KUWAIT CITY (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday the Bush administration explicitly warned former President Jimmy Carter against meeting with members of Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip and which is regarded by the U.S. as a terror group.

Rice, attending a regional meeting on Iraq’s security and future, contradicted Carter’s assertions that he never got a clear signal from the State Department. Rice told reporters that the U.S. thought the visit could confuse the message that the U.S. will not deal with Hamas.

“I just don’t want there to be any confusion,” Rice said. “The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help” further a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Full story Here:
Rice says Carter was warned against meeting with Hamas

Dr. Rice needs to remind Mr. Bush, she needs to think back, if she has the ability to recall, many National Security advisers from DoD, CIA, NSA, as well as members of Congress and the Senate told Bush that Iraq was NOT where we needed to go!!

I’m not defending Carter, not in any way, I think he’s a disgusting old bastard that needs to be shot for his recent actions, but in ALL fairness, Bush was warned too, and HE ignored those warnings…

Pot, meet kettle…

The bookshelf of history is going to be a very crowded place in a few hundred years, you know, that bookshelf where they keep the award for WORST President in U.S. history, Carter and Bush will be side by side…

Remember this:

President Bush held an emergency meeting of his top foreign policy aides yesterday to discuss the deepening crisis in Pakistan, as administration officials and others explored whether Thursday’s assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto marks the beginning of a new Islamic extremist offensive that could spread beyond Pakistan and undermine the U.S. war effort in neighboring Afghanistan.

U.S. officials fear that a renewed campaign by Islamic militants aimed at the Pakistani government, and based along the border with Afghanistan, would complicate U.S. policy in the region by effectively merging the six-year-old war in Afghanistan with Pakistan’s growing turbulence.

“The fates of Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably tied,” said J. Alexander Thier, a former United Nations official in Afghanistan who is now at the U.S. Institute for Peace.

U.S. military officers and other defense experts do not anticipate an immediate impact on U.S. operations in Afghanistan. But they are concerned that continued instability eventually will spill over and intensify the fighting in Afghanistan, which has spiked in recent months as the Taliban has strengthened and expanded its operations.

Unrest in Pakistan and increasing fuel prices have already boosted the cost of food in Afghanistan, making it more likely that hungry Afghans will be lured by payments from the Taliban to participate in attacks, a U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan said.

Full Story Here:
U.S. fears Pakistan spillover

I hate to say ‘I told you so’, but, I told ya so, and so did a few other forward looking sites, Pakistan IS the most volatile place on earth right at this moment and warnings were sounded along about the time Bhutto went back to Pakistan, several mil-bloggers told everyone, this IS going to happen, and it has…

We, the USA, have tried to install a democracy in Iraq, a nation that is a lot more peaceful, for now, but all the Bush Bots need to ask themselves this question, why is it more peaceful, is it all because of the much maligned SURGE or are there other factors to be considered??

And IF they are willing to give an honest answer I think they would conclude that the reason for the lessening of violence in Iraq is because, as I opined recently, the radical Islamic insurgency are heading for Pakistan and Afghanistan, easier pickings so to speak, especially Pakistan, we don’t have a huge military presence there and the Pakistani army is not a force to be reckoned with…

Afghanistan is on the verge of becoming a HOT ZONE all over again, Pakistan is erupting as I write this and yet we are mired in the affairs of Iraq, not exactly where we need to be in MY opinion but that poses another question, what are we going to do IF Bush decides to re-engage the insurgents in Afghanistan as well as continuing to remain engaged with those that remain in Iraq and then address the problems and the certain dangers faced in Pakistan?? You see, for all the BS about WMDs in Iraq, the ones that to this very day have NOT been found, Pakistan DOES have WMDs, and those WMDs, nukes, are a heartbeat away from falling into the hands of Islamic radicals…

Bush supports Karzai in Afghanistan, al-Maliki in Iraq and Musharraf in Pakistan, 2 warlords that rose to power and 1 military leader that took over by means of a military coup, and now the administration is meeting to discuss the deepening crisis in Pakistan, well, I hope that the fate of the USA is much better served by these discussions than it was by the discussions 5 years ago, the ones that caused us to minimize our involvement in Afghanistan and traipse off to Iraq on the Bush Mission of Vengeance…

And then there’s Iran to consider, if Iraq and Afghanistan have our military stretched to the breaking point as has been claimed, what can we do to address the latest imminent threats??

Spillover?? I guess that’s going to become the new ‘catch phrase’ in D.C., spillover, seems to me like BOIL over may be a lot more appropriate…

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Consumers are financing both sides in the war on terror because of the actions of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Sunday.

