Finally Bush admin is serious about seeking out Bin Laden from his hideout in Pakistan. Atleast that's what one would think from the draft plan to authorize the Special Ops to launch operations to get Bin Laden and other Al Qaida leaders like Al-Zawahiri. However Special Ops are waiting for the green light from the Bush administration for the past 6 months. NYTimes and its international subsidiary IHT is reporting this news.

 Late last year, top Bush administration officials decided to take a step they had long resisted. They drafted a secret plan to authorize the Pentagon's Special Operations forces to launch missions into the snow-capped mountains of Pakistan to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda.

Intelligence reports for more than a year had been streaming in about Osama bin Laden's terror network rebuilding in the Pakistani tribal areas, a problem that had been exacerbated by years of missteps in Washington and the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, sharp policy disagreements, and turf battles between American counterterrorism agencies.

The new plan, outlined in a highly classified Pentagon order, was designed to eliminate some of those battles. And it was meant to pave an easier path into the tribal areas for American commandos, who for years have bristled at what they see as Washington's risk-averse attitude toward Special Operations missions inside Pakistan. They also argue that catching Bin Laden will come only by capturing some of his senior lieutenants alive.

But more than six months later, the Special Operations forces are still waiting for the green light. The plan has been held up in Washington by the very disagreements it was meant to eliminate. A senior Defense Department official said there was "mounting frustration" in the Pentagon at the continued delay.

For more follow these links.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/washin gton/30tribal.html?_r=1&hp=&adxn nl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1214795 217-ry2KEzh3N8qVpymUOus3WQ

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/30/a merica/30tribal.php

Drudge is reporting that Bush is furious with NYT for the Pentagon leak...umm maybe because it shows how incompetent Bush admin is...
http://www.drudge.com

On the other hand Seymour Hersh is reporting in New Yorker that Bush admin already had Special Ops conducting covert ops in Iran. This has great significance in coming years.  

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country's religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran's suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of "high-value targets" in the President's war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

Please read Seymour Hersh's expose in the following link. It is a long article, but your patience in reading it would be rewarded with increasing awareness of what's going on around the World especially in Iran in terms of US policy.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/ 07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=al l

I am from the India sub-continent. I am puzzled and curious as to why Barack Obama visited Karachi (Pakistan) and Hyderabad (India) as a young man.

Here is the news article.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/ente rtainment/obama-visited-pakistan-as-a-co llege-student_10035794.html

When you are young, you are trying to know who you are and you do different things to define your identity. For Obama it is even more profound as he is from mixed race with a muslim father and it is only natural to know who he is and purpose of his life.

Let me set the stage for you. I want to explain to you what I know about Karachi (Pakistan) and Hyderabad (India) and why young muslim students used to visit these 2 cities in 70's & 80's.

A story that ran in the Huffington Post was actually meant to point out Obama's arrogance regarding foreign policy, however I found the part about his travels to Pakistan during College to be more interesting since we had not heard this before. Obama stated at a San Francisco fundraiser the other night that he did not need a VP with foreign policy experience because he knew enough and had more FP experience than either John McCain or Hillary Clinton.

He pointed to a trip he took to Pakistan in College to visit his mother (who was living there at the time).

The writer went on to point out his arrogrance when he compared his college trip to Pakistan and few years in Indonesia as reason enough to claim he had better foreign policy experience than McCain or Clinton.

Cross-posted from

What can wine tell us about the world? Plenty, it turns out.  It is one of civilization's oldest products.  At one time it was a necessity, when food was served rotten and water was where you washed and evacuated.  Now it is enjoying a resurgence.  It is an agricultural product, and a unique one.  You see, vineyards have kept records of temperature, yield, and ripeness-dates for centuries, giving us incredibly precise records that tell us reams about the global environment. It is also a luxury item, particularly at the top end.  As such, its sale and purchase can tell us volumes about the global economy.

Today we look at wine, ethanol, and biofuels, and their effect on hunger and the economy.

On August 1, 2007, Senator Barack Obama provided an intelligent, reasoned, and thought-provoking vision of how American foreign policy should advance in the 21st Century. Speaking to an audience at the Wilson Center in Washington DC (and introduced by Lee Hamilton of the 9-11 Commission), Obama contextualized his foreign policy approach within his own `9-11 experience'. The speech is impressive and wide-ranging in its scope and its message reflects Obama's ability to interweave complex issues with a message of change that is surpassed only by the substantial policy adjustments that accompany it. A full text of the speech can be found on Senator Obama's campaign website (http://www.barackobama.com/2007/08/01/re marks_of_senator_obama_the_w_1.php)

In light of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker appearance before Senate Foreign Relation Committee this afternoon - I found Obama's 2007 policy message on Iraq, terrorism, and diplomacy, offered roughly 8 months ago, rather prophetic.

