Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made news Wednesday when he said the combat role for U.S. troops in Afghanistan could end next year instead of 2014. On Thursday, he took a step back — insisting U.S. forces will remain combat ready — even as they transition into their new role of training Afghan troops.
Another part of the U.S. strategy involves getting the Taliban to hold peace talks with the Afghan government. CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward spoke with some top Taliban representatives where they live in Pakistan.
They call Sami ul Haq the “Father of the Taliban,” one of Pakistan’s most well-known and hard-line Islamists.
Ward visited ul Haq at his religious school near the Afghan border. Many Afghan Taliban leaders and fighters studied there, earning it the nickname the “University of Jihad.”
Ul Haq said that top Taliban figures are receptive to the idea of peace talks, but that three key conditions must be met first: The Americans must leave Afghanistan, he told Ward. Secondly, Taliban leaders should be released from Guantonamo. The third demand is there should be no outside interference in Afghanistan.
It’s unlikely that American negotiators will accept these terms, though a release of some prisoners from Guantanamo Bay has been discussed.
While some elements of the Taliban’s leadership may be supportive of peace talks, there are clear signs that divisions exist within the group. Many of the younger, more militant foot soldiers insisting that they are not ready to stop fighting.
At a small guesthouse on the outskirts of Islamabad, CBS News had the rare chance to sit down with a young Taliban commander from Helmand province. For security reasons, he asked that his face be not shown.
“If these talks in Doha are successful and Taliban leaders tell you and your fighters to put down your arms, will you do it?” asked Ward.
“No, it will not happen,” he said. “And those who are talking to the political wing of the Taliban should understand that real peace is only possible by talking to the ground fighters.”
“So the bottom line is you’re not willing to compromise, you’re not willing to collaborate? Is there any chance of peace?”
“If the Afghan government announced tomorrow that strict Islamic law would be reinstated, we would accept that,” he said, “but those in power now will never go along with that.”
For the moment, there is a huge gulf between what the Taliban and their backers want and what America would be willing to accept.
So the Deans of Jihad have dictated terms to the West, the terms they propose of the West’s surrender to the Jihadis in the war on terror.
So what should the response of the West be? Should we surrender to the Jihadis, or should we fight to win?
This guy Sami ul Haq should be a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp along with his University of Jihad colleagues, his controllers from the Pakistani ISI and his financial backers from Saudi Arabia.
The US and Western allies ought to name Pakistan and Saudi Arabia as “state sponsors of terrorism”.
We ought to seize control of Pakistani and Saudi TV satellites and use them to broadcast propaganda calling for the arrest of all involved in waging terrorist war against the West.
It just seems very poor tactics for our military to be risking life and limb in the minefields of Afghanistan yet at the strategic level our governments and businesses are still “trading with the enemy”.
As the Star Trek character Commander Scott might have said -
Leaders of Saudi Arabia are being sued by Lloyd’s insurance for playing a key role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Lloyd’s has paid more than $215 million in claims filed by families of those killed in the attacks, and wants Saudi leaders to reimburse the company.
As far as the insurer is concerned, 9/11 never would have happened without “the sponsorship” of Saudi Arabia, which provided al-Qaeda with the means “to conceive, plan and execute the September 11th Attacks,” says the Lloyd’s lawsuit.
In addition to the Saudi government, defendants in the case are the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia & Herzegovina, the Saudi Joint Relief Committee for Kosovo and Chechnya (SJRC), the Saudi Red Crescent Society, National Commercial Bank, Al Rajhi Banking and Investment Company, Prince Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, Suleiman Abdel Aziz Al Rajhi (CEO of al Rajhi Bank), and Yassin Al Qadi (an employee of al Rajhi Bank and founder of the Muwaffaq Foundation). Salman Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud is currently the Governor of Riyadh Province.
The SJRC is included because, according to Lloyd’s, the organization between 1998 and 2000 diverted more than $74 million to al-Qaeda members and loyalists. At that time the committee “was under the supervision and control of Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz.”
Now wouldn’t it be refreshing to see Western leaders squaring up to the Saudi royals with that kind of backbone instead of grovelling down to make arms deals with them?
I posted the above in the US Message board and here is a part of the debate there that followed.
Quote: High_Gravity
Hmm I wonder how far this will really go, those Saudis have A LOT of oil money and could probably pay a pretty outrageous price to settle this out of court.
