moderate libertarian
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Russia Considers Blocking NATO Supply Routes
MOSCOW—Russia said it may not let NATO use its territory to supply troops in Afghanistan if the alliance doesn't seriously consider its objections to a U.S.-led missile shield for Europe, Russia's ambassador to NATO said Monday.
Russia has stepped up its objections to the antimissile system in Europe, threatening last week to deploy its own ballistic missiles on the border of the European Union to counter the move. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization says the shield is meant to thwart an attack from a rogue state such as Iran, that it poses no threat to Russia, and that the alliance will go ahead with the plan despite Moscow's objections.
Threats to the NATO supply line through Russia come at an awkward time for the alliance. NATO has become increasingly reliant on the Russian route as problems in Pakistan—its primary supply route—have escalated. Over the weekend, Pakistan closed its border to trucks delivering supplies in response to coalition airstrikes Saturday that killed 25 Pakistani soldiers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204753404577066421106592452.html
Analysts Warn on NATO’s Dwindling Supply Options in Afghanistan
by Jason Ditz, December 02, 2011
Earlier this week the Pakistani government closed all supply routes to NATO’s occupation forces in Afghanistan. Yesterday, Russia’s Ambassador warned they might close the northern route over objections on the missile defense shield. Neither nation’s ability to cut off half of the supplies is considered a deal-breaker for occupation forces, but analysts say that the combination threatens NATO with a “cold death trap” in landlocked Afghanistan, and so long as both sides continue to push NATO simultaneously it gives them more negotiating power than normal.
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/12/02/analysts-warn-on-natos-dwindling-supply-options-in-afghanistan/
If this happened, would it bring Afghan war to end sooner than previosly planned?
Obama's masters had plans to complete Afghan exit by 2014 according to peviously publicized news but that option depended on successfully bringing Taliban to negotiation table which is becoming increasingly unlikely after recent developments.
Fallout from recent NATO border incidence that killed 24 Pakistani troops and resulting crisis is also becoming a 2012 campaign issue and Romney is once again kicking Obama around like a football from every angle. First he attacked Obama for being too apologetic to the world for every "real or imagined misdeeds". That GOP attack line seems to have played a major part in Obama's decision to not offer condolences to Paikstani leader rejecting State's recommendation to salvage relations. This may be another sign of puppet President whose strings are in hands of his political opponents and not just his masters. Now Romney is blasting Obama for being too remote and not engaging Pakistani leadership in the wake of this incidence.
Early on when he created some stir by saying that GOP should hang Obama's economic policy failures around his neck and hang him with that metaphorically speaking, that was a sign of how aggressive Romney was going to be in going after Obama. Smart election strategy on part of Romney even if not very fair from Obama re-election team's perspective.
30/11/2011
Romney criticises Obama for his Pakistan policy
Washington, Nov 30 (PTI) A leading Republican presidential candidate has criticised President Barack Obama for his Pakistan policy in particular not building personal ties with top leadership including President Asif Ali Zardari and Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
"We need to have a (US) President who can be on the phone, who can have a personal relationship, not only with Zardari, generals in Pakistan, with members of the ISI, to assure that they understand exactly where we''re coming from, and we understand their interests," leading presidential candidate Mitt Romney told the Fox News.
"We recognise that the Pakistan people and the leaders of Pakistan, of course, it''s a very multi-fractioned group there, that they will act out of their self-interest," he said.
"They don''t sit up nights wondering what''s best for the United States. They think what''s best for them and for their lives and their careers. We need to understand that," he said.
"And then, we need to make sure that we have places of common ground where we can work together. I think you''re seeing a pulling apart of our nations, and that would have great consequences, long term and short-term," Romney said.
Responding to questions about the current crisis with Pakistan, Romney said this ought to involve the personal attention of the President of the United States, either in person or on the phone.
Another Republican presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann said that the US needs to do a better job of holding the Pakistanis accountable.
"We''re concerned about nuclear weapons leaving Pakistan and coming into the United States as well as fissile material.
