Bill Krisol met with Bush before his Iraq speech last week.
I SPENT ABOUT 40 minutes with President Bush in the Oval Office late yesterday afternoon, in a meeting whose purpose was to allow the president to preview the Iraq speech he's giving today. Interesting article, but the endly included this
I mentioned to the president a conversation I'd had with a couple of brigade commanders recently returned from Iraq. This led the president in turn to a discussion (off the record) about his many conversations with soldiers and Marines, and their families.
He commented on the private meeting he had held Tuesday with about a dozen Iraq and Afghanistan vets from the group Vets for Freedom, which he enjoyed. But he mentioned in particular Tuesday's Medal of Honor ceremony for Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor, the Navy SEAL who threw himself on a grenade to save his comrades in Ramadi in September 2006.
I told the president that I had choked up watching the ceremony on television. I'll violate the off-the-record rules in order to convey the tenor of the president's lengthy response.
He explained how difficult it had been for him to keep his composure. This was especially the case, he said, when he was congratulating and comforting Petty Officer Mansoor's parents (this was evident on television).
What wasn't evident on the telecast was that when the president was reading his remarks and looked up at the audience, he saw the Navy SEALs assembled in the East Room, to a man, weeping. That's when, the president said, he really had to steel himself to retain his composure. The president had a catch in his voice yesterday, 24 hours later, talking about the ceremony.
And he had a certain amount of steel in his voice when he then reiterated his determination not to allow the sacrifices of our fighting men and women to have been made in vain.
The one thing parents and wives of slain soldiers and Marines most often asked of him, the president said, was to complete the mission for which their son or husband had died. And the president quietly said he was determined to do everything in his power to see to it that this country kept their loved ones' faith and honored their sacrifice.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/19/2008 11:52 Comments ||
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#3
I wish more would
Posted by: Jan ||
04/19/2008 11:54 Comments ||
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#4
In years to come this man is going to be regarded as one of America's better wartime Presidents. I bitterly disagree with him over immigration but I have a tremendous amount of respect for the way he has maintained the dignity of the office while President.
The unfortunate part of that statement is that Bush has simply been doing what Presidents are supposed to do. It was his predecessor, whose name I can't even mention without wanting to curse, who turned the Oval Office into a bordello. After watching how this good man has been so personally vilified over the past eight years, I often wonder how we as a nation could possibly hope to have a good man want to do the job. Bush has been better than a lot of us deserve.
Posted by: Thaimble Scourge of the Pixies4707 ||
04/19/2008 18:20 Comments ||
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#5
Thaimble - I'm on teh same wavelength. I also disagree with his allowing spending to rise without vetos, but when you measure the SCOTUS excellence, and that long-term impact- he'll get witten down well...after all the BDS-suffering libs die
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/19/2008 19:17 Comments ||
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#6
after all the BDS-suffering libs die
And the BDS-suffering conservatives, too, Frank. It's not an exclusively left-wing condition. And what Thanimble Scourge of the Pixies4707 said. :-)
By S Chandrasekharan, Director, South Asia Analysis Group
The implications of having a rogue Communist state as a neighbour are yet to be understood by most people in India. The slow but sure steps that Prachanda would take to consolidate his hold might even kid some in Delhi into believing that perhaps the Maoists are not that bad.
The results of the Constituent Assembly election have surprised everybody. But it appears to me that the Maoists pushed for the poll only when they were confident of making a dent in the Terai region. They may have foreseen the fall of the Nepali Congress (NC) as its influence in the region was on the wane and the local, Terain parties were divided. The Maoists hoped to capitalise on the fractured Opposition and their gamble paid off.
By facilitating the 12-point agreement on November 22, 2005, India had consciously dumped its well-known policy of recognising the constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy as the twin pillars of Nepalese life. Thus, the path to converting Nepal into a "red" state had been consciously paved by New Delhi. After that it was clear to most people that it was no longer a question of whether or not the Maoists would take over Nepal one day, but whether India is preparing to manage the implications of a Maoist Nepal as its neighbour.
One may question the methods of intimidation and threats that Prachanda had induced among the people in the run up to the election, but nothing succeeds like success. The Election Commission was too weak to prevent the rampaging Young Communist League (YCL) cadre. Prime Minister GP Koirala had become a toady of the Maoists a long time ago. The Home Minister, too, harboured a soft corner for them. In short, nothing could have stopped CPN (M) from winning.
