When is the McCain campaign going to get serious? It seems to be marking time with softball ads, more appropriate to the soundbites campaign media spokespeople exchange with one another than to strategic paid media hits. One ad talks about how the media loves Obama. Another mocks him as a celebrity. Each throws pitty-pat punches, far short of the kind of knockout blows one would expect from a presidential campaign. Were I a donor to McCain's campaign, paying for these pathetic spots, I would demand a refund. Or sue for malpractice.
Yet despite this softball nonsense, Obama remains vulnerable, no better than two points ahead despite the bounce from his overseas trip.
Are the McCain people waiting for September to get serious? If so, they are making a big mistake and missing an important opportunity. History indicates that the best time to beat a new candidate is in the summer. August to be precise.
Continued on Page 49
A letter to the Editor of th Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch, July 7, 2008
Each year I get to celebrate Independence Day twice. On June 30 I celebrate my independence day and on July 4 I celebrate America's. This year is special, because it marks the 40th anniversary of my independence.
On June 30, 1968, I escaped Communist Cuba and a few months later I was in the United States to stay. That I happened to arrive in Richmond on Thanksgiving Day is just part of the story, but I digress.
Afghanistan, if it wants good neighbourly relations with Pakistan, must not punch above its weight. While it is free to have relations with any state, it is joined at the hip with Pakistan more than with any other state
The Americans have decided to play hardball with Pakistan. See the chronology of events:
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john frum ||
08/02/2008 12:27 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
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#1
911 gets ISI fingerprints in bold type with this viewpoint. Fuck-em!!
"You would think that the Bush administration would be coaching the Karzai government not to antagonize Pakistan unnecessarily by cozying up to India."
By Robert D. Kaplan
GWADAR, PAKISTAN--According to U.S. intelligence sources, Pakistan's intelligence service provided support to pro-Taliban insurgents responsible for the July 7 bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, which killed more than 40 people. Shocking though Pakistani involvement may seem to some, it is thoroughly predictable, given the worldview and interests of Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Unless we address what's angering the ISI, we won't be able to stabilize Afghanistan or capture al-Qaeda leaders inside its borders.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john frum ||
08/02/2008 11:22 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11124 views]
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#1
"You would think that the Bush administration would be coaching the Karzai government not to antagonize Pakistan unnecessarily by cozying up to India."
Actually I would think that. It took me a long time to realize how freaked out the Paks are over India, and rightfully so. The U.S. and Wakiland could put a squeeze-play on the Taliwhackers, but not if they get a whiff of India hanging around.
#2
Note what the Pak Newspaper Editor Ejaz Haidar has written today
So yes, Pakistan has had links with the Taliban and other such groups and still does. But anyone who knows what it means to fight an irregular war against a protean enemy and in an environment full of interested actors also knows that nothing can be gained without such linkages
...
India should remember that it cannot stay wedded on the surface to the normalisation process but decide to keep Pakistan's western borders simmering. New Delhi hopes to keep the Pakistan army stuck there and force Islamabad through international pressure and internal security threats to lose its (Pakistan's) bargaining edge against India over time.
They will never give up their bargaining edge (the irregular war). The jihaids are their tool. This is what PM ZA Bhutto famously referred to as a thousand year war
To do that is to accept that Pakistan will never be the equal of India, that it loses the ability to balkanize India, to break it into pieces so that no remnant is more powerful than Pakistan.
Muslim martial superiority is part of the foundation myth of Pakistan. Muslims ruled the subcontinent and should do so again.
If this is not the case, then what was partition all about? They might as well have accepted Mahatma Gandhi's vision of a united India.
The late Pak dictator Zia Ul Haq said that "if not Islamization, then we might as well rejoin mother India"
Posted by: john frum ||
08/02/2008 13:11 Comments ||
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#3
After their AQ buddies blew up NYNY its game over.
They need to understand GAME OVER! FIN!
DONE.
ITS OUR WAY OR THE HIGHWAY!
TARGET ISLAMABAD!
#4
One of the former ISI chiefs has just said that the Taliban and Al Qaeda will be needed to defend Pakistan.
This is part of their strategic depth doctrine.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/02/2008 17:42 Comments ||
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Truth is the first casualty of war, they say. One of the ways in which this is true is in relation to the casualty statistics themselves. As part of the time-tested war propaganda, each side minimises its own casualties and exaggerates estimates of the damage inflicted on the enemy forces, strategic-industrial targets, and public morale. The estimates of costs and timelines for victory are similarly downsised.
All of this has been evident with respect to the Iraq War. Much as Senator John McCain might want to trumpet his support for the successful surge (itself an Orwellian euphemism for escalation), the United States press has largely given him a free pass on his statements in the lead-up to the war in which he bought into the neocons' fantasies of how short the war would be, how few the casualties, and how little it would cost the American taxpayer. On the economic costs, people like Paul Krugman in his New York Times column and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz have done much to highlight the magnitude of the true figures.
With respect to the numbers of Iraqi civilians killed and wounded in the aftermath of the 2003 war and the ensuing insurgency, however, the Bush administration has largely got away with little or no international accountability. The American public has been left dazed and confused with a maze of claims, counter-claims and disinformation campaigns where often if the statistics are damning, the methodology is criticised and the motives of the scientists are questioned. Some of the tactics to discredit the studies' findings and their authors are lifted straight from the old (and enduringly relevant) 'Yes Minister' and 'Yes Prime Minister' television series.
Continued on Page 49
#3
A million? (Says the headline) I thought Lancet 'counted' 600,000. There's been 400,000 since then? Where is the outrage, indeed!
Oh, and the outrage for Darfur? Rwanda? Zimbabwe? North Korea? Cambodia? Kurds? Jews?
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/02/2008 11:19 Comments ||
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#4
They quote, once again, the disreputable Johns Hopkins study. The moonbats won't let go of that.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/02/2008 11:26 Comments ||
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#5
Let's not forget that Iraqis and their neighbors were being killed by Saddam and his cronies day after day before his government was conquered. The current estimate of people not killed by Saddam is 270822 since "Mission Accomplished". Further, many of the casualties since then were in fact due to deposed Saddam and his dead enders. So, trying to judge if things are going well or poorly in Iraq should focus on indicators different than than the casualty count, like newspapers, GDP, sanitation, electrification, infant mortality or consumer sentiment.
#7
There is no "accurate count." There will be no accurate count. This is all speculation and BS. "Unknown Percentage of Iraqi Civilians Killed in War" just doesn't make a good headline.
As foreign minister, she has followed closely the tortuous negotiation process led by the Europeans to persuade Iran to halt its uranium-enrichment programme, and has concluded that the Iranians are only interested in stringing out the process for as long as possible so that they can carry on with developing their nuclear programme.
She recently told an Israeli cabinet meeting: "The Iranians have no intention of halting their nuclear programme." That will certainly not be the case if Mrs Livni, who is said to have previously worked for Israel's Mossad intelligence service, becomes prime minister.
And if the Iranians have any sense, they should take note of the important changes taking place in Jerusalem.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/02/2008 14:20 Comments ||
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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.
Truth is the first casualty of war, they say. One of the ways in which this is true is in relation to the casualty statistics themselves. As part of the time-tested war propaganda, each side minimises its own casualties and exaggerates estimates of the damage inflicted on the enemy forces, strategic-industrial targets, and public morale. The estimates of costs and timelines for victory are similarly downsised. 
