John Kerry Will Hold Oversight Hearings on Obama’s Afghanistan Surge

[laststeamtrain]

Source: US News & World Report

John Kerry Will Hold Oversight Hearings on Obama’s Afghanistan Surge
July 10, 2009 01:25 PM ET | John Aloysius Farrell

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

I caught up with Sen. John Kerry this week and asked him about, among other things, the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, disclosed that he's decided to hold oversight hearings on the Obama administrations handling of the war. You can read about it at GlobalPost.

Kerry is one of the few top government officials who can impact U.S. policy to have fought in Vietnam. He soured on the war, and came home and enlisted in the antiwar movement, which made him a hero to American liberals.

Liberals today are wary of Obama's decision to boost the number of troops in Afghanistan, and even though he is a Democratic president, several dozen members of the House have refused to vote for appropriations to fund his escalation.

Read more: http://www.usnews.com/blogs/john-farrell/2009/07/10/john-kerry-will-hold-oversight-hearings-on-obamas-afghanistan-surge.html

[Vidar]

1. Good for Kerry.

[Flaneur]

2. Good. Oversight is definitely needed.

This could be Obama's Vietnam.

[ray of light]

3. Good for JK and us, too! Too bad the Republicans beleived in NO OVERSIGHT during Bush's years

[beachmom]

4. Exactly!

[blm]

5. No wonder he's being undermined yet again...even by dark actors in his own party

Yet again.

[politicasista]

6. Kick

:kick: :patriot:

[ray of light]

7. kick

[Solly Mack]

8. K&R

[karynnj]

9. Kerry has held two hearings on Afghanistan already

From them, you can get some idea of where he is. The first, was a round table with a counterterrorsim expert, a MA woman who has lived in Afganistan for several years and other people who have been in Afghanistan. The other one had 4 soldiers who fought there and a BU professor.

At HRC's hearing and the most recent time she was there, he mentioned his concerns with getting Afghanistan right - at the later one he spoke of preferring a lighter footprint and Afghanistan's history.

Kerry seems to have had major influence on Obama on Iran, where Obama and Kerry seemed in same postion and in the middle east. An interesting question is how he can both be an independent overseer - which is what the SFRC should be - and a strong ally and adviser to the President.

[politicasista]

10. Kick n/t

For weekend crowd. :kick:

[Zhade]

11. A good idea.

NT!