On the night when Senator Obama accepted his hard fought nomination for the Presidency his opponent, Senator McCain, paid a lot of money to run a TV ad that congratulated him. McCain said that out of respect he wouldn’t detract or distract from the moment with competing campaigning that night. In contrast, on the night that Senator McCain accepted his party’s nomination, Senator Obama scheduled an interview with FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly in an obvious and arrogant attempt at taking some of the spotlight away from Senator McCain. It was not a courteous, respectful, or honorable move. It was also not a truthful interview.
Very often when it comes to the Iraq War people are forced to conclude that a politician who was wrong about something war-related was either ill-informed about a matter or that the politician lied. With President Bush, it’s all too easy to believe that he was ill-informed or incapable of processing information…yet, it’s more politically expedient to believe that he is lying when he’s wrong about something. Often this stems from the intrinsic belief that he gets briefed on all the information the Men-In-Black can possibly give him. Since getting his official nomination, Senator Obama now gets similar briefings. Read the rest of this entry »
Since the announcement of Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama has been almost completely removed from media spotlight. For years now his campaign has been received more coverage than any other 2 Presidential campaigns combined, and like a floodgate that’s been closed….the coverage just isn’t coming anymore. The vetting, smearing, naysaying, and all-around attacking of Governor Palin and her family has just been more important to members of the media than is reporting on the latest repeat of years-old speeches about CHANGE and HOPE.
So how desperate to get some free advertising time has the Obama/Biden campaign become? They’ve become so desperate that Senator Obama has finally-after years of turning a cold shoulder-agreed to do an interview with Bill O’Reilly of FOX News. Purely coincidentally I’m sure the Senator has agreed to do the interview on the night that Senator McCain gives his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination (a tact that Obama would have called “political malpractice” had Senator McCain pulled a similar stunt).
The political war has heated up, with Nawaz pulling the 2nd largest party majority from the PPP coalition. Citing broken promises over the removed judges, and arguments over Musharraf’s replacement - against the backdrop of the falling rupee - Sharif says he won’t try to bring the Pakistan government down…. for now.
As I’ve often said… the world, and now even Pakistan, will be missing Musharraf. He was the fragile bond that tied… even if by their mutually shared hatred.
While the US media has again been mesmerized by all things Obama these past few weeks, there has been news in the rest of the world. Adding to the world eyeing the Russia-Georgia conflict warily, we have the country who is key to the global war against the Islamic jihad movement— Pakistan…
Key to the Biden selection may just be an Obama, to his credit, astute to the unique quandary of Pakistan in the next POTUS term. Astute, yes? But does Biden, perceived as a Pakistani expert by many, share Obama’s cowboy policy towards Pakistan?
Some Pakistan recent history and events
The chapter currently ending began Nov 2007 with Musharraf stepping down as General of the Pak Army (after winning the election for the Presidency) … and continues in a new chapter with Musharraf’s resignation, forced by impending impeachment proceedings successfully led by the two largest power sharing parties in the parliament, PPP’s Zardari (Bhutto’s widower) and PML-N’s Nawaz Sharif.
The western world was convinced that the rise of the PPP party to power early this year would introduce not only democracy to Pakistan, but a new era of a more effective terror ally. That’s because the western world preferred to ignore the history of both Bhutto’s and Nawaz’s ties to militant Islamists. A history that the Pakistanis themselves well remember. So upon Musharraf’s resignation, reaction in the nation was mixed.
Time and again, Senator Obama’s been asked how he would get Osama Bin Laden in the lawless (sans-sovereign) tribal territories along the Pakistan/Afghnistan border; what Senator Obama calls, “The Central Front in the War on Terror” (Bin Laden, Al Queda spokesmen, terrorist group leaders, and subsequently the Bush Administration all called IRAQ the Central Front, but recently Al Queda’s been driven from Iraq, through Iran, through Afghanistan, and into the tribal areas). In one of the Democratic Party debates Senator Obama said that if he had the chance to get Bin Laden, he’d ask the Pakistanis to do the job for us, or at least for their permission to capture/kill the most wanted man in the world, and the person that Americans hate more than anyone else since Hitler. IF the Pakistanis refused to kill him for us, and they refused to let us kill him or capture him, then Senator Obama has said that he would unilaterally take action irregardless of the 178 million Pakistanis, their nuclear weapons, and the hundreds of thousands of terrorists in Pakistan seeking to die in battle against the United States.