Yes you are right because if the Saudis admit liability and pay what is small change for them to settle this Lloyd’s claim in court then everyone else with a claim of loss following 9/11 – so that is not just losses suffered on 9/11 but arguably all those who lost loved-ones in Afghanistan, which was a war on terror consequential after 9/11 (possibly the Iraq war too) – also will find it much easier to prove their claim against the Saudis.
Add up the entire US and allied military and diplomatic service costs for the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, compensation for those serving there who were killed and injured, so that’s life time support for all the families of the killed, plus compensation for loss of earnings and quality of life losses for all those injured ..
That adds up into the trillions of dollars, serious money which amounts to quite a boost to the western economies in fact.
Hence why I suspect you are right that the Saudis will want to settle this out of court with no admission of liability.
It occurs to me that Lloyds of London insurers are not as well resourced as say the CIA and MI6 intelligence services. It seems to me that our intelligence services should have got around to blaming the Saudis for funding this before Lloyd’s did.
If they did, if they informed US presidents Bush and Obama, why is it business as usual with the Saudis?
It just looks wrong when US presidents make nice with our enemies. The then US President George W. Bush (L) and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Salman Bin Abdul Aziz, brother of King Abdullah, watch a traditional celebration dance outside the Al Murabba Palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, January 15, 2008.
I think the West should stop turning the other cheek and instead man-up and confiscate the Saudi oil fields to pay our war costs for the war they started by funding Al Qaeda!
Quote: High_Gravity
The Saudis have $10 trillion in US Banks and own numerous properties and businesses here, its because of this that our government is very leery to stop doing business with them. Like you said in previous posts though, in reality though the Saudis are no friends to the us. The textbooks that preach firey Anti American and Anti Western hatred in the madrassas in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Indonesia and elsewhere are all printed out in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia produced the most foreign fighters to fight against our troops in Iraq not to mention most of the 9/11 hijackers were from the Kingdom. I personally would like to see the US start doing less and less business with the Saudis and the other Middle Eastern countries, but I don’t know how to even begin that process when we have so many ties and agreements with them.
Well a good start would be confiscating that $10 trillion to distribute to compensate US 9/11 victims and war on terror casualties.
The UK and other countries who have incurred jihadi terrorism or war on terror costs should do the same. (Actually I am a republican so I always need to add that the UK should be overthrown and British republics do whatever it is that the UK should be doing)
Now I haven’t really worked out the figures as to whether $10 trillion would cover all American costs.
If it does, if UK costs are covered by what we can confiscate of what the Saudis have invested in Britain and other countries get compensated this way, then fine, especially if the Saudis stop funding new jihadi terrorism, maybe that will be that, though I still think we should support a republican democratic revolution in Saudi Arabia.
Now supposing $10 trillion of Saudi assets invested in the US doesn’t compensate sufficiently. Supposing the fair compensation figure is more like $100 trillion all told.
Then the US, with allied backing, presents the Saudis with an ultimatum – you pay us X% (where “X” is maybe 50%, 75% or 90% depending on how much of a hurry we are in to get compensated) of all the taxes you collect from the Arabian oil industry in Saudi Arabia until such time as you have paid off your debt, or else.
The “or else” could be a Western military invasion of Saudi Arabia to seize the Arabian oil fields.
Such a war would not be easy as the Iraq war demonstrated and the war aims could be thwarted initially because the Saudis would probably sabotage the oil wells, like Saddam did, by the time our military took the oil fields but eventually the fires would be put out and the oil wells restored to working order and at that later time we’d start getting 100% of all the taxes and the percentage of that we gave to the Arabs would not go through the Saudi state – we’d fund Arabian democrats and republicans instead – so the Saudi kingdom would be bankrupt and finished as a viable entity. The Saudi royal family would be finished as a ruling class apart from ruling their camels.
At least this time there would be no argument about whether such an “or else” war would be a “war for oil” because it honestly would be.
This video is suitable to play to an assembly to introduce and to herald the entrance and the taking to the stage of Condoleezza Rice.
An American male speaker reads a CV-like list of Condoleezza Rice’s extraordinary professional accomplishments.
The speaker says -
A true American original, unlike any before her, Condoleezza Rice is revered for her place in our nation’s history, as well as for her lasting legacy as our country faced challenges never before experienced.
