Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama met Sunday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a man Obama has chided for not doing enough to rebuild his war-torn country. Obama and Karzai held talks and lunched together at the presidential palace in Kabul. Karzai's office released video showing the two men seated in front of a marble fireplace, chatting and smiling. They made no public comment.
Obama has made Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants are resurgent, a centerpiece of his proposed strategy for dealing with terror threats. The candidate has said the war in Afghanistan deserves more troops and more attention as opposed to the conflict in Iraq.
Earlier in the day during breakfast with soldiers at Camp Eggers, a heavily fortified military base in the city, Obama praised the U.S. troops. "To see young people like this who are doing such excellent work, with so much dedication ... it makes you feel good about the country," Obama said.
"I want to make sure that everybody back home understands how much pride people take in their work here and how much sacrifice people are making. It is outstanding," he said in video footage from the military obtained by The Associated Press.
Lt. Col. Dave Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, said Obama and other visiting senators met with many soldiers and sailors from their respective constituencies. While officially a part of a congressional delegation on a fact-finding tour also expected to take him to Iraq, Obama was traveling in Afghanistan amid the publicity and scrutiny accorded a likely Democratic nominee for president rather than a senator from Illinois. Security was tight and media access to Obama was limited by his campaign.
Traveling with Obama were Sens. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, and Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island. Both are military veterans and have been mentioned as potential Obama vice presidential running mates, although Reed has said he is not interested in the job and Hagel would be an unlikely cross-party choice.
Obama and others in the delegation received a briefing Saturday inside the U.S. base in Jalalabad from the Afghan provincial governor of Nangarhar, Gul Agha Sherzai, a no-nonsense, bullish former warlord.
"Obama promised us that if he becomes a president in the future, he will support and help Afghanistan not only in its security sector but also in reconstruction, development and economic sector," Sherzai told The Associated Press.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/20/2008 08:34 ||
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Traveling with Obama were Sens. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska "Republican",....
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 8:56 Comments ||
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For MessiahO, that must have been like trying to pick up a hole-less greased bowling ball with one hand.
Karzai knows who got him the job, and how much his life would be worth if the US pulled out. He is more loyal to W. Bush than Karl Rove.
#3
I dunno -- I think Karzai is loyal, first and foremost, to himself. He's a survivor and I'm guessing that he's a lot better than most of us in reading tea leaves. If 'Bamer gets the job, Karzai will adapt.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 10:10 Comments ||
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#4
Obama, the glib and unserious traveling salesman, must be even less impressive to a man like Karzai, than he is to me. (if that's possible)
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/20/2008 10:32 Comments ||
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#5
I hate to think this nation would elect another Jimmah Kahtah, and one even more useless, but it may happen. I can only hope that God has the final say. BO is an over-educated idiot, to use one of my dad's favorite expressions.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 15:01 Comments ||
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The U.S. is the elephant in Afghanistan's living room, of which President Karzai controls pretty much only the chair he is sitting in. He would be wise to cultivate the potential mahouts (as would be the rest of the world), regardless of his personal opinion... and I don't think anyone seriously thinks Mr. Karzai is stupid.
War Fatigue, Frustration Play Into Americans' Decreasing Interest in War
The Pentagon and presidential rivals Barack Obama and John McCain all seem to agree on the need to send more troops to Afghanistan, but they are at odds with much of the country these days on the need to send more Americans into the lawless Afghan mountains.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found that a startling 45 percent of Americans said they do not think the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting, despite the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which provoked the war in the first place.
Having failed to have us lose the war in Iraq, the MSM has decided to have us lose the war in Afghanistan.
The growing disenchantment with the Afghan deployment hasn't reached the level of national frustration with the Iraq war, but after more than six years with U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan and violence on the rise, Americans are becoming increasingly wary about the country's involvement.
Give the MSM a chance and they'll ensure we become more weary.
Fifty-one percent of Americans now say that the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan has been unsuccessful, up from 24 percent in fall 2002. Only 44 percent of Americans consider the war in Afghanistan a success, down from 70 percent in 2002.
Perhaps if the media had kept its nose to the wheel and reported on just how brutal the Taliban has been, how they have sanctuaries in Pakistan, and how the Paks aid and abet the Taliban the quoted poll numbers would be a tad different.
The national poll of 1,119 randomly selected adults was conducted by telephone July 10-13, 2008, with a margin of error of three percentage points.
For Sholom Keller, a veteran who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it comes as no surprise that support for the war in Afghanistan is fading. "I'm not shocked at all that American support is waning," Keller told ABCNews.com. "If we are in Afghanistan because the U.S. was attacked on Sept. 11, then I want to see the perpetrators captured and brought to justice.
"If we're not finding them in Afghanistan, then I don't know why we're there," he added. "And if they are there I want to know why we haven't found them in the last seven years if they've been giving troops the right intelligence and missions."
