Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog

Um, Brad, it isn't the 26th yet.

Again, you liberals, playing loose with the facts!

;-)

Pakistan is a terrorist country. Who cares what Musharraf says? It's comical because Pakistan has been in bed with the US for 50 years, regardless of which party occupies the White House.

That's a trivial reason to not elect Bush.

Hey Matt, I bet it was the 26th in Pakistan!

So if Pakistan is in bed with the US, which is undoubtedly true, much to various factions' chagrin, why is Musharraf saying what he's saying instead of toeing the party line?

I agree that you can't take it at face value, but how about some reading between the lines?

About the popularity of the Bush Government...
A poll in the Netherlands aksing how people would vote if they could take part in the U.S. elections resulted in:
Bush 9%
Kerry 50%
undecided 41%
Remember, this is one country with some troops in Iraq.

Back of Beyond

Took a break from the endless rounds of pre-debate lies,
papering over every facet of the Bush-Cheney Misanthropy,
BushCo's "who-shall-have-this?" parsage out of our estate
into the hands of those acquiesing haves, and have-mores,
a 3rd Millenium return not of Christ, but of New Royalty.

I wanted time to stop, stop the shrillness. I burned my
videotape of the 9/11 WTC event in a trash-barrel in our
alley, and along with it all the tapes of the spinup and
media play of GWII. Into a stinking black plastic smog
all the Enron's, and Tyco's, the BCCI's and the Daiwa's.

Suddenly I was back in 2000, when the US market was truly
booming, when you could afford to buy a house and make a
profit, and if you spoke Java, the world was your oyster.
We watched the sunset, went inside, turned off the lights
and TV, and leisurely read an old novel by kerosene lamp.

This was great! The book was "A Wanderer Till I Die" by
Leonard Clark, and here I was living the Fukien Rebellion
of 1934, at dawn on the third day out of Shanghai. Adolf
Hitler still in prison, an unknown rabble-rouser, before
Nazis euthanized Jews, and Israelis genocided Islamics.

But it wasn't enough. The Depression Era, as exciting as
it was in more remote cultures, was still too civilized.
I called an old friend who runs an outfitting business,
and we took off for a horse-pack overnight high in the
mountains, on a glorious clear, warm autumn weekend.

Horses are a trip. Just when you drift back to National
Review and how Ben Stein is such a one-note sychophant
Fox-licker, your ride will veer off down the mountain
track, and you're suddenly very much in the now. Only a
"now" of 150 years ago, before gasoline was invented.

We tend to think of time as linear be-ing, tick-tock-tick,
as relentless as a metronome, but nothing could be further
from the truth. Time, as it exists, pulses forwards, rises
and ebbs, surges and receeds, darts, dips and wheels like a
dragonfly, or lays dormant and cold as an alpine glacier.

So here we were, high in the mountains, no sound but
the wind whispering and the distant roar of a river
far below, the campfire crackling, the crunch of the
horses tearing at the sod, the first stars coming out.
Elk were bugling as the moon rose. Goosebumps. Hackles.

George Bush and Dick Cheney doesn't exist at 7,000 feet.
Nothing of their miscreant corruption are visable in the
rocks, the sand and the trees. Only the fire crackling,
like it has for the 10,000 years of mankind's existence.
Fire, now the only real link we have with our human past.

Turn the TV off, unplug the PC and go outside! Autumn
is wonderful, and winter is coming soon. The debates
are pre-scripted, and neither Bush nor Kerry are going
to say anything they haven't already played out to a
focus group and fine tuned in their weeks on the tour.

Turn them off, get high, and turn back time. There is
still time enough for the three hundred years of NeoCon
rule, time enough for the excrutiating exactitude of
a world of Church-and-State gone mad, all of US forced
to play our part in it. Time enough for the end of time.

"No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped
of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or
deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we
proceed with force against him, or send others to do so,
except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the
law of the land." [from the Magna Carta, circa 1215]

731 years later Emperor George Walker Bush was born.
http://www.bushisantichrist.com/

"The danger we face from the regime in Tehran acquiring the nuclear bomb cannot be exaggerated. Our democratic values and the very survival of Western civilization are at stake."

Symposium: Atomic Ayatollahs
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 6, 2004

And if you tuned into Fox this morning, you heard Ben Stein cackling that the US, Britain and Israel (of course those Zionazis) are the last and only "good" countries left in the world, and the rest of them, (and Stein actually said this), are mafia thugs and criminals.

Anyone with half a brain can see what's coming.

Bush needs more troops in Iraq but can't admit it. The horrors of Baghdad haunt Blair's seaside stage-show. Sharon's Likud needs a distraction.

Tehran is the perfect target. It has the "N" word, it allows the Israelis to assert their divine inheritance by fly-over, it lets Bush call up our last reserves and reinstitute the draft, and it may just get Blair re-elected.

