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| India-Pakistan |
| Bush dinner tastes sour for Obama |
| 2009-10-26 |
| Preparations for Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington on November 24 have begun on a negative signal to the Obama administration with a decision by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to host former President George W. Bush for dinner at Singh’s residence at the end of this month. Bush is visiting New Delhi on October 30 and 31 at the invitation of an Indian newspaper and will speak at a conference organised in New Delhi on October 31 on “America Re-engaging with the World: Challenges, Opportunities and Risks”. Arguably stung by the PMO’s insensitivity in ostentatiously receiving the bete noir of the Democratic establishment here just over three weeks before Singh’s arrival at the White House, the Obama administration announced yesterday that US secretary of state Hillary Clinton will make her first trip to Islamabad. Clinton, a long-time friend of India, has tried her best to prevent a return to hyphenated Indo-Pakistan relations under the Obama administration and had refused to include Pakistan in the 229,528km that she has flown in her nine months in office. Despite the strategic importance of Pakistan in the Afghan conundrum that is confronting President Barack Obama, Clinton has so far left it to her minions to deal with the broad leadership in Islamabad. But that will change with her first trip, which was significantly announced at a briefing by Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy on Pakistan and Afghanistan, whose prickly equations with New Delhi are well publicised here. On the record, of course, no one in the Obama administration will say anything negative about the Bush trip to India because civility in political discourse is valued in the US. Nor will they suggest a Bush-India link in Clinton’s sudden decision to travel to Islamabad “soon”. A source close to Clinton, however, said she recalled being kept hanging in her Senate office in 2001 while Sonia Gandhi repeatedly changed plans to meet her. The Indian embassy here had advised the Congress president that the Bush administration would not look favourably on a meeting with the former First Lady-turned-Democratic Senator from New York. Instructions have gone out from the state department to the US embassy in New Delhi to extend all the courtesies that are due to a former American head of state and the ambassador in New Delhi, Timothy Roemer, will be correct, but not effusive in dealing with Bush. But in private conversations, officials of the Obama administration, especially Democratic political appointees, make no secret of their sense of hurt over New Delhi’s decision. This sense of hurt is shared by liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill, where enthusiasm about the Prime Minister’s visit was palpable until it became widely known here that the man whom many of them consider to be a war criminal is being needlessly feted in New Delhi at this time. “We are rolling out the red carpet for your Prime Minister,” pointed out one Obama administration official. “Singh’s is the first state visit to be organised by the Obama administration. And what do you do? Invite the man who triggered the end of my country’s superpower status and brought shame to America worldwide.” Said a Congressional aide: “In New Delhi people have been complaining for nine months, quite mistakenly, that Obama has downgraded the relationship with India. You have complaints about Obama’s nuclear policy, his climate policy and his trade policy. “So the President decides to organise a grand show of bonhomie with your Prime Minister in the White House. Instead of making the most of this opportunity by both sides, your response is to slap us in the face by inviting the one man who is responsible for most of the problems on Obama’s shoulders.” The wide-ranging sense of betrayal in hosting Bush little over three weeks before Singh travels to Washington is partly the result of a feeling here — perhaps mistaken — that it was the PMO which organised the invitation to Bush to visit New Delhi. Some Americans insist that the US embassy in New Delhi had sent cables earlier, reporting government feelers to think tanks and non-government institutions to invite Bush to give a lecture in India as an excuse for the UPA government to thank him for what he did for Indo-US relations. Sources who have seen these cables said such feelers began after Bush made his first trip outside North America in April to attend the Boao Forum in China, which is similar to the conference the former President will address in New Delhi on October 31. In March, Bush made a feeble attempt to enter the lucrative lecture circuit by making a test trip to Calgary, Canada, where 1,500 people paid $400 per person to hear the former President. But protesters outnumbered listeners, media were kept out of the hall and the trip was deemed a disaster. The only other known overseas trip made by Bush since relinquishing office was to South Korea in August to speak at an economic forum organised by the Federation of Korean Industries. But in this case, Korean industries had been working with him to overcome Republican opposition in the US Congress to the ratification of a Korea-US free trade agreement. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #16 OOOOOOPPPPPSIES, forgot WMF > STALINIST RUSSIA DEMANDED THE SOVEREIGN BREAKUP OF CHIN MONGOLIA IN RETURN FOR SOVIET ASSISTANCE AGZ JAPAN'S INVASION OF CHINA [Chiang-Kai Shek angry at Stalin's demand, but was mil too weak agz Japan]. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-10-26 20:21 |
