Washington will press Islamabad to ‘do more’ against all the militant groups threatening Pakistan, its neighbours and the United States, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday.
Testifying about President Barack Obama’s new strategy for the region, Mrs Clinton told lawmakers that the Pakistanis had shown over the last year their ‘willingness to take on the Pakistani Taliban which directly threaten them.’
She said that public opinion in Pakistan was now behind the recent military campaigns the government had launched against the Taliban in the Swat valley and South Waziristan.
‘The unity of support that the people of Pakistan are showing for this effort is profoundly significant, but, as we have said, it is not enough,’ the chief US diplomat told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
‘It is difficult to parse out the different groups that are operating within Pakistan, all of whom we think are connected in one way or another with Al Qaida, and partition some off and go after the others,’ she said.
‘It will be our continuing effort... to make the case that the Pakistanis have to do more against all of the insurgent terrorist groups that are threatening them, that are threatening us in Afghanistan and the Afghan people and are threatening other neighbours in the region,’ she added.
There is an article from Counterpunch - "The Obama Puppet: The World's Least Powerful Man" - over at The Confluence that says Obama is trying to start a war in Pakistan (all in quotes):
This is a big “ouch” The Obama Puppet, by Paul Craig Roberts at Counterpunch
Essentially, Obama is irrelevant.
President Obama can promise that he is going to bring the troops home, and the military lobby says, “No, you are going to send them to Afghanistan, and in the meantime start a war in Pakistan and maneuver Iran into a position that will provide an excuse for a war there, too. Wars are too profitable for us to let you stop them.”
And the mere president has to say, “Yes, Sir!”
Obama can promise health care to 50 million uninsured Americans, but he can’t override the veto of the war lobby and the insurance lobby. The war lobby says its war profits are more important than health care and that the country can’t afford both the “war on terror” and “socialized medicine.”
The insurance lobby says health care has to be provided by private health insurance; otherwise, we can’t afford it.
The war and insurance lobbies rattled their campaign contribution pocketbooks and quickly convinced Congress and the White House that the real purpose of the health care bill is to save money by cutting Medicare and Medicaid benefits, thereby “getting entitlements under control.”
Entitlements is a right-wing word used to cast aspersion on the few things that the government did, in the distant past, for citizens. Social Security and Medicare, for example, are denigrated as “entitlements.” The right-wing goes on endlessly about Social Security and Medicare as if they were welfare give-aways to shiftless people who refuse to look after themselves, whereas in actual fact citizens are vastly overcharged for the meager benefits with a 15% tax on their wages and salaries.
Well, Pres. Zardari just divested the Prime Minister (Gilani) with the command of nuclear power decisions. Some say he's losing his grip on power.
I think our inexperienced Prsident had better be paying more attention to this.
Two questions:
1. Wonder where they're getting their nuclear weapons?
2. Is it better for us to be there to help monitor said nuclear weapons? I know that they might have an itchy trigger finger where India is concerned, if I remember correctly...
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Barack/Barry: If you're NOT LEGIT, then you MUST QUIT!!