Born in Birmingham Alabama, Rice earned her Bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Denver, her Master’s from the University of Notre Dame and her PhD from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver.
As a professor of political science, Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981. She has won two of highest teaching honours, the Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Rice served on President George H. W. Bush’s National Security Council staff. She served as Senior Director of Soviet and East European Affairs and Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
Rice also served as President George W. Bush’s Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from January 2001 to 2005 and was the first woman to hold the position.
During this time, she played a pivotal role in shaping foreign policy and kept America secure following the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001.
From January 2005 to 2009 she served as the 66th Secretary of State of the United States, the second woman and the first African-American woman to hold the post.
She is currently a professor of political economy in the Graduate School of Business, the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on public policy at the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science at Stanford University.
Her tireless efforts and service to our country have won her nation-wide acclaim, as well as respect of those on both sides of the aisle.
Ladies and Gentlemen please welcome to the stage, the 66th U.S. Secretary of State, Dr. Condoleezza Rice.
Condoleezza Rice sits down one-on-one to be interviewed by a woman broadcasting journalist (possibly Bianna Golodryga though she is not named in the video) for ABC’s Good Morning America about issues arising from her newly published book “No Higher Honor, A Memoir of My Years in Washington”.
The former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State talks about working for President George W. Bush and standing up to the powerful men in the Bush cabinet such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney and replies to criticisms.
Condi stands by the decision to invade Iraq and the progress with Afghanistan.
She comments on the protests in America now.
She calls on women to stand up for themselves against sexism.
She points out a Secretary of State has to sacrifice his or her personal life.
She has never really met anyone she wanted to live with yet but she says she has a very full and wonderful life.
November 1st 2011 and Condoleezza Rice begins a round of media interviews timed with the publication of her new book “No Higher Honor, A Memoir of My Years in Washington”.
It is not long before Condi is being asked once again if she will seek political office and the former Secretary of State tells CBS News her thoughts on becoming vice president if asked by a candidate during an interview with Chief White House Correspondent Norah O’Donnell on “The Early Show.”
Condoleezza Rice is too modest in wondering if Stephen Hadley had been right to suggest that she should resign because he, Hadley, told her he would have resigned.
Least of all has Condoleezza Rice any reason to doubt the value of her continuing service to President Bush, the United States of America, the people of Iraq and of the world, of all religions and of none.
To come to the question of whether Condoleezza Rice should have resigned as National Security Advisor as it seems Stephen Hadley may have suggested.
NO absolutely Condoleezza Rice should not have resigned!
Did Jesus resign?
Do angels resign?
Does God resign?
Condi CAN’T resign from being Condoleezza Rice – it is her job for life!
Condi was right not to quit even though her wisdom was overlooked at the time.
Instead, Steve Hadley should have suggested that the Generals might consider resigning so long as they continued to dismiss Condi’s advice.
Instead Steve should have given Condi full support like a truly loyal number 2 ought to have done.
Steve should not have sought to advance his own career at Condi’s expense. This was a disloyal motive perhaps.
Condolezza Rice Washington Monument Photoshop – click for larger version
Condoleezza Rice: From the Mountain Top to the Promised Land.(YouTube)
Video quotes. Music is “Africa” by Toto.
Condoleezza Rice
It’s really wonderful for the United States. Obviously the election of, now, President Obama was a giant leap in that direction and I think it said something to the world that America is, in fact, what it claims to be. It’s a place where circumstances matter less; where you came from doesn’t determine where you’re going.
I think it showed that we have had this painful, painful history with race going back to the original birth defect of slavery and yet, step by step, little by little, we’ve overcome it to have first, black secretaries of state and black C.E.O.s of major Fortune 100 companies … and now all the way to an African American as President of the United States.
It’s quite a journey and I always found that when I went around the world it was important to put this into context for people that if you are striving to build democracy in places that are tough or where there hasn’t be democracy before, it’s always a work in progress. It isn’t ever full-blown; it isn’t ever something that you stop working at.
…
We didn’t just focus on the threat of 9/11 but also tried to look to deal with root causes so the international compassion agenda which had to do with doubling foreign assistance for Latin America, quadrupling foreign assistance in Africa, tripling it world wide. The President’s emergency AIDS relief programme, the Malaria initiative, girls’ education.
