S. troops by Afghan troops, 24 senators, including Republicans Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, wrote a letter to Obama arguing that U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan was too costly and it was time to bring American forces back.

The massacre of the 16 Afghan civilians has prompted talk of accelerating the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said there has been no change in plans to complete a troop withdrawal by the end of 2014 and Obama has spoken of ending the war "responsibly." Top lawmakers cautioned against a rush to judgment and embraced that approach.

"We're drawing down in Afghanistan and we should stick by the timeline that we have," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.

In a rare instance of agreement with Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the situation was challenging, "but I think we ought to stick to the plan that's been laid out by the administration."

Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., who has served more than three decades in the Army National Guard, warned against using the weekend attack to abandon the current timetable for ending the combat mission.

"I don't think this issue should step us back from our overall reduction strategy, for which I support the president," Brown told reporters. His Democratic colleague from Massachusetts, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, said the incident should not affect the larger mission.

Still, those who favor a quick withdrawal were more forceful in pressing for an end to U.S. involvement.

"We should have been gone a long time ago," Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said in an interview. "It's time to come home and rebuild America."

In his speech, McKeon argued that the focus on one incident in Afghanistan this past weekend overlooks the daily acts of heroism and courage by American troops that get little attention. He said insurgency is the toughest foe for a democracy, yet the United States can point to numerous achievements in the mission.

"Over the past 18 months, we've knocked the Taliban on their backsides," he said. "So we must be extremely cautious when we discuss pulling surge forces out before we have secured our gains. We can still leave Afghanistan with our heads held high and the Taliban defeated. But it will take resolve and patience."

In a swipe at Obama, McKeon said the president must do a better job of explaining to the American people the importance of the fight against terrorism and describing the courageous acts of the military. McKeon said President George W. Bush delivered more than 40 speeches about the war on terrorism to Obama's three — two in 2009 and one in 2011.

When pressed on those numbers, McKeon's staff said the three speeches did not include Obama's address to the nation announcing that U.S. forces had killed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

McKeon, who has endorsed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, also criticized the administration's proposed cuts to projected defense spending and vowed to reverse the reductions.

The $614 billion defense budget for 2013 would slash the size of the Army and Marine Corps, cut back on shipbuilding and delay the purchase of some fighter jets and weapons systems. Overall, the budget would provide $525.4 billion in base spending and $88.5 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The total is nearly $32 billion less than this year's budget, a reflection of the drawdown in the two conflicts and the call to reduce the nation's deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimated Tuesday that the government will run a $1.2 trillion deficit for the budget year ending just a few weeks before Election Day, the fourth straight year of trillion-dollar-plus red ink.

The overall defense spending was dictated by the budget agreement that Obama and congressional Republicans reached in August that calls for defense cuts of $487 billion over a decade. McKeon voted for that budget agreement but insisted he will work to reverse the defense cuts.

"I will not be complicit in the dismantling of the Reagan military," he said.

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US defense chief in Afghanistan as bombs kill 9 - Reuters

1 of 4. An Afghan National Army soldier keeps watch near a mosque where an Afghan delegation meets with locals in Alokozai village, Panjwai district Kandahar province, March 13, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/ Ahmad Nadeem

By Phil Stewart

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan | Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:13am EDT

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit on Wednesday, as the United States tried to contain fallout from a massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by an American soldier.

A motorcycle bomb went off in Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan, killing an Afghan intelligence soldier and wounding two, as well as a civilian, while a roadside bomb killed 8 civilians in neighboring Helmand province, officials said, as Panetta kicked off a two-day trip by visiting troops.

Panetta told them the weekend killings by what U.S. and Afghan officials have said was a lone rogue soldier would not undermine relations with Afghanistan.

"As tragic as these acts of violence have been, they do not define the relationship between the coalition and Afghan forces, and the Afghan people," he told soldiers at Camp Leatherneck, the main Marine base in the volatile southern province.

"We will be tested, we will be challenged. We'll be challenged by our enemy, we'll be challenged by ourselves, we'll be challenged by the hell of war," Panetta said.

Panetta's trip had been scheduled before Sunday's shootings in two villages in Kandahar province, but gained added urgency as political pressure mounted on Afghan and U.S. officials over the unpopular war, now in its eleventh year.

American soldiers are the likely targets of any backlash over the killings of villagers, who included nine children and three women, by a lone American soldier. The Afghan Taliban threatened to retaliate by beheading U.S. personnel.

But Panetta, the most senior U.S. official to visit Afghanistan since the shootings, said the massacre would not alter U.S. withdrawal plans and strategy.

Afghans investigating the incident had been shown video of the soldier, said to be a U.S. Army staff sergeant, taken from a security camera mounted on a blimp above his base, an Afghan security official who could not be identified told Reuters.

The footage showed the uniformed soldier with his weapon covered by a cloth, approaching the gates of the Belandai special forces base and throwing his arms up in surrender, the official said.

The video had been shown to investigators to help dispel a widely held belief among Afghans, including many members of parliament, that more than one soldier must have been involved because of the high death toll, the official said.

Panetta was to hold talks with Afghan leaders including President Hamid Karzai as tension remains high following a spate of incidents including the burning of Korans at the main NATO base in the country last month.

Panetta's arrival in Helmand - where U.S. Marines and British soldiers are battling a resilient insurgency - came a day after the first protests over Sunday's massacre flared in the eastern city of Jalalabad. Some 2,000 demonstrators chanted "Death to America" and demanded Karzai reject a planned strategic pact that would allow U.S. advisers and possibly special forces to remain beyond the pullout of most NATO combat troops by the end of 2014.

