This is a link through Michael Yon to a Power Point presentation for a strategic and operational assessment of drugs and crime in Mexico.
As all Rantburgers know, security issues at our southern border are coming to a head. The question is how will the Obama Administration deal with it? We know how San Fran Nan would do it. Events are accelerating. Fasten your seatbelts.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/20/2009 15:13 ||
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When George W. Bush was President, the Democrats and certain press outlets hammered every little mistake he made as evidence of him being "the dumbest President ever." They did this not to hurt Bush, that was an awesome side benefit. The main intent was to cripple the GOP. It worked. This approach began with Nixon and Ford, but took a much-hated hiatus during the eighties, when Reagan turned the remaining southern Democrats into Republicans and created the last great party boom.
Alleging Bush's supposed idiocy day after day was designed to put the idea in the head of the general populace that the GOP was inept. They decided to nominate Bush, the dumbest person in the world, how can they ever be trusted again?
Sarah Palin's appeal to middle America almost derailed the whole thing. The media took care of her in short order by portraying her as, you guessed it, dumb. Obama is now our President. The plan was a masterpiece.
The GOP, in not fighting back forcefully enough, was played like a fiddle. The media is biased toward liberalism no doubt; however, I do remember seeing Bush, Cheney, Frist, et. al. on the Sunday talk shows for all eight years of the Bush presidency. The opportunity to fight was there. Blaming the media for the travails of today's GOP is like former World Series champs blaming a bad season on the fact that the other teams had better training facilities.
This brings me to the teleprompter gaffe. As of this writing, the video of the event with President Obama and Brian Cowen has not been released. By some reports, the video shows that Obama oftentimes has no idea what is on that teleprompter before he reads it and therefore, as he did on St. Patrick's Day, ends up doing things like thanking himself for inviting everyone to the White House. An endearing gaffe between two national leaders or President Obama sincerely thanking President Obama for inviting everyone to the White House? The fact that the video has been suppressed may be very telling.
Where is the media on this story? Where are the demands for the video? Of course one would expect the AP, CNN, MSNBC, and others to ignore or play down this story, but FOX News? Bill O'Reilly? Ingraham? Hannity? Even Rush Limbaugh glossed over this story today, treating it as a humorous piece instead of a hard news story.
Democrats would've added this story to the many deserved and undeserved images of GWB as dunce and Wolf Blitzer would've done a ten minute piece on it. Heck, David Shuster did a four minute segment last night on George Bush using the word "authoritarian" when "authoritative" was logically called for.
John McCain time and time again repudiated Republicans who went after Obama in the way the Democrats went after him. McCain lost. The only chance for a GOP comeback is to fight as nastily as the Democrats have fought and nastier if possible. A big if.
With EFCA, amnesty and the Rahm Emanuel Census Bureau coming down the pike, the GOP better take the gloves off or be prepared for permanent minority status. That wouldn't be good for anyone, including the Democrats.
The GOP thinking it is above a street fight will relegate the party to history. Wake up.
Neither a Hedgehog Nor a Fox By PEGGY NOONAN
Peggy Noonan is beginning to hit the spot. Her observations on the teleprompter are accurate. More and more Obama is becoming a marionette and the teleprompter are the strings in a 21st Century electronic sort of way insofar as Obama responds to the dictates of his teleprompter in the same way a puppet responds to the strings. The distinction though is whether like Hal, the teleprompter gets a life of its own and Obama simply becomes the ventriloquists doll.
He is willowy when people yearn for solid, reed-like where they hope for substantial, a bright older brother when they want Papa, cool where they probably prefer warmth. All of which may or may not hurt Barack Obama in time. Lincoln was rawboned, prone to the blues and freakishly tall, with a new-grown beard that refused to become an assertion and remained, for four years, a mere and constant follicular attempt. And he did OK.
Such impressions--coolness, slightness--can come to matter only if they capture or express some larger or more meaningful truth. At the moment they connect, for me, to something insubstantial and weightless in the administration's economic pronouncements and policies. The president seems everywhere and nowhere, not fully focused on the matters at hand. He's trying to keep up with the news cycle with less and less to say. "I am angry" about AIG's bonuses. The administration seems buffeted, ad hoc. Policy seems makeshift, provisional. James K. Galbraith captures some of this in The Washington Monthly: "The president has an economic program. But there is, so far, no clear statement of the thinking behind the program."