These were elements of a foreign policy agenda that while not directly responsive to 9/11 were responsive to the idea that you had to make a better world that failed states, hopelessness among people were among the causes of what happened to us and so I am pleased that we were able to do that.
I have a feeling sometimes when I look back over the headlines that it was a bit swamped by 9/11.
We know we have to deal with the world as it is but we do not have to accept the world as it is.
Imagine where we be today if the brave founders of French liberty or of American liberty had simply been content with the world as it was.
They knew that history does not just happen; it is made. History is made by men and women of conviction of commitment and of courage who will not let their dreams be denied.
Rice for President Yahoo Group “Condoleezza Rice for President in 2012. Join this group of supporters from everywhere on the world wide web.”
(Reuters) – Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday she resented what she viewed as an attack on her integrity by former Vice President Dick Cheney in his just-published memoir.
Speaking in an interview with Reuters, Rice rejected Cheney’s contention that she misled President George W. Bush about nuclear diplomacy with North Korea.
“I kept the president fully and completely informed about every in and out of the negotiations with the North Koreans,” Rice said in her first public comments on the matter.
“You can talk about policy differences without suggesting that your colleague somehow misled the president. You know, I don’t appreciate the attack on my integrity that that implies.”
Rice, in a telephone interview, also disputed a passage in Cheney’s memoir, “In My Time,” in which he says the secretary of state “tearfully admitted” that the Bush administration should not have apologized for a claim in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address on Iraq’s supposed search for uranium for nuclear arms.
Cheney, who opposed a public apology for the unfounded claim, wrote that Rice “came into my office, sat down in the chair next to my desk, and tearfully admitted I had been right.”
“It certainly doesn’t sound like me, now, does it?” Rice said in the interview. “I would never — I don’t remember coming to the vice president tearfully about anything in the entire eight years that I knew him.”
“I did say to him that he had been right about the press reaction” to the administration’s acknowledgment that the remarks about Iraq seeking uranium in Africa should not have been in Bush’s speech, Rice said.
“And so I did say to the vice president, ‘you know, you were right about the press reaction.’ But I am quite certain that I didn’t do it tearfully,” she said.
Rice is the latest former senior Bush aide to fire back at Cheney’s memoir and its characterization of the vice president’s bureaucratic rivals.
Rice’s predecessor, former secretary of state Colin Powell, on Sunday said Cheney’s book levels “cheap shots” at colleagues and mischaracterizes events.
Rice said she believes her last contact with Cheney was at the groundbreaking ceremony for Bush’s presidential library.
Asked if Cheney were trying to settle scores, Rice said, “I am not going to question the vice president’s motives, because he is somebody with whom I had a good relationship and for whom I had, and still have, a great deal of respect.”
“But I have to say that some of the things that he said about his colleagues are not in keeping with the high respect that I have always had for him,” she added. “I think they do fall into the category of cheap shots.”
Rice played down speculation that she might be asked to serve as a Republican vice presidential candidate in 2012. “I am not cut out for such things,” she said.
When a reporter pointed out that this was not an absolute, Shermanesque denial, she laughed and replied: “No, no no. I am a happy university professor… We’ll all find great candidates. I won’t be one of them.”[/quote]
This video is a music video of an outdoor ceremony held near the US Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London, on 4th July, US Independence Day, in 2011, the centenary of the birth of the 40th President of the USA, Ronald Reagan to unveil a new statue of Ronald Reagan there.
Condoleezza Rice, the Former US Secretary of State, is there representing Nancy Reagan, the former US First Lady and wife of President Ronald Reagan.
Condi thanks the people of Great Britain for the honour bestowed upon Ronald Reagan and upon the American people of establishing this statue of Ronald Reagan, describing the special relationship as an unshakable faith in our values across an ocean and across time, our courage to act on those values, to save one another from trouble and to project those values and hopes for those who still toil in tyranny, understanding the irrepressible human spirit which triumphs because the desire for freedom is universal.
The statue represents Ronald Reagan’s partnership with another great patriot Lady Thatcher, Prime Minister of Great Britain.
The world we see today, a Europe whole, free and at peace, a Europe in which we enjoy friendship and alliance with the former captive states in the transatlantic alliance called “NATO” seemed impossible in the dark days of World War 2 and in the days when the shadow of Soviet communism covered half a continent and even in the beginning of 1989. Incredibly, the Berlin wall came down, Europe was liberated, and hammer and sickle would came down from the Kremlin for the last time.
