U.S. says be my friend or else.

[clambake]

Armitage threatens Musharuf to side with us.

Reporter asks Musharuf about the threats and Bush won't allow him to answer.

Bush claims to know nothing about a threat and throws Colin Powell under the bus again.

Our President and his administration have solidfied the punch line and we are now, officially, a joke.

[Yonivore]

Armitage threatens Musharuf to side with us.
Armitage denies.


Reporter asks Musharuf about the threats and Bush won't allow him to answer.
Musharraf says it's Simon and Schuster that won't let him answer. Salient quotes sell books.


Bush claims to know nothing about a threat and throws Colin Powell under the bus again.
Bush says that the atmosphere immediately after 9/11 caused the U.S. to make very direct overtures to a number of countries with respect to our intentions. He was surprised by the claim that those specific words were used but he didn't dodge on the issue that the U.S. was very direct with Pakistan about what we were intending to do in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- with our without their assistance.

Frankly, I doubt the quote is accurate but the sentiment may be true, particularly when you consider the time this took place. We weren't fucking around diplomatically.


Our President and his administration have solidfied the punch line and we are now, officially, a joke.
Pakistan cooperated...and, Pakistan continues to cooperate.

[boutons_]

He said news reports had mischaracterized the deals. ''The deal is not at all with the Taliban. This deal is against the Taliban. This deal is with the tribal elders,'' Musharraf said.

from the AP report:

==============

Said Bush: ''I believe him.''


He said that Musharraf had looked him in the eye and vowed that ''the tribal deal is intended to reject the Talibanization of the people and that there won't be a Taliban and there won't be al-Aqaida (in Pakistan).''

( :lol :lol :lol dubya is such a judge of men. He also looked Putin and Brownie in the eye and knew they were good men! :lol :lol :lol )


===========

GMAFB. Pakistan is abandoning even the pretense of controlling their own territories in the tribal lands, and have no fucking way of keeping out the Taliban or al Quaida.

UN-democratic Pakistan is harboring terrorists attacking US military in Afghanistan. Any reasonably sane person admits in dubya's "you're either with us or agin us" line-drawing that Pakistan is effectively anti-American and pro-terrorist, as well as prolliferating nuclear secrets all over the planet, but ...

dubya says: "I believe him.''

http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif

dubya is fucking moron and fool.

[clambake]

Armitage has a collusive connection to this administration. (can't be trusted to tell the truth)

Bush would not allow Musharraf to answer that question. (without doubt that was made clear before they addressed the press)

Bush said that Powell said " Pakistan understands the stakes that are involved". (requires ability to read between the lines) never his understanding, always someone else's.

[Nbadan]

Even worse for Powell, this article and Armitage's connection to the Plame case, just confirm that Armitage was in the State Dept. mainly to keep any eye on his activities.

[clambake]

It wouldn't surprise me. They certainly had it in for Powell. The regret that man must feel.

[Nbadan]

It wouldn't surprise me. They certainly had it in for Powell. The regret that man must feel.

The moderately sane had to be eliminated. After his speech at the U.N. when Tenet sat behind him and watched Powell blatantly lie, that must of been it for Powell.

[clambake]

It makes me wonder if Powell's reflection on all this has him thinking "If only I had another chance to make things different".

He can achieve his redemption with very little effort. ( just my opinion)

I would definetely give him another shoot. I hope he doesn't just drop out altogether.

[clambake]

I mean shot, sorry.

[Zunni]

Is anyone surprised? This administration has made a living out of condescension, threats and intimidation, both foreign and domestic.

[PixelPusher]

Armitage? Sounds more like something Dick Cheney would say.

[Nbadan]

Get a load of this article from ATimes Online (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FD08Aa01.html) and note the date..

Apr 8, 2004
9-11 AND THE SMOKING GUN
Part 2: A real smoking gun
By Pepe Escobar
Part 1: 'Independent' commission

I
f the 9-11 Commission is really looking for a smoking gun, it should look no further than at Lieutenant-General Mahmoud Ahmad, the director of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) at the time. In early October 2001, Indian intelligence learned that Mahmoud had ordered flamboyant Saeed Sheikh - the convicted mastermind of the kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl - to wire US$100,000 from Dubai to one of hijacker Mohamed Atta's two bank accounts in Florida.

A juicy direct connection was also established between Mahmoud and Republican Congressman Porter Gross and Democratic Senator Bob Graham. They were all in Washington together discussing Osama bin Laden over breakfast when the attacks of September 11, 2001, happened.

Mahmoud's involvement in September 11 might be dismissed as only Indian propaganda. But Indian intelligence swears by it, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has confirmed the whole story: Indian intelligence even supplied Saeed's cellular-phone numbers. Nobody has bothered to check what really happened. The 9-11 Commission should pose very specific questions about it to FBI director Robert Mueller when he testifies this month.

In December 2002, Graham said he was "surprised at the evidence that there were foreign governments involved in facilitating the activities of at least some of the terrorists in the United States ... It will become public at some point when it's turned over to the archives, but that's 20 or 30 years from now." He could not but be referring to Pakistan and Mahmoud. If Mahmoud was really involved in September 11, this means the Pakistani ISI -"the state within the state" - knew all about it. And if the intelligence elite in Pakistan knew it, an intelligence elite in Saudi Arabia knew it, as well as an intelligence elite in the US.