This in part is why the teleprompter trope is taking off. Mr. Obama uses it more than previous presidents. No one would care about this or much notice it as long as he showed competence, and the promise of success. Reagan, if memory serves, once took his cards out of his suit and began to read them at a welcoming ceremony, only to realize a minute or so in that they were last week's cards from last week's ceremony. He caught himself and made a joke of it. One was reminded of this the other day when Mr. Obama's speech got mixed up with the Irish prime minister's. Things happen. But the teleprompter trope has taken off: Why does he always have to depend on that thing?
#4
If you remember, the moonbats with more acute and severe cases of BDS saw a lump under W's jacket once and went berserk, saying that he was secretly being fed speech info and answers through some nefarious receiving device. Never proven, of course, and W certainly didn't seem to be benefitng from this in terms of expression and elocution.
BHO is having done the very same thing (having info spoon fed), IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, and nary a peep from the same crowd.
More hypocrisy, from the crowd that does it best.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/20/2009 6:50 Comments ||
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#5
No surprises here. Barry has no leadership ability, he's an empty suit who couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery.
Posted by: ed ||
03/20/2009 8:21 Comments ||
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#9
Please, please, someone load the lyrics to "I Am The Walrus" into Barack Obama's teleprompter. Sure, you'll get fired, but think of the book deal! The guest appearances on O'Reilly and Inside Edition! The ensuing hilarity!
Posted by: Mike ||
03/20/2009 8:31 Comments ||
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#10
Not too long ago Ms. Noonan thought Barack Obama was the universe's best answer to the travesty of the George W. Bush presidency. What is she hearing at the Washington dinner parties to which she is invited to be clever and entertaining, that she has turned so against her godling now?
#11
TW that may be the most telling question I've heard this week.
I have virtually no respect for Noonan, Brooks, Buckley and the other Upper West Side conservatives. They apparently jumped on the Obamawagon to impress their elitist neighbors. This questioning may indicate a deeper problem for Zero in the perception of the elites.
#12
It seems that whenever he speaks in public without a teleprompter, he becomes highly gaffe-prone. Just two examples: the Nancy Reagan "seance" comment and more recently, the Special Olympics bowling comment on Leno last night. God only knows what he says behind closed doors when the camera's aren't rolling and the mics aren't recording.
#14
TW. That's why I like to read her and see where she and other like minded souls are saying and thinking. 46% of the population voted against Obama so they were proven correct in their outlook. Probably a similar number would vote for him whatever happens because they remain totally uninformed. So it is the 8 - 10% so-called swing votes who will eventually make all the difference.
Are these independents saying things like "lets give him a little more time" or are they saying "I was totally conned and wish I never voted for him"? Commentators like Peggy who like to think they have a following and what to be considered reasonable and "elite" pick up on these sentiments and reflect them in their writings. She has picked up on the teleprompter and in time that is going to be a Saturday night live standard. It will be as powerful and the jokes concerning GW's jumbled language regardless of the merits.
They also want to appear to be ahead of the curve in terms of thinking so I suspect that with the next polls they want to be able to say "I told you so". I am sure they would also love to pull back some of their more fawning articles. Fact is 46% of the population are already saying "I told you so" and they were right.
#18
EU, nah, Obammmy wouldn't say that. Behind closed doors he doesn't say nothing at all. They pull the plug on the fan that keeps that empty suit blowed up and the real players like Emmanuel and Michele get together to load of the teleprompter with the next load of shiite.
#19
Peegy Noonan tries to portray herself as some sort of sensitive barometer of the population. She dresses it up in niceties, doing her best TW impersonation (cheap theatrics compared to the real thing). But in the end, she says little of real consequence. I think Cheney should have said exactly what he said. That is why I've always respected Cheney, because he pulls no punches and gets directly to the heart of the matter (Bolton is another one). It is not hard or a risky position at this point to say O is an empty suit or is not focused. It becomes more plain to see every day. So, no, I am not impressed with Peggy or her blather.
