Where ISN’T there a crisis? And why are we involved or somehow responsible for every one of them? Oh yah……His Highnieness got us here. I guess this is what you get when you back a dictator. Oh….and why is this dictator ok, but others aren’t? And this one ALREADY has access to the nuclear button. Guess we don’t want to piss him off now, do we.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: A senior U.S. envoy gave strong backing to the government of Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Friday, but balanced it with a call for more democracy amid growing opposition to his eight-year rule.
Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was visiting as Musharraf faces street protests for suspending the country’s chief justice and as U.S. lawmakers question American backing for a military leader reluctant to yield power to civilians.
After talks with Musharraf and other senior officials, Negroponte praised Pakistan’s front-line role in fighting terrorism, in which it has captured scores of al-Qaida suspects and lost hundreds of soldiers battling militants.
The message he delivered “is one of strong friendship and trust for and with the government and the people of Pakistan. We believe we have an excellent partnership,” Negroponte told reporters.
Washington has been steadfast in its public support for Musharraf, making clear that the global fight against al-Qaida as well as the war in neighboring Afghanistan take priority.
More at the International Herald Tribune
And we have to wait until September to hear it’s not going well?
BAGHDAD - A citywide clampdown emptied Baghdad’s streets of all vehicles Thursday in attempts to hold off what authorities dread: a storm of Shiite attacks in revenge for the bombing of one of their main shrines. The tactic appeared to keep a lid on widespread violence, but extremists fired shells into the city’s protected Green Zone during a visit by the State Department’s No. 2 official.
The barrage of rockets and mortars included one that hit on a street close to the Iraq parliament less than a half hour before Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte passed nearby.
The attack again showed militants’ resilience - including their ability to strike the heavily protected zone - despite a U.S.-led security crackdown across the city that began exactly four months ago. But officials paid much closer attention to any signs that Shiites could unleash another wave of retaliation against Sunnis for the Wednesday blasts at the Askariya mosque compound in Samarra.
The first attack on the site in February 2006 sent the country into a tailspin of sectarian violence that destroyed Washington’s hopes of a steady withdrawal from Iraq. On Wednesday, bombers toppled the two minarets that stood over the ruins of the mosques famous Golden Dome about 60 miles north of Baghdad.
More at Yahoo News
I feel another Haliburton contract coming on……. and I do wonder why Gaddafi didn’t meet Negroponte. Any thoughts?
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte left Libya on Wednesday without meeting Muammar Gaddafi after becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit the country in half a century, officials said.
Negroponte said he held “excellent” discussions with Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Shalgam and Ali Triki, Libya’s envoy on Chad and Sudan, during a 24-hour visit aimed principally at discussing the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region.
He said Washington wanted to build a new embassy and appoint an ambassador to continue the improvement in bilateral ties since Libya ended a mass destruction weapons plan in 2003, a move that helped end its long international isolation.
Officials declined to speculate why Negroponte left without meeting the oil-exporting north African country’s veteran leader Gaddafi, who has met a string of other U.S. official visitors over the past four years including State Department diplomats.
(emphasis mine)
More at YahooNews