DEMAND FOR TRIAL in AFGHANISTAN

The U.S. military hopes to withdraw about 23,000 soldiers from Afghanistan by the end of the coming summer fighting season, leaving about 68,000.

In the two Panjwai district villages where the weekend massacre took place, U.S. troops remained confined to the compound where the soldier was based, and people in the area demanded a trial in Afghanistan under Afghan law.

"They have to be prosecuted here. They have done two crimes against my family. One they killed them, and secondly they burned them," said Wazir Mohammad, 40, who lost 11 members of his family in the incident.

A cleric, Neda Mohammad Akhond, said he believed the shootings may have been retaliation for an insurgent landmine attack on a U.S. convoy in the days before the massacre.

"They asked people to come out of their homes and warned them they would avenge this," Akhond said.

There was no independent verification of an earlier attack.

NATO officials said it was too early to tell if the U.S. soldier would be tried in the United States or Afghanistan if investigators were to find enough evidence to charge him, but he would be tried under U.S. laws.

Typically, once an initial investigation is completed, prosecutors decide if they have enough evidence to file charges and then could move to a so-called Article 32 or court martial.

While Afghan members of parliament called for a trial under Afghan law, Karzai's office was understood to accept that a trial in a U.S. court would be acceptable provided the process was transparent and open to media.

(Additional reporting by Ahmad Nadem in KANDAHAR and Mirwais Harooni in KABUL, Writing by Rob Taylor, Editing by Robeert Birsel)

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US defense chief in Afghanistan as bombs kill 9 - Reuters

1 of 4. An Afghan National Army soldier keeps watch near a mosque where an Afghan delegation meets with locals in Alokozai village, Panjwai district Kandahar province, March 13, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/ Ahmad Nadeem

By Phil Stewart

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan | Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:13am EDT

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit on Wednesday, as the United States tried to contain fallout from a massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by an American soldier.

A motorcycle bomb went off in Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan, killing an Afghan intelligence soldier and wounding two, as well as a civilian, while a roadside bomb killed 8 civilians in neighboring Helmand province, officials said, as Panetta kicked off a two-day trip by visiting troops.

Panetta told them the weekend killings by what U.S. and Afghan officials have said was a lone rogue soldier would not undermine relations with Afghanistan.

"As tragic as these acts of violence have been, they do not define the relationship between the coalition and Afghan forces, and the Afghan people," he told soldiers at Camp Leatherneck, the main Marine base in the volatile southern province.

"We will be tested, we will be challenged. We'll be challenged by our enemy, we'll be challenged by ourselves, we'll be challenged by the hell of war," Panetta said.

Panetta's trip had been scheduled before Sunday's shootings in two villages in Kandahar province, but gained added urgency as political pressure mounted on Afghan and U.S. officials over the unpopular war, now in its eleventh year.

American soldiers are the likely targets of any backlash over the killings of villagers, who included nine children and three women, by a lone American soldier. The Afghan Taliban threatened to retaliate by beheading U.S. personnel.

But Panetta, the most senior U.S. official to visit Afghanistan since the shootings, said the massacre would not alter U.S. withdrawal plans and strategy.

Afghans investigating the incident had been shown video of the soldier, said to be a U.S. Army staff sergeant, taken from a security camera mounted on a blimp above his base, an Afghan security official who could not be identified told Reuters.

The footage showed the uniformed soldier with his weapon covered by a cloth, approaching the gates of the Belandai special forces base and throwing his arms up in surrender, the official said.

The video had been shown to investigators to help dispel a widely held belief among Afghans, including many members of parliament, that more than one soldier must have been involved because of the high death toll, the official said.

Panetta was to hold talks with Afghan leaders including President Hamid Karzai as tension remains high following a spate of incidents including the burning of Korans at the main NATO base in the country last month.

Panetta's arrival in Helmand - where U.S. Marines and British soldiers are battling a resilient insurgency - came a day after the first protests over Sunday's massacre flared in the eastern city of Jalalabad. Some 2,000 demonstrators chanted "Death to America" and demanded Karzai reject a planned strategic pact that would allow U.S. advisers and possibly special forces to remain beyond the pullout of most NATO combat troops by the end of 2014.

DEMAND FOR TRIAL in AFGHANISTAN

The U.S. military hopes to withdraw about 23,000 soldiers from Afghanistan by the end of the coming summer fighting season, leaving about 68,000.

In the two Panjwai district villages where the weekend massacre took place, U.S. troops remained confined to the compound where the soldier was based, and people in the area demanded a trial in Afghanistan under Afghan law.

"They have to be prosecuted here. They have done two crimes against my family. One they killed them, and secondly they burned them," said Wazir Mohammad, 40, who lost 11 members of his family in the incident.

A cleric, Neda Mohammad Akhond, said he believed the shootings may have been retaliation for an insurgent landmine attack on a U.S. convoy in the days before the massacre.

"They asked people to come out of their homes and warned them they would avenge this," Akhond said.

There was no independent verification of an earlier attack.

NATO officials said it was too early to tell if the U.S. soldier would be tried in the United States or Afghanistan if investigators were to find enough evidence to charge him, but he would be tried under U.S. laws.

Typically, once an initial investigation is completed, prosecutors decide if they have enough evidence to file charges and then could move to a so-called Article 32 or court martial.

While Afghan members of parliament called for a trial under Afghan law, Karzai's office was understood to accept that a trial in a U.S. court would be acceptable provided the process was transparent and open to media.

(Additional reporting by Ahmad Nadem in KANDAHAR and Mirwais Harooni in KABUL, Writing by Rob Taylor, Editing by Robeert Birsel)

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