The world economies are going to go nuts.
It's all part of life under the NeoCon rule.

Just think, only ten years ago Steven Speilberg came out with "Schindler's List", entertaining us with visions of the dispossessed, herded and huddled into walled prison camps, watched over by psychopaths who randomly shot people dead.

Ten years later, Israel has the walls and wire, guarding the dispossessed, herded and huddled,
randomly shooting women and children at whim, and the US in engaged in endless blitzkrieg.

We have become the NeoCon Fascist's accolytes.

For goodness sake, the man compares himself to Charles de Gaulle and claims to be personally leading a Renaissance in his country! He's been trying to abrogate to himself the role of a spokesman for the Muslim world, or is it that the White House wants to anoint him as one?

First, praying for the second coming of Henry Kissinger, the friend of any dictator in the world (Suharto, Pinochet, the Shah, Saddam Hussein, the Argentine generals, the list is endless...) and the man partly responsible for the dead of hundres of thousands of people in Cambodia and East-Timor. And now approvingly citing Musharraf, an ugly dictator of a terrorism supporting nation. I wonder who you are going to turn up as the next shrill critic of Bush? Mugabe perhaps? Sudan maybe?

Why is Kerry not "Bringing it on?"

It is not disgusting for Bush to claim Kerry will make America less safe. It is just incorrect.

Bin Laden should have been captured in less than six months after 9/11.

The United States sent 11,000 troops to Afghanistan and 250,000 troops to Iraq.

If that had been reversed, the Taliban would be destroyed, the United States would not depend on Pakistan and Bin Laden would have been captured.

Simply put, Bin Laden is free because George Bush is not a capable leader.

And since we're talking about capabilities, 9/11 was a successful attack because George Bush is not a capable leader.

Republicans are impressed by tough talk.

But thanks to George Bush, Al Qaeda has gone from having one safe haven in Afghanistan to having two safe havens, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq.

In order to rid both countries of Al Qaeda, we need a leader who puts real world results over fantasy tough talk.

In the real world, George Bush does not have the skills to defeat Al Qaeda. John Kerry does.

Al Qaeda is stonger than it should be now. In four years Al Qaeda will be stronger if Bush is elected than it would be if Kerry is elected.

Musharraf is really saying the Iraq war has made life more dangerous for him, not necessarily the US. He also says the Iraqi invasion has made the world more “complicated” which is undoubtedly true. Any kind of war makes matters more complicated.

Lame, lame, lame.

This is probably the worst reason I've heard not to vote for W. There are so many good reasons - why did you pick the opinion of a foreign dictator whose name Bush famously got wrong last time?

I wonder how Musharraf thinks that Pakistan's nukes and shady deals with North Korea together with terrorism in India make the world a safer place?

What? Didn't our "ally" get the memo?

Charles

Salesman’s dictum: Once you have made the sale, shut up. Resume dictum: don’t put minor jobs on your resume (grocery clerk while attending high school). When I see these things on resume it looks like the applicant is trying to compensate for weak experience. Lawyers do it too when they throw every piece of evidence (like the current Peterson trial in Redwood City CA) thinking somehow more is always better. I see the anti-Bush people doing this too. Dredging up every minor transgression, lame comment, and fatuous speculation about Bush they can pull off the Internet (after a point) makes the case against him weaker not stronger. Not to mention boring the reader.

http://www.juancole.com/

Juan Cole -

Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post has gotten hold of some daily violence reports on Iraq done for the US Agency for International Development by Kroll Security International. They demonstrate that my point on Friday about most of Iraq being dangerous was correct, but apparently I should have colored in more of the map red than I did. There are continuing acts of violence in Amarah and Samarra. Muthanna province should not have been white. Attacks are occurring everywhere but the three majority-Kurdish provinces in the far north, on a regular basis, some 70 a day nation-wide. These include car bombings, rocket propelled grenade attacks, machine gun attacks, etc. In June there had been 40 to 50 such attacks per day, so the situation is getting worse. He writes:

' After his speech to a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday, Allawi described Baghdad as "very good and safe." In fact, during the period for which security reports were available, the number of attacks in the capital averaged 22 a day.

On Wednesday, there were 28 separate hostile incidents in Baghdad, including five rocket-propelled grenade attacks, six roadside bombings and a suicide bombing in which a car exploded at a National Guard recruiting station, killing at least 11 people and wounding more than 50. '

Something has gone horribly awry with the comments on this post.

I apologize on behalf of all humanity.

Something has gone horribly awry with the comments on this post.

I apologize on behalf of all humanity.

Hey Nitin,

That's "arrogate", not "abrogate".

