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

kerry

where is the air force? Is droons are they can do? The air force has become an irresponsible millitary brance or are they worried that obamma will try them for killing a civilian?

Kerry"s POW/MIA committee did all that could be done

and he never bad mouthed POW families. Senator Kerry accepted assignment to this committee and the role as its chair inspite of his entire staff advising him that it was a lose/lose opportunity. It was for those families that he did it.

That committee consisted of all the Veterans of the war, except Al Gore. One of Kerry's first actions was to give Bob Smith, the Republican ranking member half the committee staff - an unusual action for any chair. Senator Kerry was able Vietnamese to allow Americans to go anywhere by helicopter - unannounced. He, himself, made 14 trips there to assure that the process was working. He also was able to get them to redouble the effort to repatriate remains long buried in South East Asia. The current percent of Americans not accounted for in Vietnam is far smaller than in WWII and the Korean War, partly because of this effort.

The committee looked into every sighting. They determined that the Newsweek cover photo, which started the call for a committee, supposedly of captured US GIs was a photo that was not of Americans and not taken in Vietnam. The amazing thing is that Kerry was able to keep a committee that included John McCain, Bob Kerrey, and Bob Smith working in a clam, methodical fashion that led to a report they all agreed to - something McCain had thought impossible.

The strongest proponent on that committee for the idea that Americans were left behind was Bob Smith - he not only signed the final report that said there was no large scale prison - he endorsed Kerry in 2004, saying that he disagreed with him on every issue, but because he was a good person.

Kerry?

Come on. This is the same clown who bad mouthed Vietnam POW families and failed to live up to his promise to do everything he could to bring home the POWs.

And if the font in this posting area could be any smaller--used to make the posts--it would be invisible!

Senator Kerry is an ally of Obama's, but oversight is his job here

To Muser,

The Congress is a co-equal branch of government. Senator Lugar held a hearing two hearings on the role of oil in Persian Gulf politics - even though he was a Republican under a Republican President.

Senator Kerry is far closer to President Obama on foreign policy than Lugar was with Bush. To me, it seemed that no one was closer to where Obama was on Iran than Kerry was. In addition, it is clear that Kerry's AIPAC speech was very close to Biden's, which represented the Obama administration's view. (Kerry also seems more in line with Mitchell than other Democrats)

Senator Kerry has already had two excellent hearings on Afghanistan. The first was a roundtable and it included people ranging from a counterterrorism expert to a MA woman who has lived for the last several years in Afghanistan. In one article, Jones, the National Security person in the Obama administration praised the insight these people provided.

The second hearing was one where Afghanistan war veterans spoke of their views of things that worked and things that different and gave their insight into their interactions with the Afghani people.

These hearings were clearly designed to get different opinions and more insight into the situation in Afghanistan. Neither were designed to be negative - just to delve for as much truth as possible. The author suggests 2 choices, that Kerry comes out against or for Obama's postion. Judging from the hearings that he had, there is a third middle position - one of an independent evaluation of what is working and what isn't. This is what oversight should be.

Obama used Kerry as his top foreign policy surrogate and had Kerry represent him on the final MTP, many positions Obama took were very similar to Kerry's. This suggests that Obama himself would seriously consider any conclusions the committe reached. (This, of course, does not mean that he will agree.) Kerry being willing to have oversight hearings, even though he is an ally of President Obama, shows the seriousness with which he takes his responsibility. If everyone had the integrity to do that in Vietnam, it is likely that half the people who died would have not died in that war.

At a recent budget hearing with HRC, Kerry spoke of his concern that our Afghan "footprint" should be lighter. Kerry himself had recommended more troops, the difference is in how they are being used - a much amaller, but very important, difference than that between Obama and the House liberals, who voted against the bill that in the Senate was sponsored by Kerry and Lugar.

Afghanistan is not Vietnam

Democrats in Congress like Kerry can either support a Democratic President who continues the fight against Islam-backed terrorism-----or they can find themselves saluting a Republican president and new Congressional right-wing leadership instead.