#20
Tea and banana bread with dried cranberries and chocolate chips for everyone, 'cause you're all so sweet! Omoter Speaking for Boskone7794, you raise a very good point in post #14; I shall try to keep in mind that she speaks the mind of an important constituency, who clearly share that one brain between them.
Dear remoteman, I don't write nearly as well as Ms. Noonan does, although I pride myself that I do at least think my own thoughts.
#21
The October surprise the Dems brought about was in the works for years.
Tubing the economy is something Obama the Deconstructionist is counting on.
Deconstruct the economy, shake and destroy the moorings, then rebuild according to the new plan--Obama's (read Ayers, Emmanuel, Soros) plan, and you got some real "change."
And this has to continue until there is similar "change" in:
the military
private industry
food sourcing
health care
education
The "lightness" being talked about, is nothing more than unaccountability, and a willingness to let the wizards behind the scenes control the outcome--as long as it's in line with Obama's Alinsky-esque vision.
He's trying to run America like Suharto ran Indonesia--and guess what--the dictator "President" Suharto, was Obama's example of "leadership" and what it means to be president of a country back when Obama was growing up--during his formative years. The similarities are striking.
That's also why he gets so pissed at criticism--how dare the people criticize him. He probably thinks he's being nice not to do anything like create his own civilian police corps or something.
" I don't care about HIM, about anybody in Pakistan. There is no one person I would call right now...Everybody I care about is dead." These were the words of an extremely bitter Sanam Bhutto on Sunday afternoon.
I was shocked so I repeated once again how bad the political situation under controversial president Asif Ali Zardari is. I briefly told her the trouble is escalating by the minute and may turn into bloodshed. This didn't change the uncaring manner of Sanam Bhutto. She simply reiterated that the only people she would care to help are dead.
Sanam is the assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's sister. Her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, two brothers and eldest sister Benazir have all been killed. She lives in London with her children, after an abusive marriage; according to her
("I married him because I wanted to escape life in Pakistan. It has become a nightmare: life with him, separation from him").
Benazir had introduced me to her younger sister Sanam in New York. We reconnected after Benazir was murdered. I told Asif, who was running the election campaign in her place that I wanted to see Sanam.
Although Sanam told me later on, that "I don't have any relationship with HIM. I don't even have his private phone..." - Sanam's emotional first ever TV interview with me, mourning Benazir and the rest of her legendary family, revived the emotion right after Benazir's assassination on December 27, 2007.
I chose to air it and print it worldwide just because Pakistanís elections which were postponed by the then president Pervez Musharraf because of Benazir's assassination.
Asif who has been one of the most reviled politicians in Pakistan, nicknamed "Mr. 10 per cent" and was relying on the support of his assassinated wifeís memory. He was scared that this emotional support would be less overwhelming in the postponed elections that Musharraf had smartly initiated.
My worldwide interview with Sanam was part of my "spin" to correct that and help my friend's widower who told me he believed in democracy and the freedom of the press and wished to be elected and continue what Benazir had hoped to achieve by returning to Pakistan.
Musharraf acknowledged the importance of Sanam Bhutto's interview as a major factor in Asif's victory in the elections of February 2008, when we met recently in London. Many others did too. However, Sanam Bhutto has not been treated like a political asset to say the least. She told me that she was struggling financially and, "my brother-in-law is doing nothing to help me.î She added that ì Benazir helped me with my children's education."
In fact, when she went for a beauty treatment, she used to go with Benazir, she was so nervous when they asked for her credit card. When I took the trembling Sanam to dinner afterwards, she told me: "Daphne, I was so nervous when they asked for my credit card. I thought it will not go through. I was scared, I would have to ask you to loan me money immediately..."
Sanam made an appearance at Benazir's birthday in Pakistan, and the swearing-in ceremony of Asif Ali Zardari as president. She had showed up with Bilawal and Benazir's two daughters. But behind all that she was forced to remain distant from Benazir's kids.
She had been a very involved aunt, almost a mother figure up until then. I have witnessed her close relationship with Bilawal after Benazir's death. That is why I almost hit the roof when Bilawal emailed me in April 2008 saying that, "I hardly see Sanam any more..."