After commenting on his own experience during the tragic events of 9-11, Senator Obama skillfully addresses the need to reevaluate current policies and devise new strategies to meet the challenges of terrorism in the 21st Century and to build new alliances to help defend America and its citizens abroad.

The Senator begins his comments in this section with an eloquent statement of the relationship between fear, religion, and ethnicity and the need to turn the page on blind intolerance and uninformed saber-rattling. He writes:

Just because the President misrepresents our enemies does not mean we do not have them. The terrorists are at war with us. The threat is from violent extremists who are a small minority of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, but the threat is real. They distort Islam. They kill man, woman and child; Christian and Hindu, Jew and Muslim. They seek to create a repressive caliphate. To defeat this enemy, we must understand who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for.

Senator Obama's denouncement of ethnic stereotyping and his defense of Islam is not only absolutely correct, but it represents an approach to terrorism and foreign policy that has rarely been evoked by policy makers in Washington. Feeding fear and challenging patriotism have been the weapons of the current administration - as well as presidential candidates.

The Senator continues:

The President would have us believe that every bomb in Baghdad is part of al Qaeda's war against us, not an Iraqi civil war. He elevates al Qaeda in Iraq -- which didn't exist before our invasion -- and overlooks the people who hit us on 9/11, who are training new recruits in Pakistan. He lumps together groups with very different goals: al Qaeda and Iran, Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents. He confuses our mission.

The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What struck me today is how these statements from 2007 reflect the tenor of the current debate. The recognition of civil conflict, the problem of `lumping' groups together indiscriminately to cause confusion (a la McCain of late), and most importantly the recognition that we must change the way the world perceives America if we expect to accomplish our goals and help others reach theirs.

Beyond that, we also see very clearly articulated, Senator Obama's belief that the US has taken its eye off of real threats in the Afghan-Pakistan region. As I processed the various blurbs and clips from the proceedings today, Senator Joe Biden's (D-DE) confrontation with Ambassador Crocker was especially telling:

SEN. BIDEN: Mr. Ambassador, is Al Qaeda a greater threat to US interests in Iraq, or in the Afghan-Pakistan border region?

SEN BIDEN: That would be a smart choice.

(As one colleague of mine put it...a smack-down!)

Senator Obama has consistently called for a re-focus of US counter-terrorism policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. In fact, during his 2002 statement against the war in Iraq, Senator Obama stated his opposition to Iraq because it was unwise and rash, but he made a point to contrast this with his support for the US-led efforts in Afghanistan.

As the US digs its heels down in Iraq and we continue to post counters tracking blood and treasure, I hope that Ambassador Crocker's response to Senator Biden, as well as Senator Obama's policy-leading statements on the significance of Afghanistan, will move our country forward.

More importantly, it is my hope that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (and not its Subcommittee on Europe, which rarely meets and would NOT be the appropriate place, despite recent, uninformed claims), which Senator Biden chairs, will begin debating policy and advocate turning the US's attention to Afghan-Pakistan border region and surrounding hinterlands.

In a softball interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Barack Obama twice repeated his earlier threats to attack Al Qaeda inside Pakistan on receipt of actionable intelligence with or without Pakistan's permission, exhibiting little concern over worries that his earlier remarks to the same effect may have contributed to a part of the recent instability in Pakistan.  Regardless of the arguable wisdom of the underlying policy, Obama's statements raise the question of why he continues to so publicly declare an intention that might best be communicated privately by diplomatic channels.

Obama's bellicose remarks came only days after he declarad his intention to "return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush's father, of John F. Kennedy, of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan."

The surge is working. Has worked. Whatever.

That must be why the residents of Basra are protesting their security situation. Many people fear that yet further violence will be attached to upcoming elections in a region where women have been routinely murdered for violations of a hardline Islamic dress standard.

The war that's costing us $3.5 billion per week, the one we're fighting for our freedoms, is working to our advantage, improving the US' security situation.

Except that it's continually strengthened Iran's hand (particularly the position of their hardliners) and weakened Israel, which now has only violence left as leverage against their neighbors. It's also been accompanied by a destabilization of Pakistan, with increased suicide attacks on the military, and the best news in a while being the election losses for the party of US friendly 'President' Pervez Musharraf to a more secular party that they'll now have to share power with.

The war in Iraq has also done wonders for Afghanistan. What with violence against women increasing and their poverty-stricken populace unable to cope with rising food prices and shortages even as they produce record opium crops. Yeah, they're better off than they were six (six!) years ago, making progress on their real problems just like we are.

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Let me start off by saying that I will support the Democratic nominee, whichever one of the two that it is.  The stakes are too high to let McCain bring in a 3rd term of the Bush era.  I don't want flames or trolling in the comment section, I want a debate of issues and policy.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Now, let me list the problems I have had with Hillary Clinton.

Please, I would appreciate it if her supporters could respond in a civil manner with substance.

I'm kicking this off with the first issue that made me learn towards Obama.