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Retired Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, said that "events in Afghanistan are reaching a critical juncture, and European politics and perceptions, as well as U.S. commitments in Iraq may prevent NATO from getting the assets necessary to ensure victory."digg this! Read the rest of this post...
"A military failure in Afghanistan would be catastrophic for the alliance," Ralston said.
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“These actions are at most the reflection of political backgrounds and wills and sometimes the reflection of dogmatic, perverted backgrounds and wills,” Mr. Maliki said at a news conference. “The crisis is political and they who can stop the cycle of aggravation and bloodletting of innocents are the politicians.”Politics are to blame. But, it was George Bush's politics of lies and deceit that started this war in the first place. There is plenty of blame to go around in Iraq. But, the initial blame begins with the man who started this war and never had a plan to finish it: George W. Bush.
Mr. Maliki’s comments were an acknowledgment of the political nature of the war here and they placed responsibility for achieving any sort of peace on the shoulders of Iraq’s politicians. The civil strife is generally driven by Sunni and Shiite militias vying for dominance and has spiraled into a pattern of revenge killings and sectarian cleansing of neighborhoods.
When he ran against Ted Kennedy for the Senate in 1994, Romney wrote a letter to the Massachusetts Log Cabin Club, pledging that as "we seek to establish full equality for American gay and lesbian citizens, I will provide more effective leadership than my opponent." During that same campaign, Romney was accused of once describing gay people as "perverse." In response, Romney's campaign vehemently denied that he used the word "perverse" and said that he respected "all people regardless of their race, creed, or sexual orientation."So, Romney was a big gay-lover just until the last two years when he decided he needed the religious right gay-haters in order to become president. Typical, pathetic Republican. They are a party that no longer believes in anything. Their politicians will do anything, so anything, in order to win your vote. The only thing they won't do is actually vote their conscience. Everything is calculated, and everything is a lie.
While running for governor in 2002, Romney and his running mate, Kerry Healey, distributed pink fliers at a Gay Pride parade, declaring "Mitt and Kerry wish you a great Pride weekend." He backed domestic partner benefits for public employees, winning the endorsement of the national Log Cabin Republicans. In his inaugural speech, he promised to defend civil rights "regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or race."
As governor, he appointed openly gay and lesbian people to high-profile administration positions. He doubled the budget line item for the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, until he tried to disband it last May -- more political theater for the Republican right.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R), TEXAS: Well, it is. And it shows that criminal enterprises in Iraq of all stripes, whether it's smuggling oil or kidnappings and extorting ransom or other criminal activities are what are financing the insurgency.
That's why I believe we have to go big, in the terms of the Pentagon. We have to surge additional force there so that we cannot only clear areas in Baghdad but we can actually hold them.
BLITZER: How big do you want to go?
How many additional -- beyond the 145,000 U.S. troops already on the ground, how many more do you want to deploy?
CORNYN: Well, I would take the advice of our generals on the ground. But I think we're talking about 20 to 50,000 additional troops to embed them with the Iraqis, so that when we clear areas, we can actually secure them.
Then we need to disarm the militias. We need to arrest al-Sadr and make sure the government has a monopoly on the use of legal force.
BLITZER: All right, let me bring Senator Reed in. What do you think -- another 20,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops to deploy, to deal with the current crisis?
SEN. JACK REED (D), RHODE ISLAND: Well, I think 20,000 extra troops would probably not be decisive in terms of changing the political dynamic and the security dynamic in Iraq.
And indeed, we'd have a very difficult time sustaining an additional 20,000 troops over, say, a year or more. A third of our brigades in the United States are reporting nondeployable because of personnel and equipment shortages.
So the prospect of a magic bullet with just more troops, I don't think is there. In fact, General Abizaid indicated in his testimony that he would not recommend additional troops.
Although it took over responsibility for the whole country just a few weeks ago, Nato's mission remains at least 15 per cent undermanned, with a significant shortage of combat troops and a desperate lack of helicopters. A succession of Nato meetings has failed to secure reinforcements, and all the indications are that the alliance's Riga summit, presented as one of the most crucial in its post-Cold War history, will not be any more successful.
ABC's "This Week" - Jordan's King Abdullah II; Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; supermodel Maggie Rizer.Everyone's waiting for the report from the Iraq Study Group -- because no one has any faith that Bush/Cheney/Rice can do anything right in Iraq. Really seems like Bush and Cheney are trying to prove their relevance with their respective Mid-east visits this week. But, every step they take only reinforces their incompetence. Can any of the Repubs. defend Bush's Iraq policy anymore? The GOP owns that policy. They enabled it.
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CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens.-elect Bob Corker, R-Tenn., Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.
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NBC's "Meet the Press" - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and Ike Skelton, D-Mo., retired Gens. Wayne Downing and Barry McCaffrey.
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CNN's "Late Edition" - Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Jack Reed, D-R.I.; Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie; former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski; Maryland Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele; Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.
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"Fox News Sunday" - Reps. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., Barney Frank, D-Mass., and John Dingell, D-Mich.; Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.; Joseph E. Robert Jr., chairman of Fight for Children.
The report, obtained by The New York Times, estimates that groups responsible for many insurgent and terrorist attacks are raising $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities. It says $25 million to $100 million of that comes from oil smuggling and other criminal activity involving the state-owned oil industry, aided by corrupt and complicit” Iraqi officials.So I'm guessing that many on the right will now use this as a new chance to flog the anti-France sentiment again but we already know that our own accountants have identified an $800M gap in the books and we know that US taxpayer money, weapons and equipment goes in the front door and out the back door to help crooked individuals as well as the insurgents. How is it even possible to be in this war for so long and yet know so little? Who in the hell is putting blinders on? It's no wonder the war is going so poorly when the US leadership knows so little.
As much as $36 million a year comes from ransoms paid for hundreds of kidnap victims, the report says. It estimates that unnamed foreign governments Ã?— previously identified by American officials as including France and Italy Ã?— paid $30 million in ransom last year.
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