Wait…isn’t that the Bush plan? Isn’t that the kind of warmongering that President Bush does? Did the Democratic Party nominee for President really say there’s times when it’s ok to take military action inside someone else’s (faux) sovereign territory?
Why yes he did say that; yes, it is the new Democratic Party position to unilaterally take military action-to go it alone.
Any doubts, fas forward to about 3:40seconds into this interview, and watch as the Democratic nominee for President-a man campaigning with the word “CHANGE” emblazoned on every podium, every bumpersticker, every campaign button, everything possible…is asked whether or not his strategy/policy for getting Osama Bin Laden is the same as President Bush’s.
“Isn’t that the Bush Doctrine?”
“Y-y-yes. I do believe it is the current doctrine.” But under President Obama see, it would CHANGE because it would called,
The Obama doctrine.
Gosh I’m impressed.
Seriously, this man is going to be George Bush III, but he can tell Democrats that the right thing to do is [insert Bush policy of choice here], and the most enraged Bush haters in America will vote for the same policies in a different man. No. I’m sorry, I was wrong. It’s not the man. It’s the political party.
If politicians lie, spin, distort, misled, trick, and tell us things that aren’t the truth, then are you gullible enough to believe Barack Obama is an honest man, or do you have the courage to ask what he’s lying, spinning, and misleading you about? Be brave-ya only have to try and contemplate it.
Some of my friends follow politics closely. Most do not. The Obama campaign has done an absolutely wonderful job of presenting and repeating the message of CHANGE with Senator Obama’s candidacy, but the problem comes when Americans (Democrat, Republican, Independent? No…AMERICANS) see that message of CHANGE, and they ask, “So, what’s he gonna change?” Read the rest of this entry »
Oh to be a fly on the wall. And to hear what was said between Obama and Pakistan PM, Yousef Raza Gilani on his three day visit to the beltway… well… that’s exactly what you’d have to be.
“I had a productive and wide-ranging discussion with Prime Minister Gilani,” Obama said in the statement. “Pakistan is an extremely important partner to the United States, and we covered a number of issues vital to the security of both our nations. We discussed how to more effectively deal with the central front in the war on terrorism — the threat from al Qaeda and the Taliban originating from the Pakistani tribal areas — which threatens the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
“We also discussed how to bolster opportunity for the Pakistani people, while consolidating democracy, the rule of law, and human rights in Pakistan, and curbing the proliferation of nuclear materials. Each of these steps is necessary to bring peace and stability to an increasingly volatile region of the world, and I look forward to working with the democratically elected government of Pakistan to make progress on these issues in the future.”
While the hopeful POTUS DNC candidate jets around Europe and the Middle East to meet with leaders he will be “dealing with for the next eight to 10 years,” - along with an adoring media circus in tow - it’s amazing how all reports of his “tour of duty” manage to ellude the gaping hole in Obama’s Middle East foreign policy strategy. Were he serious about his transfer of the battle against the Global Islamic Jihad Movement to Afghanistan, his first stop should have been Pakistan.
Instead, that is the one place Obama fears to tread. He has not laid the groundwork well for US relations with the Pakistani allied government, and they have noticed. It started back in August 2007, when Obama announced his cowboy policy towards Pakistan, saying:
Back in August, I said we should work with the Pakistani government, first of all to encourage democracy in Pakistan, and secondly, that we have to press them to do more to take on al Qaeda in their territory,” the Illinois Democrat, who now threatens to strike at Senator Hillary Rodham Hillary in New Hampshire after a stunning performance in Iowa, said.
“What I said was, if they could not or would not do so, and we had actionable intelligence, then I would strike.”
Considering that BHO’s centerpiece of foreign policy revolves around diplomatic relations and negotiations with despotic regimes (except when it comes to Pakistan, perhaps..) it certainly behooves American voters to see what fruit comes of that approach. And none could be a better example of dealing directly with the hotbed of Taliban and AQ fighters than watching Pakistan painfully thread it’s way thru that narrow path.
PM Gilani continues to talk tough, insisting that the govt will preserve law in the tribal regions “at all cost” in the wake of violations of these agreements by militants “resorting to hanging the people publicly, kidnapping the minority people and setting ablaze girls schools.”