ABC news doesn't bother to tell you that Mr. Sholom Keller is a member of Iraq Veterans Against The War. Does that fact change how you read his quote?
Experts on the Middle East told ABCNews.com that many Americans share Keller's frustration, blaming several factors, including the fatigue from hearing about not one but two wars, as well as pressing issues at home, such as the failing economy.
Judith Kipper, the director of Middle East programs at the Institute of World Affairs in Washington, D.C., said that the gap in the numbers this year compared with those from 2002 is "tremendous" but still understandable. "It's battle fatigue," Kipper said. "American don't want war; they know it's costing a lot and the worse the economy gets at home, the more people feel a lack of confidence in their daily lives," Kipper said. "The less confident they feel, the less likely they are to support foreign wars and adventures."
So to hell with it, just vote for universal health care and screw what happens halfway around the world. After all, 9/11 couldn't possibly happen again.
And while Kipper says Americans haven't forgotten the 9/11 attacks, the fear and shock that pervaded the country in the days and months following have since faded, just as American's interest in Afghanistan has. "This is many years later and life goes on," Kipper said. "It's hard for Americans to relate to what happened years ago to their battle fatigue and war weariness now.
"[They care] about the problems that they're facing on a daily basis," she added.
The confusing nature of the war in Afghanistan and the failure to locate Osama bin Laden has contributed to American's already disillusioned vision of the war, Kipper said. "Americans know Iraq is near the oil and they know a lot about Saddam Hussein, but Afghanistan is the end of the earth for most people," she said. "It's a very confusing issue; why we're still there and NATO's involvement."
But others -- the presumptive presidential nominees included -- believe that it would be worse to leave Afghanistan than stay, despite what the American public thinks. "With Afghanistan, the reality is that McCain thinks this is in our national security interest," said Brian Rogers, a McCain campaign spokesman. "People are frustrated with the lack of success and it's [the job of] the leader to make the case to American people as to why the fight in Afghanistan is a compelling national security interest."
The Obama campaign said, "Sen. Obama supports this mission, as he does not make decisions based on polls."
Charles Dunbar, the former head of the U.S. embassy in Kabul, told ABCNews.com that while violence had risen in Afghanistan as of late, there is some good news coming out of the region, too. Removing troops from Afghanistan now would only cause a larger terror threat in the future, he said. "The Afghanistan story is not all being told; there is much more success in other parts of the country," said Dunbar, who now teaches international relations at Boston University. "I do recognize that the occasional suicide bombings are going to happen, and that's the news that is understandably going to influence the American public.
"This administration and the one that follows will need to make the case strongly that Afghanistan is a terrorist threat.
"They need to restore [Americans'] faith in the war in Afghanistan, particularly because Pakistan is a place where al Qaeda and others who are absolutely irreconcilable in our efforts to come to terms with the Muslim world are surviving under present conditions," he added.
Dunbar says he understands why Americans are losing faith in the U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan, but still warns against allowing the problem to get even worse. "It can be argued that we can't control [what's going on in Afghanistan] and we have to get out, but then we just have a bigger problem area," he said. "Then we have just widened our problem."
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Afghanistan is a deep concern, because unlike Iraq, there may not be a way to win in Afghanistan, just create a stalemate. As long as Pakistan festers, Afghanistan will be destabilized by it.
A Vietnam comparison is not entirely wrong, in several ways. Therefore it is of deep concern how we plan to leave Afghanistan, and do so in such a way that the Afghans can take care of themselves, against a murderous foe backed by a hostile government.
#3
So to hell with it, just vote for universal health care and screw what happens halfway around the world. After all, 9/11 couldn't possibly happen again.
I know this was said ironically but in point of fact, this is unfortunately how many Americans I know, perhaps more than half here in NY State, see the responsibility of government under the US Constitution. It has nothing to do with defending the USA and everything to do with helping them pay medical bills now that they've developed Type II diabetes through overeating.
#6
If the Obamessiah winds up running the show, look for helicopters on the roofs of our embassies in both Baghdad and Kabul with a year. The Quislingcrats and their media sockpuppets are fifth-columnists and traitors, pure and simple. And when the next 9/11 happens, I really, really want to see journos hanging from lampposts across the entire country.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
07/20/2008 4:50 Comments ||
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People are frustrated with the lack of success and it's [the job of] the leader to make the case to American people as to why the fight in Afghanistan is a compelling national security interest
I agree. Lay this one squarely at the feet of George W. "Mumbler-in-Cheif" Bush.
He has consistently bungled communicatiosn to the public about our successes, about our reasons, abotu the strategic realities.
Instead he has let the MSM shape the public perception.
He is an utter failure at the vital job of communicating the truth to the people, in the face of the hostile press.
He's a wuss when it comes to standing PUBLICLY and bringing in the public on the things that count.
Thank God we have Pelosi & Reid for opposition - Tip O'Neill would have eaten poor clueless George alive.