This gives us hope and optimism and will to stand this those who are still trapped in tyranny, to stand with those who profess faith in our values.
The statue is a commemoration of a glorious past and a call to an even more glorious future.
The video includes images which recall Condoleezza Rice’s role in ending the cold war and the liberations of Kuwait, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
The music is “Rule Britannia” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.
On Friday, April 1st 2011, an angry mob was incited to attack a UN compound in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. The mob stormed the base and 7 UN workers were killed.
4 British-trained Nepalese soldiers or “Gurkhas”,
Lt. Col. Siri Skare, a 53-year-old Norwegian military attaché—a former fighter pilot—seconded to the U.N., along with
Joakim Dungel, a 33-year-old Swede who had been working in the human-rights office for less than two months, and
Filaret Motco, a 43-year-old Romanian who headed the mission’s political section.
Too much internet comment has been posted elsewhere debating the pretext, excuse or perceived insult which was used by the mob’s ringleaders to incite the mob to attack. This topic is intended to leave that subject well alone.
I reject that other discussion as irrelevant to the real needs here which are a discussion of how and why UN workers were vulnerable, undefended and left to die and who is responsible.
Only about 60 police were deployed, and they appeared uncertain how to respond. Initial attempts to disperse the crowd by firing warning shots appeared only to inflame the demonstrators.
Useless policing. Civil police need to keep protesting crowds or mobs intent on attack (hard to tell the difference initially) at an agreed protest line, which if passed without permission, especially in large numbers who can’t be arrested then the attacking mob should be shot. It is up to the civil police to control the crowd. If they don’t hold the crowd back it is the civil authorities fault when a mob gets shot down.
They phoned for help from the nearby military bases of German and Swedish forces, according to a person briefed on the situation.
Useless. Nearby is not near enough. The UN base or compound should be embedded within ISAF bases so an attack on the UN looks like an attack on ISAF, which it is.
The U.S.-led military said the situation “escalated rapidly” and that a swift-reaction team didn’t arrive until after rioters were gone.
Useless. If the UN were depending on “swift” being swift enough to save them, they were wrong and misled. The UN should have leadership which tells them – you are not safe being “nearby” you need to be surrounded by a competent military defence.
Once demonstrators flooded the compound,
Useless compound defence architecture. It should be impossible for a crowd to breach a secure compound and if they try there should be fire power to kill those attempting to breach the compound or base
a dozen Afghan police guards—the first line of defense—dropped their weapons
Useless guards. A dozen professional loyal soldiers manning 4 machine guns could probably have saved the day even at that stage.
The Afghan police are neither professional nor loyal to the UN so the UN should never have put their lives in the hands of Afghan police.
Inside the compound, a small contingent of Nepalese Gurkha guards working for the U.N. faced a conundrum: They were under U.N. orders not to open fire on demonstrators. The videos show one guard feebly trying to wave an elderly demonstrator out of the compound.
Gurkhas are not useless man for man. But 4 to 6 Gurkhas is not enough to hold off such crowd who by this time are armed with guns taken from the police.
When a mob breaches a secure compound they are clearly an attacking mob not “demonstrators”. The senior members of the UN should have made that clear. If the Gurkhas had been better led they would have been able to put up more of a fight, but expecting so few of them to make up for failings everywhere else is unrealistic.
Inside the building, other attackers targeted one of the safe rooms. The door proved little protection against the mob.
Useless. Defence architecture needs to be more secure areas within secure areas. Those inside a safe room or bunker within a compound or base need to be able to kill those trying to enter the safe room.
The attackers searched the darkened bunker with a lamp and discovered Lt. Col. Siri Skare, a 53-year-old Norwegian military attaché—the former fighter pilot—seconded to the U.N., along with Joakim Dungel, a 33-year-old Swede who had been working in the human-rights office for less than two months, and Filaret Motco, a 43-year-old Romanian who headed the mission’s political section.
Useless. Any defence attache worth their salt would know they were sitting in a death trap and would have refused to be responsible for such a poorly defended UN compound and would have ordered everyone out and relocated to the ISAF base.
Norway is a sick monarchy with a King of Norway who thinks it is funny or cute to appoint a penguin in Edinburgh zoo as one of his senior officers. I am not kidding.
The Norwegian military is not right in the head to have allowed UN staff into that suicidal UN compound.