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The Democratic Party and far left theme is that President Bush somehow allegedly gave up on the war in Afghanistan. US forces and intelligence agencies know better. The anti-Bush/anti-war theme extends to claim that somehow or another President Bush isn’t fighting Al Queda in Afghanistan or going after Bin Laden. Of course, both aren’t really in Afghanistan. They’re in the lawless mountains in Pakistan that border Afghanistan. So, what about there? Well, not a lot can be said about the fight in that area. Reporters and sightseers aren’t just discouraged. They’re arrested or killed or both. However, the skies above are very active-as active as the hunt for Al Queda leaders always has been despite the political PR from the left.
Today, we’re getting reports that another covert (well, it WAS covert) air strike has taken place in that region. If so, it’s the FIFTH time this year that we know about. How many do you think we don’t know about in this secret war’s most secret area and against the most top secret targets?
Taliban and Afghan National Army backed by American forces have traded severe firing in Sooran Dara area of Mehmand and Bajaur Agencies on Afghan border late Tuesday evening.
Sources told this correspondent that Afghan National Army backed by American forces and gunship helicopters clashed with Taliban when the former on a tip-off attacked a Taliban hideout in the Sooran Dara area.
Unconfirmed reports receiving from the Dara revealed that dozens of Taliban and Afghan National Army are feared dead in the clashes.
Pakistan Tehrik-e-Taliban spokesman Maulvi Umer talking to this correspondent via phone from an undisclosed location said that clashes erupted in Sooran Dara area when American and Afghan National Army backed by gunship helicopters and jets attacked Taliban on the Afghan border.
He said that Afghan National Army and American forces and their jets also violated the territorial limits of Pakistan and continued to fly over Mehmand and Bajaur Agencies for few minutes.
Ok, now here is where some speculation comes into the mix. The US would fire a drone missile at a high value target. No way they are going to do that for just a bunch of regulars. The attack happened in the Mohmand area of Pakistan:
The missile was thought to have been fired into the Mohmand ethnic Pashtun tribal area in northwest Pakistan where this year, U.S.-controlled Predator aircraft have struck at least four sites used by al Qaeda operatives, killing dozens of suspected militants.
It is pertinent to mention, however, that al-Zawahiri is reportedly married to a woman from the Mohmand tribe who lives with her father in the border area between Bajaur and Mohmand agencies
James Robbins believes the target may have been OBL:
This is some of the baddest of the badlands in Pakistan, and a great place to hide if you are Osama bin Laden.
Obviously, this attack was targeted at someone high value….but just how high value was he?
Has it really been six years since President Bush echoed those historic words?
Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof — the smoking gun — that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. As President Kennedy said in October of 1962, “Neither the United States of America, nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world,” he said, “where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nations security to constitute maximum peril.”
With the DNC bent on taking over all branches of US government, fulling overdue promises of “tough love” by yanking the US troops out of Iraq, ignoring Lebanon, and Pakistan’s peace deals further inflaming Afghanistan under NATO’s command, it can be said that Middle East allies for the US might be getting to be an endangered species.
Quietly behind the scenes, and out of the western media spotlight, Pakistan is steadily traveling the yellow brick road to rogue and defiant ally-in-name-and-money-only status… content just to silence bombs in their back yard while allowing Taliban/AQ and fellow ilk militants to ping pong back and forth across the Afghanistan border at will. Read the rest of this entry »
Not everyone is a political junkie, and even few political junkies even like reading the government reports on this or that. However, when it comes to war, shouldn’t we all have some sort of documented list of reasons for war as well as periodic updates? I don’t just mean members of Congress (the body that declares and authorizes war) or the President (the man who gets several detailed, classified updates throughout every day). I mean every American. I’d like to see us all get copies of it in the mail with the checks the Democrats’ Congress is sending us for economic stimulus. Read the rest of this entry »
The IAEA is useless. It failed to stop Saddam from pursuing nuclear weapons, and in 1981 the Israelis had to strike the Osirik reactor facility to prevent him from becoming a nuclear power with the world’s 4th largest military as well.From 1981-1991, the IAEA effectively did nothing to stop Saddam’s nuclear ambitions.After Operation Desert Storm, the IAEA was on the verge of declaring that Saddam’s nuclear program had been destroyed in the war, but the defection of regime leaders revealed that Saddam had successfully hidden his program and even built a bomb (which only lacked enriched weapons grade uranium to be complete).Many of the facilities were subsequently destroyed, but in the summer of 2002 satellite imagery showed that buildings at Saddam’s nuclear facilities had been rebuilt.Inspectors went back into Iraq in late 2002, and in just a few weeks were ready to declare that Saddam’s nuclear facilities were destroyed.They failed to point out that literally hundreds of tons of partially enriched, highly dangerous uranium remained.After the invasion, former weapons inspectors found that Saddam had in fact successfully hidden key components and designs needed to restart his nuclear program, and he himself confessed that he had every intention of restarting his program once inspections were completely collapsed or removed.