The former Arkansas governor made the comments following what he suggested was a muted response by the Bush administration to a Saudi court’s sentence of six months in jail and 200 lashes for a woman who was gang raped.

“The United States has been far too involved in sort of looking the other way, not only at the atrocities of human rights and violation of women,” Huckabee said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

“Every time we put our credit card in the gas pump, we’re paying so that the Saudis get rich - filthy, obscenely rich, and that money then ends up going to funding madrassas,” schools “that train the terrorists,” said Huckabee. “America has allowed itself to become enslaved to Saudi oil. It’s absurd. It’s embarrassing.”

Huckabee said “I would make the United States energy independent within 10 years and tell the Saudis they can keep their oil just like they can keep their sand, that we won’t need either one of them.”

Full Story Here:
Huckabee: America Enslaved to Saudi Oil

I am not, nor have I ever been a fan of Mike Huckabee, but I have got to say, he hit this one out of the park, we are making the Saudis richer by the second and in spite of what the Bumbler in Chief says, Saudi Arabia is NOT our friend, not in ANY way, all they want is our money…

A few months ago Bush welcomed the head of Saudi Arabia to his home in Crawford, TX., he hugged him, kissed his cheeks, held his hand, did everything except kiss the SOB on the mouth, it was disgusting, and I pretty much lost what little respect for Bush that I had left, as did several other bloggers, including American & Proud, Basti Says, Long Live the Republic and The Ranando Report just to name a few of the more vocal bloggers…

We were all soundly blasted by the Bush Bot sites because we dared to criticize the Bumbler in Chief, but you know, when you welcome the people that caused 9-11, that supported the attackers of 9-11 and financed the attackers of 9-11 I have to question your sanity, and Bush welcomed the Saudis like long lost brothers and declared them to be our allies, and that my friends is pure bullshit…

Huckabee may not be a good choice as POTUS, I know too little about the man to say anything about him in that regard, good or bad, but on this Saudi oil subject, he just came off looking like a genius…

If you read the full article you’ll understand this too, the U.N. condemns the use of Tasers as being torture, but do they DO anything about Saudi Arabia beating people to death or beheading them??

Let’s talk REAL torture and hypocrisy, U.N. and Saudi hypocrisy, and once again, kudos to Huckabee for this stance…

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 (UPI) — The Bush administration has lowered expectation for quick achievement of some major political goals in Iraq, The New York Times reported.

With military successes overshadowing the political component of the Iraq campaign, the administration has lowered its sights on such issues as passage of an oil revenue-sharing law and the scheduling of regional elections. U.S. officials are instead focusing on what the Times called more limited but achievable goals.

The aim is to convince Iraqis, foreign governments and the American public that progress is being made on the political front. The troop surge that the U.S. military has been conducting throughout 2007 was intended to create conditions for political progress in Iraq.

The new emphasis will be on such matters as passage of an Iraqi budget, renewal of a United Nations mandate authorizing the U.S. presence in Iraq, and enacting legislation permitting the Iraqi government to hire members of former dictator Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. The Iraqis were already expected to pass the budget and have renewed the U.N. mandate on several occasions in the past — and the government has already begun quietly to rehire Baathists, the Times said.

SOURCE:
Report: U.S. lowers Iraq expectations - UPI.com

Well, that’s OK, the Bush administration lowering it’s expectations of quick achievement of some major political goals in Iraq, America lowered it’s expectations of Bush not long after we made the mistake of re-electing him the 2nd go round…

Granted, the choice we were faced with if we didn’t re-elect Bush was less than satisfactory, Americans were in a position of being forced to elect the lesser of 2 evils once again, and again, all we got was evil…And now the Iraqi campaign has been reduced to more limited but achievable goals??

Several bloggers that I know personally have been preaching, for quite some time I might add, Iraq was NOT the place we needed to go and it wasn’t necessary to go in to Iraq like we did, I personally feel that the only reason we did go to Iraq was to satisfy the urges of an impertinent child that felt his only chance at a legacy was to defend his Daddy’s honor by defeating that evil man Saddam, consequences be damned, Bush was going to Iraq to take out Saddam just because he wanted to, and I honestly don’t believe it had ANYTHING to do with Iraqi Freedom or the oil…

The troop surge was intended to create conditions for political progress in Iraq?? Strange, I seem to remember the Bush Bots saying it was being done to achieve that ultimate victory that 30% of the nation believed Bush was going to hand them, but now, we’re still not seeing that ultimate victory, Iraqi politics are more screwed up than ever and the religious divisions are as wide as ever, and we continue to ask our troops to DIE for the Iraqi Freedom mantra the Bush Bots chant as the taxpayers of the USA keep pouring BILLIONS into George and Dick’s Excellent Adventure…