#8
Fighting in Afghanistan has always been like playing wack-a-mole. Ask the British and the Russians. I don't believe that the USA can afford a forever war.
#9
What will happen to the MSM if a few column writers, and maybe an editor or two, were to pass away over a weekend's time, all by car accident or drowning or electrocution. Do you think the tone of these stories would change? I believe that the rest would be cr@pping their pants. Suddenly they wouldn't feel so anonymous, maybe they'd stop being so blatantly on the other side of this one. If not, several more should be invited to join the recently departed.
As for you Old Spook, your jumping on the anti GWB bandwagon helps how? This president has never had the opportunity to shape the message. I'd even suggest that no president has had that power - if he was liked by the media of the day, his angle was presented - if not, then his angle was poo-pooed. Any time GWB has communicated to the country, he was followed up by some talking head - often of the Demo-rat persuasion, telling the audience that GWB was wrong and an idiot.
The media knows just how powerful it is. They know what effect Cronkite's broadcast had. The nameless, faceless "They" want to have the same power, to have that kind of influence on American society - not for good or ill, but simply to have it. In their thinking, they can do no real harm. That is why I think several of them should have their mortal coils removed, to remind all that this game is serious. The stakes are high, and more than a few empires have fallen to the barbarians, because people with voices didn't appreciate the divisiveness they caused.
#10
The media are elites, and as such, they 'deserve' to instruct the masses how to live. Todays pols are also elite, like Manbearpig, they know what is good and they will issue orders to us when applicable.
Like Margaret Thatcher said, Conservatism has reality on it's side. Now, we should stop tolorating the enemy and eliminate him.
#11
Hve you ever tried to get a conservative message to be carried to the public by liberal reporters? Can't be done. Fox and the blogs are the only way. If BO gets into the whitehouse, those two areas of conservative freedom of speech will be attacked with a vengeance.
Posted by: a yankee ||
07/20/2008 16:25 Comments ||
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Robo06 proves that indeed you can have your own personal NUKES!
:)
#13
A pity the journalist didn't ask a few military people or Rantburgers what they think. I suspect the percentages would be a bit less lopsided in the journalist's preferred direction.
#14
You sure don't solve the communication problem by not doing a much, and seldom to never challenging the press daily in their false or bad reporting.
Facts are Bush didnt even try to fight - he sat on his wimpy ass instead of using the bully pulpit.
And I'm not jumping on the BDS Bandwagon - I've been critical of Bush's inability and lack of intestinal fortitude in communicating his positon. I've complained about this for a long time - "What good is the Bully Pulpit when all you're going to do is mumble?".
With the press against you, you have to continue to hammer, continue to try, and continue to put the effeor in. Bush gave up, and I cannot forgive that at all.
That's a huge fault, and one of the reasons Bush is seen as a failure by so many.
#15
I haven't forgotten about 9/11 and I've always supported a strong response, but I can't support
the mission in Afghanistan anymore.
We are not promoting freedom in Afghanistan (ideological deviation is punishable by death).
Instead we're importing Sharia-restrictions for non-muslims in the west, which is what parts of the US military in Afghanistan are officially calling for since "Condemning the religion (Islam)...does not make the world safer from terrorism". (see HotAir)
Whatever can be achieved in Afghanistan is not worth finlandizing ourselves, and that's exactly what's happening to us.
The Arab League on Saturday slammed the International Criminal Court's "unbalanced" prosecutor for seeking the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, saying Sudan's courts should judge alleged Darfur war crimes.
Arab foreign ministers stressed "the mandate of Sudan's civil judiciary in achieving justice," in a resolution following crisis talks in Cairo over how to deal with ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's request on Monday for Beshir to be arrested on genocide charges.
The resolution also criticised Moreno-Ocampo's "unbalanced stance" for asking ICC judges to issue a warrant for Beshir's arrest, which, if granted, would be the first ever issued by The Hague-based court against a sitting head of state.
Some of the Arab League's 22 members have previously criticised Moreno-Ocampo's move, saying it threatens peace prospects in Darfur, while also fearing a dangerous precedent for other leaders in the region.
The ministers called for trials of Darfur war crimes suspects to take place in Sudan, vowing that "effective justice will be realised with the follow-up of the Arab League and the African Union."
Khartoum has consistently rejected the ICC's jurisdiction, saying it would try alleged war criminals in its own courts, although credible trials have so far failed to materialise.
Sudan has refused to surrender two suspects named last year in connection with war crimes in Darfur and hopes to persuade veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council to defer any ICC prosecution of Beshir.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008 01:14 ||
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Don't those silly prosecutors know that they are supposed to issue a warrant for Bush first?
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
07/20/2008 1:40 Comments ||
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The ICC is overly ambitious in this case, trying to extend their jurisdiction outside of its member states. Hopefully they will lose a lot of credibility if one or more of the big signatories slaps them down.
Make no mistake that this is a test case for American citizens.
