Obama's War: Karzai, Rules for Troops in Afghanistan

Afghan president Hamid Karzai has concerns about the rules governing U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

KABUL (AP) -- President Hamid Karzai said Monday he wants new rules governing the conduct of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan and would be willing to talk with Taliban leaders who publicly renounce violence and endorse peace.

But Karzai, acknowledging shaky relations with his international partners in the war on terror, told The Associated Press in an interview that he was not prepared at this time to discuss the key Taliban demand—a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops.

Karzai said the presence of U.S. and international forces was in the Afghan national interest but should be "based on a new contract" that would minimize civilian casualties, limit searches of private homes and restrict detaining Afghans indefinitely without charge.

He also said he wants the U.S.-run prison at Bagram Air Base, where about 600 Afghans are held, re-evaluated and inmates released unless there is evidence linking them to terrorist affiliation. He said arrests are turning ordinary Afghans against U.S. and NATO forces.

..."The Afghan people still want a fundamentally strong relation with the United States," Karzai said. "The Afghan people want a strategic partnership with America" based on fighting Islamic extremism.

But he added that the partnership must ensure "that the partners are not losing their lives, their property, their dignity as a consequence of that partnership."

The 91,000 international troops based in Afghanistan include about 65,000 under NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF. The rest are part of a U.S.-led coalition involved in counterterrorism and training Afghan forces. Both groups operate under different rules, which are kept secret for operational security reasons.

It is widely assumed, however, that the U.S.-led counter-terror command enjoys broader powers to search homes and detain people indefinitely if they are suspected of posing a security threat.

I'm not second-guessing the decisions of our military leaders in terms of their procedures in Afghanistan.

However, I do think the silence from the Leftists on how commander in chief Obama is waging his war is odd.

Karzai wants a new contract with U.S.-led forces "that would minimize civilian casualties, limit searches of private homes and restrict detaining Afghans indefinitely without charge."

Why aren't the lib media and the anti-war activists that were so vocal and so critical of Bush administration policies voicing their opposition to the civilian casualties, searches of private homes, and the detaining of Afghans indefinitely without charge under Obama?

Don't these things bother the Leftists?

Why don't Russ Feingold, Dick Durbin, or John Kerry speak out against alleged abuses? Why isn't John Murtha dissing our troops?

I think the simple answer is this is Obama's war now.

Hypocrites.