And folks, that VICTORY was in our hands, but the Bush administration didn’t have a clue as to what to do or how to handle it to make it come to fruition…

Our troops did what our troops always do, a wonderful job, simply stunning, but they were only allowed to do so much, when you hog-tie your military and don’t allow them to do the FULL job they were sent to do because YOU want to remain politically correct and don’t want to in any way appear to be the bad guy, well, you can’t achieve VICTORY through half-assed political efforts, and that my friends is WHY we are seeing a lowering of expectations in Iraq, they aren’t capable and we weren’t forceful, plain and simple…

The Bush administration has mismanaged our efforts in Iraq, and whether you believe we needed to go into Iraq or not, there is NO argument that Bush and Company micromanaged Iraq to the point that we have now been in Iraq, fighting in Iraq, for a longer period of time than we were involved in WWII, and for that there is NO excuse…

The only reason Iraq wasn’t a stunning victory is because the United States has a president that has caused us to believe that lower standards isn’t really all that bad, well, he’s convinced 30% of the nation on that, his Bush Bots, but we, as Americans can NEVER again settle for the lesser of 2 evils or lower expectations…

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WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 — Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, secure his country’s nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials.

But with the future of that country’s leadership in doubt, debate is intensifying about whether Washington has done enough to help protect the warheads and laboratories, and whether Pakistan’s reluctance to reveal critical details about its arsenal has undercut the effectiveness of the continuing security effort.

The aid, buried in secret portions of the federal budget, paid for the training of Pakistani personnel in the United States and the construction of a nuclear security training center in Pakistan, a facility that American officials say is nowhere near completion, even though it was supposed to be in operation this year.

While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment, and that they take at face value Pakistani assurances that security is vastly improved, in many cases the Pakistani government has been reluctant to show American officials how or where the gear is actually used.

That is because the Pakistanis do not want to reveal the locations of their weapons or the amount or type of new bomb-grade fuel the country is now producing.

Full Story Here:
U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms

Isn’t it amazing?? Yesterday I posted a story expressing my concern regarding Pakistani nukes and their safety, Musharraf warns on nuke weapons, and voila, the NYT has a piece up late Saturday for their Sunday edition that touts the USA as having spent almost $100 million to help Pervez Musharraf secure the things, and it was a secret too, I guess the secret part just went out the window…

I absolutely love this line, “While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment”, at he moment, so, now I have to ask, how long is a moment?? Does that mean that American officials believe that in another moment the weapons won’t be safe any longer??

A moment, as defined by Dictionary.com: noun 1. an indefinitely short period of time; when we’re talking about the security of nuclear weapons, using the term safe at the moment gives me great concern, and when U.S. officials speak in such ambiguous terms it generally mean they don’t have a clue, I hope that’s not the case this time but it does seem to be the SOP, standard operating procedure, for diplomatic speak…

There are numerous ‘fail-safe’ systems in place within the U.S. nuclear fleet, you’d think that if Pakistan was the ally we are told they are, that some of our systems could be modified to work in the Paki nuke arsenal:

The American program was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration debated whether to share with Pakistan one of the crown jewels of American nuclear protection technology, known as “permissive action links,” or PALS, a system used to keep a weapon from detonating without proper codes and authorizations.

In the end, despite past federal aid to France and Russia on delicate points of nuclear security, the administration decided that it could not share the system with the Pakistanis because of legal restrictions.

Legal restrictions?? We shared the technology with France and Russia but for legal reasons we can’t share it with Pakistan??

Surely we could have masked what would have been even remotely useful or would have allowed others to crack into American nuclear protection codes, or so one would think, but, under the Bush administration and it’s marvelous brand of governmental management, when you have an American President that can’t even pronounce the word nuclear, well, I guess nothing is out of the realm of possibility…

In addition, the Pakistanis were suspicious that any American-made technology in their warheads could include a secret “kill switch,” enabling the Americans to turn off their weapons.

Yeah, God forbid we do anything that might head off a nuclear winter because some hot-head Pakistani dictator might want to launch on, oh, say India for example, and since India is our ally we had a built in ‘kill switch’ and stopped an attack, our bad I guess, how dare we even think of such a thing…

Pakistan, and their nuclear arsenal may be protected by American technology and teachings, I hope so, and I hope that unprotected moment never happens, I am convinced that every radical Islamic terrorist that can get transportation to the area is standing by just waiting for an opportunity to try and obtain a real live working nuclear weapon, I believe that to be a very real scenario and quite likely an operation that is fully in the works as you read this, and if the radical Muslims succeed in this quest, God help us all…

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