Sanam who rarely talks about politics lost it after an emotional dinner with Bilawal, myself and my producer Erbil. On our way back from dinner, Sanam's anger came out: "I will never forgive HIM. Why is he taking over the party? Let democracy happen.
Let the people in the PPP decide who will be the leader. He always criticised my sister that she did not have the right people around her, that she does not know... that he knows better... She was working so hard. He always criticised her... She wanted so much to spend time with him. He always preferred to spend time with his friends. And she tried so much to please him... So now, let us see what he can do. Whether he can do any better..."
I chose not to use angry words which were repeated more than on one occasion. I wasn't sure if Sanam wanted her real opinion and pain to surface. But her blunt statement, earlier today, spoke volumes.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/20/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Almost the way I feel: The only people I care about in Pakistan are not dead yet.
You know something big and spooky is cooking when the three top intelligence honchos in the United States visit India much before any cabinet official in the new administration.
The visit this week to New Delhi of Leon Panetta, the Obama administration's new CIA Director, marks a significant uptick in cooperation between US and India aimed at containing a collapsing Pakistan, with its dangerous mix of exporting terrorism and nuclear proliferation, according to sources.
The two sides are also discussing India's role in Afghanistan, where the Obama administration is struggling to find the right balance between a military surge and a civilian swell to be detailed in the Af-Pak policy review due shortly.
Panetta's visit to New Delhi was his first to a foreign country, and it followed trips to the region by the FBI Director Robert Mueller earlier this month and National Intelligence Director John Michel McConnell in December.
In each case, the interlocutors have also visited Islamabad, amid a growing concern in Washington about what officials and analysts now regard as the ''most dangerous country in the world.'' Some experts have suggested US should be looking at Pak-Af policy rather than Af-Pak, since Pakistan is seen to be more dangerous to the US and the rest of the world.
The Mumbai attacks, the Pakistani agencies' role in it, the failure of the military establishment in Pakistan to cap terrorism, and fears similar attacks in the west, has driven US agencies to engage intensely with its Indian counterparts RAW and IB. The Indian experience in Afghanistan is also of great interest to Washington.
So great is the worry in Washington about Pakistan, and so intent is the Obama administration in seeking India's help to contain the fallout from what one analyst called its ''toxic asset,'' that it has called up from retirement a senior diplomat and a former intelligence analyst familiar with the region to serve in New Delhi as a stand-in envoy till the formal appointment of an ambassador.
Peter Burleigh accompanied Leon Panetta to New Delhi with good reason. As a young officer posted in New Delhi in 1973-1975, he was widely seen in the Indian establishment at that time (particularly by the Left) as a CIA agent, at a time when Indian fears about the infamous ''foreign hand'' was at its peak.
He subsequently returned to the region to Sri Lanka as an ambassador and later served as the US representative at U.N before his retirement in late 1990s. Most recently, he has served as a distinguished professor in residence at the University of Miami. Sources in Washington confirmed Burleigh's intelligence background.
Burleigh, who is now 67, has been tipped for ambassadorial postings since his retirement (once to the Philippines) but he has powerful opponents in the Senate who are said to block his nomination.
Consequently, the Obama administration has now sent him to New Delhi to head the US mission there as a stop-gap measure pending the selection of a new ambassador to India, following the return of David Mulford. The process of selecting a new envoy could take several months because of the exhaustive vetting process.
Appointing Burleigh as the Charge d'Affairs through executive orders circumvents the nomination process. "I don't think the administration wants to rush through anything on the India envoy front considering the number of recent screw-ups," a former administration official who discussed the Burleigh appointment on background said.
Other sources in Washington said Burleigh was a ''known entity'' who was required in New Delhi at a very critical time in the region. He is said to speak Hindi/Urdu, Bengali, Sinhalese, and Nepali and coordinate with other US missions in a region full of unstable countries surrounding India. They did not think his intelligence background in the 1970s was a problem now when the two sides are essentially ''on the same side.''
India evidently lost much of its suspicion and distaste for the CIA in the early 1990s with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet Union. The US too sees India now as a stabilizing power in a very troubled neighborhood where not just Pakistan, but also Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka are all unstable.