Enough Semtex to make 56 bombs the size of the one used in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has been stolen from a French castle. The 28 kilograms of the explosive were discovered to be missing yesterday along with an unknown quantity of detonators, but the Interior Ministry said they could have been taken more than a week ago. The Lyon depot is situated in a disused 19th century castle at Corbas near Lyon and is used by a civil defence unit to store explosives needed for bomb disposal workers.
"A theft of explosives used by bomb-disposal experts to destroy munitions retrieved from former battlefields has taken place," said a statement from the Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.
The statement said there had been "security failings" which gave the thieves their chance.
The Semtex is now being searched for by French anti-terrorist police who fear it could be used to attack civilian targets. Semtex is favoured by terrorists because it is powerful, has no smell and is almost impossible to detect.
"The investigation has to find out how they could have been stolen," a police source said, adding that the authorities were taking the theft "very seriously."
#3
To cut some slack to those civil defense guys - not that it is not a big screw up... -, destroying unexploded ammunition is so common in France it's probably hard to get it in perspective for a foreigner... something like 900 tons a year recovered from Verdun alone, and an estimate of seven centuries needed at current rate of recovery just to clear out WWI unexploded ammo (JFM will correct me).
So, this cache was not a "top secret" or "sensitive" one, it was just a cog in that huge work, a bit of a very mundane, run-of-the-mill enterprize; and if you want to put it in an ever worse light, just think that there actually are stockpiles upon stockpiles of unexploded shells in various stages of decay, including chemicals ones, lying in open air, with basically no security at all. There just isn't enough manpower, enough EOD to keep the rythm.
#4
I saw some of this when I was in Germany the first time. The US began building a new barracks at one of our downtown compounds, and found something like 84 mortar rounds when they were digging the basement. This was an installation that had been in constant use by the military since the end of WWII, and the weapons were discovered in 1974. England, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, the Eastern European countries, all have similar problems with unexploded ordinance. You read about a "find" every few weeks, if you happen to be in Europe, and can read one of the local newspapers. The sheer amount of weaponry used is staggering. A similar problem exists in Afghanistan, where the Russians supposedly left several MILLION mines behind when they left, most buried in unmarked minefields.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 15:12 Comments ||
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I take back my question, in light of further information. Thank you, gentlemen.
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama met US troops in Afghanistan Saturday during a visit to assess efforts against extremist militants at the start of a major international tour, officials said.
US military commanders at the main US base at Bagram, north of Kabul, briefed Obama and other senators on the international effort against Taliban and other Islamic extremists, the US-led coalition said.
The delegation later flew to a base in eastern Afghanistan, closer to the border with Pakistan, where they met more of the 36,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Obama was due to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai on Sunday, the Afghan government said.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told reporters before leaving the United States that he was looking forward during his trip, which will also take him to Iraq, to seeing the situation on the ground.
"I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what ... their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they've been doing."
The Illinois senator said in the days building up to the tour that Afghanistan needs more help as it battles the Taliban-led insurgency.
If he wins the November elections, he has said he would commit at least two more combat brigades, up to 10,000 men, to Afghanistan while downscaling the size of the force in Iraq.
"We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more non-military assistance to accomplish the mission there," Obama said in The New York Times on Monday.
"Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."
In a major foreign policy address on Tuesday, Obama reiterated his promise to get most US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months, and to focus on Al-Qaeda havens in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president I won't," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008 01:14 ||
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"Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."
Except, of course, when Bush made it so, and the turbans fell for it - the "Flypaper Strategy" I believe it was called.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/20/2008 9:38 Comments ||
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#1: "Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."
I guess he hasn't heard that Osama said that Iraq was the center of the war on terror, because it was the ideal place for the Caliphate, and sent thousands to die to defeat the US. Obama's grasp of foreign policy is about as good as my grasp of intergalactic quark-quark interactions. The sign should read "The same old BS we always promise" - it'd be closer to the truth. God spare us from over-educated idiots with an agenda.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 15:44 Comments ||
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The Obama trip should be dubbed the "InnocentsIdiots Abroad World Tour 2008"
(Xinhua) -- A Pakistani Senate Committee Saturday demanded the immediate closure of the detention center in the Guantanamo Bay as it is in complete violation of the norms of a civilized world.
Pakistain presume to lecture anyone, anywhere, with the exception of Somalia and Zim, on the norms of civilized behavior?
The Senate Functional Committee on human rights through a unanimous resolution also called for releasing the six Pakistanis detained there.
Pakistain in the place where their "human rights" commission can't tell the difference between terrorism and counterterrorism.
The committee met at the Parliament House under Chairmanship of Senator S.M. Zafar and discussed the issue of detention of a woman, believed to be a Pakistani national, at U.S. Army's Bagram Detention Center in Afghanistan for over four years. The issue was highlighted in the national press on July 7, 2008 after the issue was raised at a press conference by a British journalist who converted to Islam after she was captured and held briefly by the Taliban shortly before the American invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.
