Tales from the Trail

Sometimes it takes a colorful phrase to get the point across.

And these days when it seems almost everyone’s got an opinion on Afghanistan, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton’s words caught attention.

In a six-page letter to President Barack Obama, the Missouri Democrat bared his view that General Stanley McChrystal should have the troops and resources he needs for the war.

“The last administration allowed itself to be distracted from the fight forced on us in Afghanistan by the fight it chose in Iraq,” Skelton wrote.

“I believe that this was a strategic mistake, robbing the war in Afghanistan of the necessary resources and resulting in an approach of ‘half-ass it and hope.’ We cannot afford to continue that policy.”

Can bumper stickers be far behind?

Photo credit: Reuters/Joshua Roberts (Skelton on Capitol Hill in 2008)

A senior Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday warned against sending detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Fort Leavenworth prison in Kansas, saying it could endanger U.S. relations with Muslim countries.

It was also another thorn in President Barack Obama’s effort to quickly close the controversial U.S. prison in Cuba.

Representative Ike Skelton, chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, acknowledged the difficulties the Obama administration was having finding a place to move the detainees, but in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates he raised two problems with sending them to Kansas.