Loosers

Playing at war is really not something this country’s leaders should have been doing. While they’re trying to put lipstick on the pig their war on Iraq has become, the rest of the world is watching it come apart.

From Dallas, an interview with the ambassador from Pakistan plainly shows the totality of the White House’s failure in trying to make war on Iraq when we were attacked by the al Quaeda that is watching, laughing from the sidelines from Afghanistan’s vast wilderness.

Because of deteriorating security in Afghanistan and U.S. distraction with Iraq, the Taliban are making headway in their effort to return to power, posing an even greater threat because of their new alliance with powerful drug lords, Pakistan's top envoy to the U.S. warned Monday.

Ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani, interviewed in Dallas, said the war in Iraq has drawn away U.S. attention and resources to the point that it is harming efforts to restore stability in Afghanistan.

A drain on military and financial resources has helped spur a resurgence of the Taliban, he said, and al-Qaeda, the formerly Afghanistan-based group responsible for the 9/11 attacks, is now stronger than it was because of the war in Iraq.
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On the question of Iran's development of weapons-capable nuclear technology, the ambassador urged the United States and other Western nations to talk with Tehran rather than seek to pressure or isolate it.

"Threats and so on may work, but I don't think they are likely to work. Even if you corner a rat, he will fight back," Mr. Durrani said. He avoided saying whether dialogue would have stopped Pakistan from its own research before it exploded a test nuclear bomb in May 1998.

But he said threats and violence were not the right approach to dissuading a country on the brink of nuclear weapons capability. "What I'm saying," he added, "is if you go and hit [with] a couple of cruise missiles, it's going to get worse."

It’s no wonder that our military leaders are disassociating themselves from this mismanagement. Now it’s time for the civilian leaders to join them. Intensive scrutiny should be forthcoming, starting immediately after incoming representatives take their oaths of office in January.

This is the oath of office that Senators take:
Oath of Office

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Needless to say, the threat to our Constitution is real, and immediate, coming from the head of the government and a slew (or is that spew) of his appointees. I am very much looking forward to a newly sworn group of elected officials actually taking, and keeping their pledge to support the Constitution, and defend it. They have the power to do that, and the voters have just given them a ‘mandate’ they can effectively wield in its defense.

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Since the 911 Commission’s report was left dangling, slowly, slowly twisting in the wind, perhaps we can anticipate the effect that the Baker commission’s recommendations are going to have tomorrow, at 11 a.m. ET when they are scheduled to be released.

‘The Iraq Study Group's long-awaited report on how the U.S. should overhaul its effort in Iraq will be released online on Wednesday.

The recommendations will be posted to the Web sites of four organizations that have been involved in the effort: the U.S. Institute of Peace (www.usip.org ); the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University (www.bakerinstitute.org ); the Center for Strategic and International Studies (www.csis.org ); and the Center for the Study of the Presidency (www.thepresidency.org ).

The report will be posted at 11 a.m. EST, just as the commission begins a news conference on Capitol Hill formally releasing its work. The panel is headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana.

The group's study is seen as the first major bipartisan effort to rethink military and political options in Iraq, where increasing violence has raised questions about the viability of the Iraqi government and U.S. policy.

The group is expected to recommend gradually phasing out the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq from combat to training and supporting Iraqi units, with a goal of pulling back American combat troops by early 2008.

Maybe the Cretin in Chief will give them all a Medal of Freedom to go with the total rejection of any good sense the proposal will confront him with.