In 1993, the Clinton administration appointed as ambassador to India Frank Wisner, whose father Frank Wisner Sr was one of the founding members of the OSS, which evolved into the CIA.
Since then, several former CIA analysts have served on the political and diplomatic side of the India beat, both in Washington and New Delhi, reclaiming some of the agency's lost credibility in Indian eyes. Most famously, Bruce Riedel a former CIA analyst who is now entrusted with the Af-Pak review, made a call that held Pakistan responsible for the Kargil episode.
In January 2002, then home minister L.K.Advani visited the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a milestone that resulted in more open and intense cooperation between the two sides and the formal burial of the dreaded ''foreign hand,'' notwithstanding the residual fears among the Indian Left.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/20/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
''most dangerous country in the world.'' i would also put Iran and Somalia up there!!!
#2
Paul2,
Pakistan has nukes. Neither of the other do - yet. Somalia isn't dangerous, just a lawless place where dangerous people can congregate and do things they can't do anywhere else. Iran is dangerous - both from a political perspective and from a terrorist perspective. However, it tries its best to conceal its hand. If there's been any attempt by Pakistan to conceal its operations in Kashmir, Bangladesh, or India, they've done a remarkably inept job of it. Pakistan harbors terrorists and terrorist groups, openly supports and assists them, and is willing to go to any extreme to keep up their hatred against India. The sooner Pakistan disappears from the world maps, the better.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/20/2009 17:45 Comments ||
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A leading peace-making expert called on parties involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict to focus their efforts on a long ceasefire between Hamas and Israel and abandon the idea of a two-state solution, which has come to a dead end for the present time, according to him.
Nathan J. Brown, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Gulf News that he sees no point in keeping the offer of the two-state solution open because such a proposal is not feasible based on the current level of enmity and mistrust between the two parties, especially after the Israeli war on Gaza in December last year.
He said the situation might get even worse unless the United States and other actors in the political scene of the conflict come up with a realistic proposal to resolve it.
The Washington, DC-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a private non-profit organisation, which amongst other objectives, works to promote active international engagement by the United States.
In a telephone interview, Brown told Gulf News the problem does not lie with the solution itself, but it is rather the realities on the ground and the collapse of the diplomatic process because of what he believes is the ignorance of such realities. Brown is the author of a comprehensive study about the horizon of peace in the Middle East titled Palestine and Israel: Time for Plan B, published this month by the institute.
He said leaders of both parties -Israel and Palestine, either do not have the will, are not able - or both, to entice their societies toward the necessary compromises that peace entails.
"In addition to the previous reason, mutual mistrust, political disarray and deliberate actions to impose realities have made the two-state solution impossible. The failure of the former US administration to fulfil its two-state promise has added to the complications of the crisis and resulted in the collapse of the two-state solution for a long time to come."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/20/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
OSAMA BIN LADEN = AL-QAEDA must agree on the demise of the Two-State solut since he repor has ordered Burqua Boyz to attack and destabilize JORDAN + SOMALIA, and infers same agz ISRAEL vee GAZA-PA.
#4
Message to Israel: stop trying to make concession to achieve peace with people who still teach their kids that Jews are subhuman and that Israel's existence should be terminated. Highlight constantly that this aspect of their culture must change and make their lives unlivable until they change it or leave.
#7
Gee, what an incredibly content free article. Give the boy a job in the State Dept.
Posted by: ed ||
03/20/2009 8:25 Comments ||
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#8
That settles it then. A one-state solution it will be, with the Paleos moving out of Israel, including the West Bank. Go to Muslim lands and leave Israel in peace.
#1
Soros: I advocate separating the existing assets of the banks and leaving the existing capital to be responsible to suffer first loss, if the value of the assets decline, and put new capital into the future business of the bank. So separate past businesses from future businesses, and create a clean bank within the bank, which is not weighed down by these toxic assets that are losing value.
Soros is right, although he doesn't explain it very well.
Buying toxic assets is a huge mistake. It's just socializing loses and letting shareholders off the hook for the loses.
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.
A leading peace-making expert called on parties involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict to focus their efforts on a long ceasefire between Hamas and Israel and abandon the idea of a two-state solution, which has come to a dead end for the present time, according to him.