Members of the committee underlined the need for making more coordinated efforts to know the facts whether there was any woman languishing in illegal detention of the U.S. forces at Bagram in Afghanistan and the Guantanamo Bay. The committee was told that 67 Pakistanis had been freed so far from the Guantanamo Bay prison but six are still there. The committee members directed the ministries of interior, foreign affairs and the human rights division to take up the matter with the intelligence agencies whether they had handed over any women to the U.S. forces for interrogation or not.
The committee observed that the issue was of immense importance, all out efforts should be made not only to get the correct information but also take appropriate steps to get the women, if detained, released. It gave clear-cut directions to the concerned ministries that bureaucratic snags should not mar the issue and priority should be given to the matter. The committee was informed that the interior ministry had approached the ministry of foreign affairs to contact the U.S. authorities in this regard and the diplomatic mission in Kabul to take up the issue of the detained Pakistani woman with authorities in Bagram military base.
Officials of the foreign ministry told the committee that the matter was being pursued vigorously. The committee was informed that the Public Affairs Wing of the U.S. force based at Bagram in Afghanistan had already denied that any woman prisoner was detained in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008 01:14 ||
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#1
And I call for removal of the supremacist Punjab majority in Pakistan, from Balochistan, Waziristan, Sindh and Kashmir. Get the hell out!
LAHORE: The All Pakistan Lawyers Representatives Convention on Saturday gave another deadline August 14 to the government for the reinstatement of the sacked judges, warning that otherwise lawyers will resort to different ways of protests to intensify their ongoing movement.
LHCBA President Anwar Kamal announced the deadline in his briefing on the resolution unanimously passed by participants of the eight-hour-long convention. Of the total 22 members of the Pakistan Bar Council, only six attended the convention.
Real vote of confidence there ...
Kamal said that if the sacked judges were not reinstated by August 14, the lawyers would assume that the coalition partners had condoned President Pervez Musharrafs proclamation of emergency rule last year. It will be tantamount to betraying the peoples mandate of the February 18 polls, he said while reading out the resolution.
Kamal said that lawyers would stage sit-ins before Parliament House and in various other cities, step up court boycotts, block courtrooms, arrange countrywide marches converging in Islamabad and court arrests, and would also resort to civil disobedience movements if the sacked judges were not reinstated by the new deadline. On August 15, he added, the National Co-ordination Council formed during the convention would meet at the LHCBA Rawalpindi bench to give a concrete shape to protest strategies.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 00:00 ||
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Yet another mis-translation. It's almost as if the MSM can't get a story straight. Or won't ...
(CNN) -- A German magazine quoted Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as saying that he backed a proposal by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months.
Nuri al-Maliki told Der Spiegel that he favors a "limited" tenure for coalition troops in Iraq. "U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months," he said in an interview with Der Spiegel that was released Saturday. "That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes," he said.
... a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks "were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately."
But a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks "were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately." Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the possibility of troop withdrawal was based on the continuance of security improvements, echoing statements that the White House made Friday after a meeting between al-Maliki and U.S. President Bush.
In the magazine interview, Al-Maliki said his remarks did not indicate that he was endorsing Obama over presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain. "Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited," he said. "Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic," al-Maliki said.
The interview's publication came one day after the White House said President Bush and al-Maliki had agreed to include a "general time horizon" in talks about reducing American combat forces and transferring Iraqi security control across the country. The Bush administration has steadfastly refused to consider a "timetable" for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
In a statement issued Friday after a conversation between Bush and al-Maliki by closed-circuit television, the White House said that conditions in Iraq would dictate the pace of the negotiations and not "an arbitrary date for withdrawal."
The two men "agreed that the goals would be based on continued improving conditions on the ground and not an arbitrary date for withdrawal," the White House said.
In an interview to air Sunday on "Late Edition," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that "those goals are being achieved now, as we speak. And so, it's not at all unusual to start to think that there is a horizon out there, in the not too distant future, in which the roles and responsibilities of the U.S. forces are going to change dramatically and those of the Iraqi forces are going to become dominant."
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said al-Maliki had made it clear that such decisions will be based on continuing positive developments. "It is our shared view that should the recent security gains continue, we will be able to meet our joint aspirational time horizons," he said.
McCain does not think American troops should return to the United States until Iraqi forces are capable of maintaining a safe, democratic state. He has been a strong advocate of the 2007 "surge" to escalate U.S. troop levels and says troops should stay in Iraq as long as needed. McCain says Obama is wrong for opposing the increased troop presence, and Obama says McCain's judgment is flawed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 00:00 ||
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but the inaccurate words are the screaming red headline at Drudge
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 9:12 Comments ||
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Why bother looking at Drudge's crap page ? That's like listening to the Wolfdog Blitzer. I'd like to grab that furrball and stuff a squash down his yap every time I hear his sqealy voice...which ain't often.
