critical allies?

more like a puppet on his lap (or is that dick in a box?-which by the way IS wickedly funny if you've not seen it)
this f**ker is OUT OF CONTROL
U.S. Is Likely to Continue Aid to Pakistan
By DAVID E. SANGER and DAVID ROHDE
WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 — The Bush administration signaled Sunday that it would probably keep billions of dollars flowing to Pakistan’s military, despite the detention of human rights advocates and leaders of the political opposition by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the country’s president. In carefully calibrated public statements and blunter private acknowledgments about the limits of American leverage over General Musharraf, the man President Bush has called one of his most critical allies, the officials argued that it would be counterproductive to let Pakistan’s political turmoil interfere with their best hope of ousting Al Qaeda’s central leadership and the Taliban from the country’s mountainous tribal areas.
Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that ...........

Musharraf Leaves White House in Lurch
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 — For more than five months the United States has been trying to orchestrate a political transition in Pakistan that would manage to somehow keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power without making a mockery of President Bush’s promotion of democracy in the Muslim world. On Saturday, those carefully laid plans fell apart spectacularly. Now the White House is stuck in wait-and-see mode, with limited options and a lack of clarity about the way forward.
General Musharraf’s move to seize emergency powers and abandon the Constitution left Bush administration officials close to their nightmare: an American-backed military dictator who is risking civil instability in a country with nuclear weapons and an increasingly alienated public. .................

and only just yesterday

several papers printed all the PROGRESS we've made in iraq. bullshite. YOU and I KNOW it. how people and there ARE some (like bill kristol par example) can sit there or stand there and claim we are making good progress (don't forget the dude, senator i believe, who said the baghdad market is JUST like being in idaho or iowa or ohio or wherever. that was one of my favorites) is beyond freedom and dignity. let's collectively WAKE UP and DEMAND JUSTICE. prosecute and hold accountable those who have committed crimes against humanity (AND the american people)

Report Finds Little Progress On Iraq Goals
GAO Draft at Odds With White House


By Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writers

Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.
The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.......
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