That can never happen. So we have to work with the Pakistanis, as imperfect as they are, to make sure that we don''t have jihadists that can be successful in reaching their goal," Bachmann said.
http://news.in.msn.com/international/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5637450
Obama to not offer formal condolence to Pak: White House
South Asian News Agency (SANA) ⋅ December 1, 2011 ⋅ Share/Save WASHINGTON, (SANA): An American newspaper has claimed that the White House rejecting the request of US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter has said that the President Barrack Hussain Obama will not offer a formal condolence to Pakistan over the deaths of 24 soldiers in NATO air strike on a Pakistani check post in Mohmand Agency last week.
On Monday, Cameron Munter, the United States Ambassador to Pakistan, told a group of White House officials that a formal video statement from Obama was needed to help prevent the rapidly deteriorating relations between Islamabad and Washington. The ambassador, speaking by videoconference from Islamabad, said that anger in Pakistan had reached a fever pitch, and that the United States needed to move to defuse it as quickly as possible, the officials recounted.
It is worth mentioning here that the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that US learnt a lesson from NATO attack, while according to the Obama administration the apology of President Obama should help the opposition party Republicans in elections.
http://www.sananews.net/english/2011/12/obama-to-not-offer-formal-condolence-to-pak-white-house/
12/1/11 at 10:34 AM
Compulsive Apologizer Barack Obama Won’t Apologize for Deaths of Two Dozen Pakistani Soldiers
From the moment President Obama took office, he has been apologizing nonstop to basically every country on Earth for all the evil things America has done to them, according to Mitt Romney's imagination. Romney wrote about Obama's so-called "apology tour" in his book, the aptly named No Apology, and he has repeatedly mentioned on the campaign trail and in debates that Obama "went around the world and apologized for America." He apologized for "American misdeeds ... both real and imagined." Obama is such a compulsive apologizer, according to Romney, he just makes up reasons to apologize after he runs out of real ones. He might get some sick, sexual pleasure from apologizing, for all we know.
But even the Defense Department does "not deny some American culpability in the episode" according to the Times. Couldn't Obama at least, for now, offer some kind of condolences, as Clinton and Panetta have done? That would be risky, because anything approaching an apology "could become fodder for his Republican opponents in the presidential campaign, according to several officials who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly."
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/12/president-obama-wont-apologize-to-pakistan.html
MOSCOW—Russia said it may not let NATO use its territory to supply troops in Afghanistan if the alliance doesn't seriously consider its objections to a U.S.-led missile shield for Europe, Russia's ambassador to NATO said Monday.
Russia has stepped up its objections to the antimissile system in Europe, threatening last week to deploy its own ballistic missiles on the border of the European Union to counter the move. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization says the shield is meant to thwart an attack from a rogue state such as Iran, that it poses no threat to Russia, and that the alliance will go ahead with the plan despite Moscow's objections.
Threats to the NATO supply line through Russia come at an awkward time for the alliance. NATO has become increasingly reliant on the Russian route as problems in Pakistan—its primary supply route—have escalated. Over the weekend, Pakistan closed its border to trucks delivering supplies in response to coalition airstrikes Saturday that killed 25 Pakistani soldiers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204753404577066421106592452.html
Analysts Warn on NATO’s Dwindling Supply Options in Afghanistan
by Jason Ditz, December 02, 2011
Earlier this week the Pakistani government closed all supply routes to NATO’s occupation forces in Afghanistan. Yesterday, Russia’s Ambassador warned they might close the northern route over objections on the missile defense shield. Neither nation’s ability to cut off half of the supplies is considered a deal-breaker for occupation forces, but analysts say that the combination threatens NATO with a “cold death trap” in landlocked Afghanistan, and so long as both sides continue to push NATO simultaneously it gives them more negotiating power than normal.
http://news.antiwar.com/2011/12/02/analysts-warn-on-natos-dwindling-supply-options-in-afghanistan/
If this happened, would it bring Afghan war to end sooner than previosly planned?
Obama's masters had plans to complete Afghan exit by 2014 according to peviously publicized news but that option depended on successfully bringing Taliban to negotiation table which is becoming increasingly unlikely after recent developments.