Head of Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin warned on Sunday of a possible terror attack by Hamas or Hizbullah in the near future along the Gaza Strip and Lebanon borders, respectively.
Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Yadlin said Hizbullah still had many outstanding issues with Israel which could be used to justify such an attack, such as the Shaba Farms, the village of Ghajar, IAF flights over Lebanon and Imad Mughniyeh's assassination in February - for which the group has blamed Israel. Of Gaza, Yadlin said some organizations which have not signed on to the cease-fire are planning a major attack.
However, Yadlin said Hamas was succeeding in enforcing the cease-fire on the Palestinian side but assessed that the fact that border crossings were not open "according to Hamas's expectations, constitutes a potential for eroding the cease-fire." While weapons smuggling continued, Egyptian activity in Sinai "diminishes the amount of arms smuggling, but quality weaponry still finds its way into the Gaza Strip."
Yadlin also said that Israel's enemies were continuing to arm themselves. But he added those enemies were worried of the possibility of a "hot summer" and did not intend to initiate a war with Israel during US President George W. Bush's remaining time in office, or before they had armed themselves sufficiently.
A new Islamist jihad group that may become as much of a threat to Hamas as it is to Israel is gaining strength in Gaza.
The Gaza-based group of Salafi Muslims, known as the Army of Islam (Jaish al-Islam), first made headlines a year ago when it kidnapped British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter Alan Johnston near his Gaza City bureau office. "It was nothing personal," commented their leader, Abu Mustafa, in an interview published over the weekend by the German Der Spiegel. "It was a message to the West that they should release imprisoned Muslims." He added that at the moment foreign journalists are not in danger in Gaza.
The Salafis also known as the Wahabis "feel just like al-Qaeda and [we] think as they do," said Abu Mustafa. The limping terrorist, who still suffers from a serious leg injury he received in an Israeli air strike after his group launched a rocket attack on civilians in the western Negev last January, would not say whether he is in contact with al-Qaeda. The 33-year-old terrorist leader claimed that he has attracted approximately 5,000 followers so far, not including women and children. He ducked the question of whether foreigners were among them.
Abu Mustafa, who has a degree from Germany's University of Saarbrucken, told Der Spiegel that his group envisions a day when the world will be ruled by Islamic law. In that scenario, some people will convert, some won't but "will be able to live in peace under the authority of Islam," and in some cases, holy war will ensue, "just like our brothers on Sept. 11."
Abu Mustafa does not consider Hamas to meet the criteria for real followers of Islam, however. "They are traitors. Compared to us, they are Islamism-lite."
Whether they will come to violence over their differences, and ultimately a struggle for control of the region, is a separate issue. "We will give them the chance to turn away from the false path," he said, but added that if Hamas does not comply, "Then there will be confrontation." In the long run, however, Abu Mustafa said he believes Hamas's "American style of Islam" will do the job for him. "They will destroy themselves."
Less than a month after meeting the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff in Israel, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi left for the United States Saturday night for a week of talks - with a focus on Iran - with top US defense and diplomatic officials.
The visit is Ashkenazi's first to the US as chief of General Staff and comes following two visits Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen has made to Israel in the past seven months. Defense Minister Ehud Barak is scheduled to visit the US at the beginning of August.
During his week-long visit, Ashkenazi will meet with Mullen, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and top members of the Senate Arms Committee. He will also meet with senior US intelligence officials.
As a sign of the friendship the two military chiefs have developed over the past year, Mullen will host Ashkenazi and his wife Ronit for a private dinner at his house in the Washington, DC area. When Mullen was here three weeks ago, Ashkenazi and his wife hosted him for a private dinner at their Kfar Saba apartment.
Ashkenazi will be accompanied during the trip by IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Avi Benayahu and IDF Strategic and Foreign Liaison Department head Brig.-Gen. Yossi Heiman.
The talks, officials said, would focus on a wide range of regional issues, including Hizbullah and Hamas's military buildup, Syria's continued support of terrorism and the Iranian nuclear program, which would top the agenda.
The officials said that the main purpose behind the trip was exchanging views on the different issues and maintaining relations with the US, Israel's strongest ally. Ashkenazi will also discuss different means that Israel has developed to counter roadside bombs - known in the US as improvised explosive devices (IED) - which is one of the greatest threats to American troops operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The purpose is to continue to create and maintain the deep military-level dialogue with the US," a senior official said.
Ashkenazi will also meet with top American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) officials in Washington, and representatives of the Friends of the IDF in Miami. He will also visit Centcom headquarters in Tampa, and meet with senior members of the American media.
Hamas confirmed Saturday that the talks for the release of Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit were on hold. A senior Hamas figure said that once the group understood that Israel was not fulfilling its end of the cease-fire agreement, it had decided that continuing the Shalit talks would be futile at this time.
The source told Haaretz it is unlikely a Hamas delegation will depart for Cairo where renewed talks on a possible exchange deal would take place under an Egyptian aegis.