Get Osama bin Laden

On August 22, 2001, Asia Times Online reported Get Osama! Now! Or else ...

On September 9, the legendary "Lion of the Panjshir", Ahmed Shah Masoud, the key Northern Alliance commander, was assassinated by two suicide bombers posing as journalists in his base in northern Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance tells Washington that the ISI may be involved. Masoud himself had told this correspondent, two weeks before he was killed, of the incestuous link between bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the ISI. A 2002 Asia Times Online investigation would later establish that Masoud was killed as a gift from al-Qaeda to the Taliban, with heavy involvement by Abdul Sayyaf, an Afghan mujahideen commander very close to the ISI and the Saudis. From Washington's perspective, this was also a gift. Masoud was the crucial Afghan nationalist leader, supported by Russia and Iran; after the Taliban being smashed he would never have accepted a feeble, US-sponsored, Hamid Karzai-style government.

On September 10, the Pakistani daily The News reported that the Mahmoud visit to the United States "triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council". If he'd been to the National Security Council, he had certainly met Rice. Mahmoud did meet with his counterpart, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet. Tenet and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had been in Islamabad in May, when Tenet had "unusually long" meetings with Musharraf. Armitage for his part has countless friends in the Pakistani military and the ISI. Mahmoud also met a number of high officials at the White House and the Pentagon and had a crucial meeting with Marc Grossman, the under secretary of state for political affairs. Rice maintains she did not meet Mahmoud then.

On the morning of September 11, Mahmoud was having a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with Graham and Goss. Goss spent as many as 10 years working on numerous CIA clandestine operations. He is very close to Vice President Dick Cheney. It's interesting to note that two weeks ago Goss suggested to the Justice Department to bring perjury charges against the new Cheney nemesis, Clarke. As it is widely known, Graham and Goss were co-heads of the joint House-Senate investigation that proclaimed there was "no smoking gun" as far as President George W Bush having any advance knowledge of September 11.

According to the Washington Post, and also to sources in Islamabad, the Mahmoud-Graham-Goss meeting lasted until the second plane hit Tower 2 of the World Trade Center. Graham later said they were talking about terrorism coming from Afghanistan, which means they were talking about bin Laden.

Pakistani intelligence sources told Asia Times Online that on the afternoon of September 11 itself, as well as on September 12 and 13, Armitage met with Mahmoud with a stark choice: either Pakistan would help the US against al-Qaeda, or it would be bombed back to the Stone Age. Secretary of State Colin Powell presented an ultimatum in the form of seven US demands. Pakistan accepted all of them.

One of the demands was for Musharraf to send Mahmoud to Kandahar again and force the Taliban to extradite bin Laden. Mahmoud knew in advance Mullah Omar would refuse. But when he went to Kandahar the Taliban leader said he would accept, as long as the Americans proved bin Laden was responsible for September 11. There was no proof, and Afghanistan was bombed anyway, a policy already decided well in advance.

[Yonivore]

Get a load of this article from ATimes Online (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FD08Aa01.html) and note the date.
Date noted. What's the point?

[ChumpDumper]

I'm not sure about the exact quotes, but I can certainly see something like this being said after 9/11. It's not like they would be bombing Islamabad back to the stone age, but the border regions where the terrorists hang out.

[boutons_]

"9-11 Commission is really looking for a smoking gun"

I'm sure the entire secret agreement between the reluctant, foot-dragging, stone-walling, slow-reacting, executive privilege-abusing WH and the commission, if the WH were to co-operate at all, was that the commission was explicitly NOT to look for a smoking gun, nor place any blame (unless of course if all blame were on Clinton).

The WH knew a lot of people were ready and willing to blame the WH for 9/11, since the WH was on duty and soley responsible for NatSec when 9/11 happened.

So the WH's strategy has been that 9/11 was totally unforseable, and then incongruently that legal barriers prevented WH's branch from doing its job of forseeing the unforeseeable, and to the extent any blame were to be placed, it would be 100% on Clinton as soft on NatSec.

Armitage very probably threatened Pakistan. A threat would have been perfectly consisent with dubya's with-us/agin-us tone.

Now that the Mushareff has essentially let the tribal border regions secede from Pakistan, those border regions are fair game for the US as non-ally-Pakistan.

If the US weren't tied down in Iraq, I'd like to see a huge campaign, air and foot, into those regions, assuming a continued strong US presence (rather than abandonment) had really "cleared and held" Afghanistan from the Taleban/al-Qaida (not the case, obviously. Again, due to dubya fucking up in Iraq).

[boutons_]

http://www.uclick.com/feature/06/09/25/tt060925.gif

[johnsmith]

Oh good, Boutons has found a website that posts lots of political cartoons..........Oh, nope, just noticed, it's the Washington Post, the number one site for Boutons to shape his own "opinions".

[clambake]

C'mon Johnsmith, boutons does make valid, quality statements. He just harbours much hate for this administration, or he's actually on fire when he's typing. Starting a phony war while using lies to garner support, killing our young men and women, killing innocent Iraqis and spending trillions of dollars and turning the world against us just happens to rank in the top 10 of "Things a scumbag would do".

[Zunni]

That cartoon is DEAD on.