Cheney Tells Pakistan to Get Tougher With Terrorist

NYT

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced trip to Pakistan on Monday to deliver what officials in Washington described as an unusually tough message to Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, warning him that the newly Democratic Congress could cut aid to his country unless his forces become far more aggressive in hunting down operatives with Al Qaeda.

   So now Cheney is worried about the congress cutting aid to anyone? This is not going to happen, least of all with Pakistan since they generally do more for the fight against terrorism than most other countries do,which is still very little. The U.S. cut Pakistan a deal to provide them with a boatload of cash back when this mess first started and with some forms of weaponry, so Cheney is just blowing smoke up their asses.

 

Technorati tags: Vice President Cheney, Pakistan, Terrorist, Democratic Congress

 

Bush Still Asleep At The Wheel

   Crossposted from the Huffington Post

Frank Rich: Experts Warn Al Qaeda "To Detonate Nuclear Device" In US, But Bush Punts on Threat

New York Times   |  Posted February 25, 2007

In an op-ed in the New York Times, columnist Frank Rich argues that
over five years after the events of September 11, 2001, President George
W. Bush is still ignoring serious terrorist threats to the United
States. Faced with warnings from terrorism experts and a White House
seemingly more focused on Iraq, Rich begs readers to ask, "Haven't we
been here before?"

Highlights of the Rich column include:

"This is why the entire debate about the Iraq 'surge' is as much a sideshow as Britney's scalp. More troops in Baghdad are irrelevant to what's going down in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ... Who lost Iraq? is but a distraction from the more damning question, Who is losing the war on terrorism?

The record so far suggests that this White House has done so twice."

"The White House doesn't want to hear it now, either. That's why terrorism experts are trying to get its attention by going public, and not just through The Times."

"It is precisely by pouring still more of our finite military and intelligence resources down the drain in Iraq that we are tragically ignoring the lessons of 9/11. Instead of showing resolve, as Bush supposes, his botch of the Iraq war has revealed American weakness."

"What's changed in the few months since his lie is that even more American troops are tied down in Iraq, that even more lethal weapons are being used against them, that even more of the coalition of the unwilling are fleeing, and that even more Americans are tuning out both the administration and the war they voted down in November to savor a referendum that at least offers tangible results, 'American Idol.'"

"Five years after 9/11, the terrorists would seem to have us just where they want us -- asleep -- even as the system is blinking red once again."

The full column is available to Times Select subscribers here.

 

Technorati tags: Frank Rich, United States, White House