However, despite the charges directed at Israel, Palestinian sources believe Hamas isn't willing to be flexible about Shalit at this time due to the recent prisoner swap with Hezbollah.
The same sources noted that the release of Samir Kuntar has led Hamas to the conclusion that the radical Islamic organization should stick to its demands, which includes the release of 1,000 prisoners, many of whom were sentenced to life in prison for their role in suicide bomb attacks.
At a political rally in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Ismail Haniyeh, who was prime minister in a Hamas-led Palestinian government, called on Interior Minister Said Sayam, to issue Samir Kuntar a diplomatic passport.
In an aggressive tone, Haniyeh told the crowd in Gaza that Hamas will not give in on "any issue" related to the release of Shalit.
Hamas will insist on the release of prisoners who were sentenced to life in prison. He concluded his speech by shouting "Jerusalem is ours, Gaza, Haifa, Jaffa, all of them are ours."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008 01:13 ||
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(Xinhua) -- Representatives of the world's religions Friday ended a three-day inter-faith conference in Madrid, with calls for enhanced dialogue among people from different religions, civilizations and cultures.
The World Conference on Dialogue brought together Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders as well as politicians and other experts on inter-religious dialogue.
Dialogue is the most important channel through which people can understand each other and conduct exchanges and cooperation, participants said in their final declaration.
They rejected the notion that conflict is inevitable between different cultures and civilizations, and called for efforts to promote common human values and build a harmonious world.
Terrorism is one of the main obstacles to dialogue and co-existence, the declaration said. It called for an international agreement on defining terrorism, addressing its root causes and pooling efforts to combat it.
Participants expressed the hope that their conclusions and proposals would win support from the UN General Assembly.
The gathering showed that dialogue is the best way to promote peace and harmony, said Abdullah al-Turki, secretary-general of the Muslim World League, at a press conference after the meeting.
Around 300 people attended the conference, organized by the Muslim World League from an initiative by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008 01:14 ||
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The US yesterday conducted a missile test above the Pacific Ocean, the Defence Department announced.
The missile launch from the Alaskan Island Kodiak was for testing a set of radars and sensors, the Department said in a statement. The test demonstrated the most complex integration to date of radars required to support a missile intercept, the statement said. US radio Sawa reported that the missile was tracked by land-, sea- and space-based sensors, especially by a California military base.
Posted by: Pappy ||
07/20/2008 00:58 ||
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#1
Interesting tidbit: The National Guard manned a good part of these tests. Colorado Army Nationa Guard (CO-ARNG) has a couple of very interesting units in addition to the 3/19 SF.
193rd Space Battalion
This Colorado Army National Guard battalion provides space-based support to designated ground forces commanders in support of Army operations. This battalion demonstrates that citizen-Soldiers can bring space capabilities to the Army and leverages the expertise and experience in space that these citizen-Soldiers gain in their civilian jobs.
The 100th Missile Defense Brigade (Ground-based Midcourse Defense), Colorado Army National Guard, provides oversight of the Soldiers trained to operate the nations limited missile defense capability. The brigade comes under the overall direction of the responsible combatant commander during an operational mission.
(Xinhua) -- Over five thousand Hezbollah supporters gathered in the southern suburbs of Beirut to attend the funeral service of eight Hezbollah fighters killed in 2006 July war, and whose bodies were returned from Israel Wednesday, Local Daily Star reported Saturday.
The memorial service was attended by grieving mothers and relatives, as well as Hezbollah officials and supporters.
"They will be buried in this blessed land after their return from the blessed land of Palestine," said the head of Hezbollah executive council Hashim Safieddine in a speech at the occasion.
Relatives kissed and touched the coffins before they were carried through the streets of the southern suburbs by Hezbollah fighters, and were handed over to their families for burials in their native villages in south Lebanon.
Banners hanging on the streets said "Israel has fallen," others read "A victory from God."
The eight fighters were killed in fierce battled with the Israeli army in south Lebanon during the month of July in 2006, when Israel launched a devastating war, following Hezbollah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 of last year.
The bodies of the eight fighters were handed over to Hezbollah as a part of the swap with Israel that included the return of five living prisoners and another 199 bodies of Palestinian and Arab fighters.
Hezbollah in retune turned over the bodies the two captured Israeli soldiers who were killed during the capture operation as media reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008 01:14 ||
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... or killed in custody, but why would the world media be interested in checking if that were true?
