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Congressional Democrats may yet find a way to abandon the Karzai government to an ignominious fate while minimizing the damage to Mr. Obama's presidency, but the message to the world would be the same as it was in 1975: The United States cannot be trusted, and Washington is willing to abandon vulnerable allies because of short-sighted domestic political score-settling. The shame of Vietnam is still with us, and we may yet see Americans being helicoptered from Kabul rooftops ahead of advancing Taliban forces. There are some things you can step in twice.

Dear Leader is now speaking to the assembled Muslims in Cairo. More comments to come.

It is time for President Obama to recognise that his strategy is weakening his country and making the United States more vulnerable to attack, says Nile Gardiner. No leader in American history has gone to greater lengths than Barack Obama to make amends for his own country. From condemnation of American “arrogance” in a speech in Strasbourg to acknowledging U.S. “mistakes” before millions of Muslims on Arab television, Obama has rarely missed an opportunity to apologise for the actions of the American people. President Obama has elevated the art of national self-loathing to new heights, and seems to delight in...

Man, is Jimmy Carter really a GOP Mole working undercover all these decades? His one term debacle as President launched much of the Islamo Fascist terrorist movement we see today. But his policies brought us Ronald Reagan and the conservative movement for two decades (minus a small nostalgic dalliance with the Dems from 1992-1994 and 2006-2008). Carter and Clinton did more to make the right look good, by comparison, than most people appreciate.And here Carter is again out on the road reminding Americans what a Surrendercrat does - he coddles and legitimizes brutal terrorists by giving them audience, with full...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The general who led U.S. forces in Iraq after the invasion launched by Republican President George W. Bush spoke out for Democrats on Saturday, backing legislation aimed at withdrawing American troops. Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, in the Democratic weekly radio address, acknowledged that Bush's escalation strategy this year had improved security in Iraq. But he said Iraqi political leaders had failed to make "hard choices necessary to bring peace to their country." "There is no evidence that the Iraqis will choose to do so in the near future or that we have an ability to force...

By MIKE GLOVER (AP) Iowa (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is calling for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq, with the pullout being completed by the end of next year. "Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was," Obama said in excerpts of the speech provided to The Associated Press. "The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year - now," the Illinois...

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is sharply critical of President Bush's call for Democrats in Congress to "rise above partisanship" over Iraq. Bush has accused Democrats of wanting a political debate instead of giving the troops what they need to carry out their mission, but Pelosi calls those comments out of line. "I'm sad about what the president said. It's beneath the dignity of the debate on a war that has taken over 3,600 lives, injured tens of thousands of our young people, some of them permanently," she said. Pelosi said the president is out of touch,...

Murtha's vote on the draft: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2004/roll494.xml Murtha's political preferences: Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) is actively lobbying Democratic National Committee (DNC) delegates to select former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean as their next chairman. The endorsement of the leading antiwar presidential candidate by one of the Democrats' most prominent early supporters of the Iraq invasion signals a rehabilitation of Dean's image in the House and greatly increases his prospects of leading the party, many Democratic lawmakers and aides said. Several lawmakers said support by the hardscrabble, old-school Vietnam veteran, who endorsed former Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) in the presidential primaries, would compel...

<p>In his 37 years in the military, John Murtha won two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. As a Democratic congressman for the past 31 years, he has been a fierce hawk, championing the US role in conflicts in Central America and the Persian Gulf.</p>

KITTANNING — U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, set off a political firestorm yesterday when he called for the removal of military troops from Iraq, and and least one local supporter of the U.S. effort in the war was not swayed. Dr. James L. Nemec of Kittanning, disagreed with Murtha: “We didn’t start this war, we were attacked and we are defending our country.” Nemec, a local dentist and a retired Army colonel, said while he prays for the troops, which include his son, every night, the idea of simply pulling the troops out of Iraq would not end the war...