Results of 224 of the 240 seats under the First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) system show that the Maoists have won 119 seats. The NC is a distant second, with only 34 seats. But despite being the single biggest party, the Maoists won't enjoy a clear majority, which is essential if they wish to put their distinctive stamp on the new Constitution. There are 601 seats in all, and the Maoists would eventually have about 32 per cent of the seats under the Provisional Representation (PR) system.
The leaders of the NC have only themselves to blame for the Maoists' victory and their party's decimation. They had been quite disconnected from their constituents ever since the "people's war" of 1996. Even some of their district committee meetings were held in Kathmandu as most of them had concentrated in the valley. A typical example is Mr Sushil Koirala who rarely visited Nepalgunj, his traditional constituency. People there naturally showed him the door. A counter example is Mr Bimalendhu Nidhi who maintained contact with his constituency patiently built up by his father and won despite the Terai unrest and the aggressive campaigning by the Maoists.
Their failure to engage the armed groups in Terai for a dialogue till the end was another reason. Had they struck an agreement, then many of their committed voters in Terai would have had the courage to vote for them. But in the absence of such an arrangement, very few people braved the threats of the Maoists.
It cannot be denied that there was a surge in favour of the Maoists. To a large extent the people voted for them out of a fear of reprisals because, after losing, the Maoists could have reverted to their guerrilla tactics. But, what about the future? As the final picture becomes clearer and clearer, it looks as if the Maoists would try to woo other parties for their support. The cooperation of other parties would be required for arriving at a broad consensus on the future constitutional structure.
The Maoists may continue with the coalition as long as it suits them. Their objective is to consolidate their grip over the polity. The mainstream political parties have admitted that they are no match for the politico-military organisation of the Maoists. If the Maoists are sincere in joining the political mainstream, they should first dismantle the parallel administration they are still having in most of the districts other than the urban centres. Seized properties in many cases are yet to be returned.
The attitude of the victorious Maoists towards the Army of Nepal is to be watched. The Maoists have demanded that their "PLA" should be integrated with the Army, but the armed forces chief of the country has rejected the suggestion. How Prachanda performs the delicate balancing act remains to be seen.The more difficult, but immediate imperative, is to rein in the YCL, which has grown into a lawless and violent behemoth. Prachanda is once reported to have said that he had continued to have the YCL that has grown into over 50,000 cadres to prevent any take over by the monarchist forces. It remains to be seen whether he honours his word.
On external relations, any prognosis now would constitute speculation. No doubt India has welcomed the victory of the Maoists and the Foreign Secretary has declared that India is willing to work with anyone coming to power including the Maoists. On their part, the Maoists, too, have made some constructive statements. One immediate fallout will be an attempt to repeat people's war in southern Bhutan for which there are many indications. It would need all diplomatic efforts on the part of India to ensure that this does not happen.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/19/2008 15:48 ||
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Islam is dominated by radicals
Moderator: Robert Siegel
For the motion: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Paul Marshall, Asra Nomani
Against the motion: Reza Aslan, Richard Bulliet, Edina Lekovic
RESULTS
Before the debate:
For the motion: 46%
Against the motion: 32%
Undecided: 22%
After the debate:
For the motion: 73%
Against the motion: 23%
Undecided: 4%
ASRA NOMANI
Like I said before, I mean this is not a conversation about the majority of Muslims. Were talking about whether Islam is dominated. Dominated to me means institutional Islam, it means the people who are running our mosques, the people who are running ourour organizations. It means, this establishment that it call Wahabism Incorporated, that is basically not just, you know, a pocket, an emptyan empty anecdote. It is an empire out there in the world that is defining our community. This isnt a popularity contest about whether we want moderate expression of Islam or not. This is about whos running our communities.
And I can tell you that institutional Islam is representing a radical ideology that may not represent what most of Muslims believe, but at the end of the day, its not worth the trouble for most Muslims to battle them. I can tell you from the trenches, the struggle to battle that kind of institutional Islam is painful. You lose status, you get death threats, you get all sorts of abuse.
And this is what happens whenever you challenge the authorities, and right now the authorities represent radical Islam.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