Fallout from recent NATO border incidence that killed 24 Pakistani troops and resulting crisis is also becoming a 2012 campaign issue and Romney is once again kicking Obama around like a football from every angle. First he attacked Obama for being too apologetic to the world for every "real or imagined misdeeds". That GOP attack line seems to have played a major part in Obama's decision to not offer condolences to Paikstani leader rejecting State's recommendation to salvage relations. This may be another sign of puppet President whose strings are in hands of his political opponents and not just his masters. Now Romney is blasting Obama for being too remote and not engaging Pakistani leadership in the wake of this incidence.
Early on when he created some stir by saying that GOP should hang Obama's economic policy failures around his neck and hang him with that metaphorically speaking, that was a sign of how aggressive Romney was going to be in going after Obama. Smart election strategy on part of Romney even if not very fair from Obama re-election team's perspective.
30/11/2011
Romney criticises Obama for his Pakistan policy
Washington, Nov 30 (PTI) A leading Republican presidential candidate has criticised President Barack Obama for his Pakistan policy in particular not building personal ties with top leadership including President Asif Ali Zardari and Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
"We need to have a (US) President who can be on the phone, who can have a personal relationship, not only with Zardari, generals in Pakistan, with members of the ISI, to assure that they understand exactly where we''re coming from, and we understand their interests," leading presidential candidate Mitt Romney told the Fox News.
"We recognise that the Pakistan people and the leaders of Pakistan, of course, it''s a very multi-fractioned group there, that they will act out of their self-interest," he said.
"They don''t sit up nights wondering what''s best for the United States. They think what''s best for them and for their lives and their careers. We need to understand that," he said.
"And then, we need to make sure that we have places of common ground where we can work together. I think you''re seeing a pulling apart of our nations, and that would have great consequences, long term and short-term," Romney said.
Responding to questions about the current crisis with Pakistan, Romney said this ought to involve the personal attention of the President of the United States, either in person or on the phone.
Another Republican presidential candidate, Michele Bachmann said that the US needs to do a better job of holding the Pakistanis accountable.
"We''re concerned about nuclear weapons leaving Pakistan and coming into the United States as well as fissile material.
That can never happen. So we have to work with the Pakistanis, as imperfect as they are, to make sure that we don''t have jihadists that can be successful in reaching their goal," Bachmann said.
http://news.in.msn.com/international/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5637450
Obama to not offer formal condolence to Pak: White House
South Asian News Agency (SANA) ⋅ December 1, 2011 ⋅ Share/Save WASHINGTON, (SANA): An American newspaper has claimed that the White House rejecting the request of US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter has said that the President Barrack Hussain Obama will not offer a formal condolence to Pakistan over the deaths of 24 soldiers in NATO air strike on a Pakistani check post in Mohmand Agency last week.
On Monday, Cameron Munter, the United States Ambassador to Pakistan, told a group of White House officials that a formal video statement from Obama was needed to help prevent the rapidly deteriorating relations between Islamabad and Washington. The ambassador, speaking by videoconference from Islamabad, said that anger in Pakistan had reached a fever pitch, and that the United States needed to move to defuse it as quickly as possible, the officials recounted.
It is worth mentioning here that the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that US learnt a lesson from NATO attack, while according to the Obama administration the apology of President Obama should help the opposition party Republicans in elections.
http://www.sananews.net/english/2011/12/obama-to-not-offer-formal-condolence-to-pak-white-house/
12/1/11 at 10:34 AM
Compulsive Apologizer Barack Obama Won’t Apologize for Deaths of Two Dozen Pakistani Soldiers
From the moment President Obama took office, he has been apologizing nonstop to basically every country on Earth for all the evil things America has done to them, according to Mitt Romney's imagination. Romney wrote about Obama's so-called "apology tour" in his book, the aptly named No Apology, and he has repeatedly mentioned on the campaign trail and in debates that Obama "went around the world and apologized for America." He apologized for "American misdeeds ... both real and imagined." Obama is such a compulsive apologizer, according to Romney, he just makes up reasons to apologize after he runs out of real ones. He might get some sick, sexual pleasure from apologizing, for all we know.
But even the Defense Department does "not deny some American culpability in the episode" according to the Times. Couldn't Obama at least, for now, offer some kind of condolences, as Clinton and Panetta have done? That would be risky, because anything approaching an apology "could become fodder for his Republican opponents in the presidential campaign, according to several officials who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly."
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/12/president-obama-wont-apologize-to-pakistan.html
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