No matter what you think about Pervez Musharraf, it's clear he is not on the same side as Al Qaeda. That he is worried about Al Qaeda and the Bushies' failure to make their life harder in a meaningful way does worry me.

Jean-Philippe,

Pervez Musharraf is an opportunist; he is as much on the side of al Qaeda as he is on the side of America. Just as he did a u-turn after 9/11, he is equally capable of doing another u-turn should the tide ever turn against America. He knows he can easily outlive George W Bush in power, even if W wins this years election...

Gene,

Thanks for spotting the spelling error.

Nitin

PS: Zarkov is right. If anyone is building a case against Bush, quoting Musharraf is a self-goal.

Musharaf said that!
Maybe Iraq is not going as bad as I thought.

I was going to vote for Kerry. Now I almost want to reconsider

those who think this statement by Musharraf is insignificant don't get it. Pakistan is currently our most important potential ally in the war against AQ. If Bin Laden, al Zawahiri and the rest are going to get caught, Pakistan is the country that is going to catch them. Of course in private Musharraf is looking out for #1 and trying to play both sides of the street best he can, but his willingness IN PUBLIC to say that the Iraq war undermines the war on terrorism is huge. Really driving home the message that Iraq has made us MORE vulnerable to terrorism is Kerry's key to winning the election. People who understand this vote Kerry. People who vote Bush can't or won't get this. Imagine Kerry in a debate saying: "Even Musharraf, whose troops are on the front line fighting AQ every day, says you have the wrong anti-terrorism strategy and that the world is less safe because of it." Not insignificant or counterproductive at all.

From the interview:

ZAHN: Do you think that the war in Iraq has undermined the overall war on terror?

MUSHARRAF: It has complicated it, certainly. I wouldn't say undermined. It has further complicated it. It has made the job more difficult.

So Musharraf is not so shrill. Again he says this from his personal perspective. His statements have little bearing on whether the US invasion has helped or hurt our efforts to contain and suppress Muslim terrorism. I suspect we know for quite some time.

This is close to the original source:

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2004/September/focusoniraq_September216.xml§ion=focusoniraq

AZ makes good sense. Sharpening the language on really salient criticisms of Bush would work better than just tossing the kitchen sink at him.

I don't know Zarkov, Musharraf sounds pretty shrill here:

Brokaw: Do you think the American war against Iraq was a mistake?

Musharraf: Well, I wouldn't comment on that. But I will certainly say that it has complicated the issue.

Brokaw: In your part of the world.

Musharraf: In the Islamic world. In the Iraqi region. In the Middle East.

Brokaw: Made it worse for America?

Musharraf: Yes.

I don't know Zarkov, Musharraf sounds pretty shrill here:

Brokaw: Do you think the American war against Iraq was a mistake?

Musharraf: Well, I wouldn't comment on that. But I will certainly say that it has complicated the issue.

Brokaw: In your part of the world.

Musharraf: In the Islamic world. In the Iraqi region. In the Middle East.

Brokaw: Made it worse for America?

Musharraf: Yes.

Link to Brokaw interview was stripped:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6090598/

E-mart:

As far as I can tell he is saying about the same thing in the Brokaw interview as in the Zahn interview. Brokaw should have asked him when he would make peace with India. The Hindus also have trouble with the Muslims (like Israel), and they have nuclear weapons. I would also remind him that Jordan killed more Palestinians than Israel (Black September). If Brad regards Musharraf as an allay in his war against Bush, he had better think this one through.

It appears that Busharraf, as PRI says he is called, is getting tired of dodging assination attempts. An bin Laden October Supprise is looking very unliking.

I see, so 36 days to go until the election, and we all need to pare down our message to cohesive and efficient issues, expending detailed discourse for the firepower of well-honed, stripped-down bullet-points. I agree, those pesky details are terribly inconvenient... for Bush.

Nevermind the fact that Bush calls in Allawi to stand by his side and offers his speech as testimony of a man on the ground in the region. He murmurs about the unity of coalition assessments and how he has made the world and the U.S. safer. He repeatedly cites Pakistan as a new and primary ally in the war against terrorism. In that context, how are Musharraf's statements irrelevant to legitimately undermine Bush's claims? Why should they be ignored as self-serving or misleading (any more than Allawi's)? We are talking about a significant thread in the tapestry of reality which is the backdrop against which all of Bush's claims should be viewed for the next 36 days. This squarely supports the fantasyland meme and deserves citation any time Bush claims rosy circumstances in the region. This is Bush's purported ally saying this (not Brad's) and therein lies the efficacy of the citation.

E-mart:

It’s not a question of details, but focus. While shotgun gets lead onto the target, it can easily miss the bull’s-eye. Sometimes less is more.

exile,

"If Bin Laden, al Zawahiri and the rest are going to get caught, Pakistan is the country that is going to catch them"

That's because they are holed up there.

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