By Jay Sekulow
The left's outrage over the IRS turns to a plea to 'move on'
Women in Afghanistan are worried that the freedoms they have won since U.S. forces toppled the brutal Taliban regime 10 years ago will be squandered if the Islamic hard-liners return to power through a U.S.-led peace process.
The Taliban must renounce terrorism and embrace peace talks that include the Afghan government, if the militants want to restart negotiations with the United States, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.
A decision by the Afghan Taliban to set up a liaison office in Qatar is the first concrete step in a decade by the militants toward a peace deal, but it shuts out a key negotiating partner — Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government.
The initial U.S. troop withdrawals from Afghanistan in July probably will include combat as well as support forces, the top U.S. commander there told a House committee on Wednesday.
The Obama administration is a partner with the Afghan government in its peace talks with the Taliban, even though U.S. officials aren't sitting at the table, two top administration officials said Thursday.
Brazen public executions by the Taliban this month in provinces not traditionally part of their stronghold underscore the militants' resurgence in Afghanistan.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday vowed the United States and its allies will stand by Afghanistan even as fears are growing about the course of the nearly 9-year-old war and the Obama administration's plans to begin withdrawing American troops from the country next year.