| #15 And then comes WMF > RUSSIAN MEDIAS: THE WORLD WILL BECOME CHINESE AS FUTURE SUPERPOWER CHINA MODERNIZES BUT FAILS TO BECOME WHOLLY WESTERNIZED/FUTURE SUPERPOWER CHINA WILL ASSIMILATE THE WORLD, NOT VICE VERSA. China may revert back to CONFUCIANISM and forms of CHIN BUDDHISM albeit partially modified. versus CHIN MIL FORUM POSTER > YEAR 2020-2050 > ENTIRE STRUCTURE OF EAST ASIA as known since the end of WW2 + post-Cold War WILL CHANGE. SUPPORT YOUR [post]OWG-NWO GLOBAL SHAOLIN. OOOOOOO, you just know Radical Islam + their GLOBAL JIHAD will have something to say about OWG CHIN + GLOBAL CONFUCIANISM-SHAOLIN. ETC. OUTSTANDING 2020-2100 21st CENTURY FOR POPCORN FUTURES. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-10-26 20:16 |
| #14 ION BAMMER-AND-DUBYA, MEMRI [10/23]> US BORN IMAM ANWAR AL-AWAKI ON THE STATE OF THE JIHAD EIGHT YEARS AFTER 9-11. THE USA CANNOT AND WILL NOT WIN - THERE IS NO ROLLING BACK [stopping[ THE WORLDWIDE JIHAD. IFF AMERICA COULD NOT DEFEAT THE MUJAHEDDEN WHEN IT GAVE ITS PRESIDENT [POTUS Dubya] UNLIMITED SUPPORT, HOW CAN IT WIN WITH PRESIDENT OBAMA ON A SHORT LEASH, [and] HOW CAN IT WIN WITH A RECESSION - IFF NOT A DEPRESSION - AT HAND??? D *** NG IT, once again its too early in the AM for long titles. ARTIC = The Worldwide = Universal Jihad, including numbers of new Mujahedden + new pro-Muslim/Islamist enclaves, etc. continues to grow and proliferate around the World. IOW, ITS ONLY A MATTER OF TIME AFORE THE DECADENT INFIDEL CRUSADER ZIONIST US-WEST GOES DOWN. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-10-26 20:03 |
| #13 1,500 at $400 a pop... $600,000. For what, an hour of work? Not too shabby. If that's considered a disaster, then I can only hope to be as big a failure as Bush someday. |
| Posted by: eltoroverde 2009-10-26 19:59 |
| #12 Bambi's crew is a bunch of friggin' crybabies. Losers. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-10-26 19:39 |
| #11 FTA: "In March, Bush made a feeble attempt to enter the lucrative lecture circuit by making a test trip to Calgary, Canada, where 1,500 people paid $400 per person to hear the former President. But protesters outnumbered listeners, media were kept out of the hall and the trip was deemed a disaster." Funny, this is the first I've heard that his talk was a "disaster". I guess there are new criteria for the term. |
| Posted by: tipover 2009-10-26 19:25 |
| #10 email? |
| Posted by: Parabellum 2009-10-26 19:10 |
| #9 "Shall we shoot them?" Ahh, one good line deserves another. Wish I could answer that one. Anyone out there monitoring this email, its just a joke. I repeat, its a joke. |
| Posted by: GirlThursday 2009-10-26 18:56 |
| #8 bonhomie? Maybe TW uses that word, but I doubt anybody in the administration even knows it. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2009-10-26 18:53 |
| #7 Ah... GirlThurs....great show "Shall we shoot them?" |
| Posted by: Warthog 2009-10-26 17:54 |
| #6 You know |
| Posted by: GirlThursday 2009-10-26 17:49 |
| #5 What's the big deal? They're just gonna chat about the times they hung out with the Dalai Lama, the occasional times they could tell China to go piss up a rope, that kind of thing. Obama couldn't add anything to that conversation, anyway. |
| Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie 2009-10-26 17:39 |
| #4 Singh's is the first state visit to be organised by the Obama administration. And what do you do? Invite the man who triggered the end of my country's superpower status and brought shame to America worldwide. W. T. F ?!??!!! Do these Obama morons actually believe that? If Bush "triggered the end of my country's superpower status", its only in his role of getting Obama re-elected with the "I hate Bush" vote. Obama is the one detroying our superpower status, daily by surrendering damn near any time he is confronted, selling out the free peoples in Ira, dithering over Afghanistan while our soldiers die there undersupported, gettign completely ripped by Russia in giving up BMD for *nothing* in return, etc. Obama has made the US a joke, and these turds want to blame it on Bush? By God, I almost wish the Almighty Himself would wipe DC and these vermin from the face of the planet. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2009-10-26 17:24 |
| #3 More such slights will be coming from allies that Bush treated as equals and Obama treats as children. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2009-10-26 17:07 |
| #2 no one in the Obama administration will say anything negative about the Bush trip to India because civility in political discourse is valued in the US. Wow. This guy has not been paying very much attention to the Obama administration. Instructions have gone out from the state department to the US embassy in New Delhi to extend all the courtesies that are due to a former American head of state and the ambassador in New Delhi, Timothy Roemer, will be correct, but not effusive in dealing with Bush. But in private conversations, officials of the Obama administration, especially Democratic political appointees, make no secret of their sense of hurt over New DelhiÂ’s decision. This sense of hurt is shared by liberal Democrats on Capitol Hill, where enthusiasm about the Prime MinisterÂ’s visit was palpable until it became widely known here that the man whom many of them consider to be a war criminal is being needlessly feted in New Delhi at this time. These little twits need to go back to Beverly Hills High until they grow up. |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2009-10-26 16:51 |
| #1 W. Bush is heralded in India like Nixon was in China, for the same reason. For decades, Washington blew off India as unimportant, and W. Bush was the only one who saw its power and importance, which was derided at the time by both political parties. W. Bush's timing in opening India was also top drawer, as they had a great combination of an effective, pro-business president, and a brilliant foreign minister. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-10-26 16:49 |