This entity also failed to detect the Pakistani nuclear program, the Indian nuclear program, the AQ Khan nuclear black market network, the Libyan nuclear program, the Syrian nuclear program, and the North Korean nuclear program.It failed to stop any of those programs.It also failed to detect or stop the Iranian nuclear program (peaceful or belligerent, it went undetected by the IAEA).
So I ask, what relevance does this group have given the history of seeing no evil, hearing no evil, and doing nothing against evil (though it has been consistent in chastising those who take action against nuclear programs run by rogue, terrorist-supporting, dictatorial regimes)?
UPDATE:
Britain’s ambassador to the IAEA, Simon Smith, said the material presented to the board of governors on Monday contained information about possible weapons work beyond that date.
“Certainly some of the dates that we were talking about, or that the secretariat was presenting in there, went beyond 2003,” Smith said…
Diplomats attending the briefing said the material presented to the board of governors had infuriated Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh…
The board was presented with material “from multiple sources” suggesting “detailed work put into the designing of the warhead, studying how that warhead would perform, how it would be detonated and how it would be fitted to a Shahab-3 missile,” Smith said.
The material was “serious and substantial,” the ambassador continued.
And it underlined the IAEA secretariat’s concern that the deficit of confidence in Iran, rather than being reduced, “if anything, is getting deeper,” he said.
In this post I put up the video that seemed to dispute the notion that Bhutto died from hitting her head. Now Pakistan has confirmed it, they lied:
In a dramatic U-turn, Pakistan government has “apologised” for claiming
that former premier Benazir Bhutto died of a skull fracture after
hitting the sunroof of her car during a suicide attack.
Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan has asked the media and
people to “forgive and ignore” comments made by his ministry’s
spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema which were slammed by her Pakistan
People’s Party as “lies” and led to an uproar at home and abroad.
The Interior Minister made the apology during a briefing for Pakistani
newspaper editors on Monday. Punjab province on Tuesday issued a
front-page advertisement in newspapers that offered a reward of Rs 1
crore for information about a gunman and a suspected suicide bomber
seen in the photos and video footage of the assassination.
The government’s apparent damage control exercise on Cheema’s comments
made at a news conference a day after Bhutto was assassinated at
Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on December 27, came after TV channels aired
privately shot photos and video footage which showed a gunman shooting
at Bhutto.
The Pakistan People’s Party leader is seen in the footage falling
through the sun-roof before the suicide bomber detonated his
explosives. The briefing by caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian
Soomro was also attended by the foreign, interior and information
ministers and senior officials.
I just don’t get it. If she died from hitting her head because a bomb went off in an attempt to kill her, what difference does it make? She died because of the actions of those looking to assassinate her.
Why the made up story?
I have to tell ya, I’m getting more nervous by the day knowing this country has nukes.
Pakistani authorities have pressured the medical personnel who tried
to save Benazir Bhutto’s life to remain silent about what happened in
her final hour and have removed records of her treatment from the
facility, according to doctors.
In interviews, doctors who were
at Bhutto’s side at Rawalpindi General Hospital said they were under
extreme pressure not to share details about the nature of the injuries
that the opposition leader suffered in an attack here Dec. 27.
“The
government took all the medical records right after Ms. Bhutto’s time
of death was read out,” said a visibly shaken doctor who spoke on
condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Sweating and putting his head in his hands, he said: “Look, we have
been told by the government to stop talking. And a lot of us feel this
is a disgrace.”
The day she was assassinated last Thursday, Benazir
Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of
Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in rigging the country’s upcoming
elections, an aide said Monday.
Bhutto had been due to meet U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep.
Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to hand over a report charging that the
military Inter-Services Intelligence agency was planning to fix the
polls in the favor of President Pervez Musharraf.
Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the Pakistan People’s Party
election monitoring unit, said the report was “very sensitive” and that
the party wanted to initially share it with trusted American
politicians rather than the Bush administration, which is seen here as
strongly backing Musharraf.
“It was compiled from sources within the (intelligence) services who
were working directly with Benazir Bhutto,” Lashari said, speaking
Monday at Bhutto’s house in her ancestral village of Naudero, where her
husband and children continued to mourn her death.
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