#2
the following comments published in the Blacksmiths of Lebanon blog: And there was a certain sleight of hand in all this. Mr Nasrallah had promised to retrieve the bodies of Palestinian martyrs, and they included the remains of 19-year-old Dalal Moghraby, which were supposedly stacked on the first lorry to cross the border yesterday. She was the girl who led 11 Palestinian and Lebanese gunmen in an attack on the Israeli coast road north of Tel Aviv. Cornered by the Israeli [sic] army, she decided to fight it out. Thirty-six people died and a surviving videotape shows an Israeli agent, a certain Ehud Barak yes, the man who is now Israels Defence Minister firing shots into her body and dragging her across a road. Mr Barak was one of the Israeli cabinet members who voted for the return of her corpse yesterday. But the Palestinians, it turned out, did not want their dead returned to Lebanon. Dalal Moghrabys mother Amina Ismail, for example, wished her remains to lie where she was buried in Israel the land which she and millions of other refugees still regard as part of Palestine. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command said it wanted its dead martyrs to remain on Palestinian land as they would have wished, and asked Hizbollah to exclude them from the returning corpses. No such luck. For Hizbollah had other ideas and with the agreement of the Israelis, of course brought them back to the land of their exile.
Also from the same blog:
Net gains:
Sami Kuntar
199 bodies of Lebanese and Arab fighters.
*Kohdor Zaidan
*Maher Kourani
*Mohammeda Srour
*Hussein Suleiman
*Technically not a net gain, as they were captured during the 2006 war.
Net Losses:
1200 civilians dead,400 of them under 13.
4400 civilians injured, 770 if them permannetly.
1 million people displaced from their homes.
125000housing units damaged or destroyed.
250 Hizbollah fighters killed.
80% southern villages destroyed.
5 billion economic damage.
15 billion long term economic looses.
91 bridges destroyed.
Northern Gaharreoccupied.
The continuing brain drain of Lebanon, etc.etc.
(Xinhua) -- EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana started talks Saturday with Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili over Tehran's disputed nuclear program in the presence of U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns.
Burns, the first U.S. diplomat to attend negotiations with Iran in 30 years, will be listening, not negotiating, in the talks, U.S. officials said. But his presence was widely seen as a major policy shift by Washington on Iran.
At the one-day meeting, Solana is expected to sound out Iran's position on the long-standing dispute. The West fears that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at making atomic bombs instead of generating power. Tehran says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes only.
The talks would focus on an updated package of incentives offered by six world powers (five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) to Tehran in a bid to breathe life into the deadlocked talks.
The package of incentives suggests that Iran get a temporary reprieve from economic and financial sanctions in exchange for freezing its enrichment activities.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008 01:14 ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008 01:14 ||
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#1
Diplomats are like terrorists.
You have to promote diplomacy to have a job.
What sort of clear answer does he need.
The Iranians have been telling all of the limp weenies in the EU to pound sand for about five years.
The Iranians will negotiate for about five more years and as soon as they have a working nuke, they'll break off talks and a major city somewhere in the "Infidel" west will disappear.
When that catastrophe happens, the nations of the west should take all of the "diplomats" and politicians that kept nannering for negotiations out and hang them........or better yet, parachute them into the still radioactive ground zero that their procrastination created.
Unfortunately, I am not an optimist about nuclear proliferation. You will notice that I said "when" not "if" about a nuclear terrorist attack.
When I was at the Prefix 5 school at Oberammergau back in 1974, we had a Brit Navy Commander say one day in class that his biggest fear was some nutjob in the middle east getting one of 'these' (pointing at a mockup of a tactical nuke)and then we would 'have all hell to pay' for it.
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/20/2008 10:58 Comments ||
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Pictures of solana being a fawning, obsequious little dick.
A U.S. decision to bend policy and sit down with Iran at nuclear talks fizzled Saturday, with Iran stonewalling Washington and five other world powers on their call to freeze uranium enrichment.
In response, the six gave Iran two weeks to respond to their demand, setting the stage for a new round of U.N. sanctions.
This may be a game of Texas Hold-em, rather than the usual endless diplomatic blather. After all, President Bush went the U.N./international route before invading Iraq in 2003.
The deputy to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran was a friend of Israel, Iranian news agencies reported. "Iran wants no war with any country, and today Iran is friend of the United States and even Israel.... Our achievements belong to the whole world and should be used for expanding love and peace," said Iranian Vice President Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, who is also head of the Cultural Heritage Organization.
The Cultural Heritage Organization news agency quoted him as saying that even during the eight-year war against Iraq, Iran just defended itself against the military invasion by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The remarks by the vice president followed last week's warnings by some Iranian officials that Tehran's long-range missiles could target the Jewish state if the U.S. and Israel realized their threats to attack Iran's nuclear sites.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008 01:13 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The Arab League on Saturday slammed the International Criminal Court's "unbalanced" prosecutor for seeking the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, saying Sudan's courts should judge alleged Darfur war crimes.
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama met US troops in Afghanistan Saturday during a visit to assess efforts against extremist militants at the start of a major international tour, officials said.
A new Islamist jihad group that may become as much of a threat to Hamas as it is to Israel is gaining strength in Gaza.
(Xinhua) -- EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana started talks Saturday with Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili over Tehran's disputed nuclear program in the presence of U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns. 