Norway is responsible for the Nobel Peace prize and that is what happens to those who trust the Norwegian King, his peace prize or his military attaches. The Norwegian King gets you killed. Remember that.
This is a primarily a problem of lame security at the UN compound: badly constructed, probably poorly located, insufficiently guarded, guards insufficiently armed. Poor organisation from start to finish.
All that is needed is to be better armed and trained than the attacking mob, as this video from the movie “Zulu” illustrates.
You need to have enough defensive fire power to stop as many as keep attacking
It is missing the point entirely to consider what the mind-set of the attacking mob might have been. Who cares what their motives for attacking are? It matters not when you are defending. What matters is to be armed and prepared to stop and repel their attack.
Ban Ki-Moon to blame.
Yes you can break this down into individual failures but the failure is one of leadership at the very top of the UN organisation.
If anyone is to be held responsible over this, it should be Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General.
This importance of this story is the shocking fact that UN bases in Afghanistan are practically undefended and a mob could easily storm a base and kill those inside.
UN security is a joke.
The UN needs to sack the UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon for his gross incompetence in failing to defend UN personnel.
Ban Ki-Moon: totally useless.
The UN has a lot of great principles to uphold – universal human rights etc, but these need to be upheld at the point of gun, with proper military organisation, which the UN should be able to do, in principle, but with the wrong leadership, like Ban Ki-Moon’s wrong leadership, fails to do.
The world’s dictators don’t want UN principles imposed upon their countries – they’d rather lock up or kill their political opponents – so these dictatorial governments would rather the UN was ineffectual, defenceless and impotent, like Ban Ki-Moon is.
That is why so many of the rotten governments of the world get to together at the UN to appoint such useless “hearts and flowers” types like Ban Ki Moon or Kofi Annan.
The UN leadership must prevent UN workers being killed as they go about the UN’s business – by for example, making sure that UN compounds are properly defended with a robust military not afraid to shoot violent attacking mobs like that Afgan mob who killed the 7 UN workers in Mazar-e-Sharif.
We need to get some good military, security and safety advisors in position with orders to defend UN workers’ lives using all means necessary, including machine-gunning attacking mobs no matter how many attack.
I want the UN leadership to defend our guys, to take sides, to realise this is war and to fight it to win.
I want the life of one loyal UN worker to be valued more by the UN high command than the lives of all in an attacking mob because we need those UN workers to achieve the UN’s long term goals and we don’t need any of those in such attacking mobs.
The right to protest, but not the right to kill
I am the last one to suggest machine-gunning protesters or demonstrators, having been a protester or demonstrator myself on a number of occasions.
A mob incited to lethal violence is a different thing from a crowd of peaceful demonstrators and our soldiers need to know the difference and react differently in both cases.
The mob attack on the UN compound was not a case of spray painting “Go home infidels” and smashing a few windows. This was a determined attempt to enter a “secure” (supposedly) base wherein people are being defended to inflict mob violence on those inside.
This was not an attack on property or vandalism but a murderous mob, there is a difference, and everyone has the right of self-defence in such circumstances.
The chances of reasoning with or negotiating a peaceful outcome with such an enraged mob are slim. You should always have the fire-power available to kill such a mob and be prepared to fight to survive.
The defence architecture of a military or diplomatic base – that means – security barriers, fences, walls, gates, guard posts etc – needs to be carefully designed so that only welcome guests, in good order, can enter with permission.
It is the responsibility of the civil authorities on the outside to hold any angry mob back outside the exterior defence barrier.
An angry, violent mob which breaches the defence barriers must expect to be shot.
Now, it is different if it is an essentially peaceful crowd of demonstrators. If, for example, it is some disarmed students occupying their administrative headquarters to protest education cuts, that is different. I don’t know of any occasion in Britain anyway when the students’ union has killed university administrators.
However, we are talking about Afghanistan where the locals often are armed and there is a war going on, don’t you know?
The defence architecture of this UN compound in Mazar-e-Sharif, was inadequate in the extreme and the numbers, quality, loyalty and arming of the guards was also inadequate in the extreme.
This is not a case of being “wise after the event”. This is basic military tactics. The UN secretary general and his senior security advisors should not have put UN staff in the hands of such poor military experts as are advising them.
The failure for appointing people who don’t know what they are doing is the responsibility of the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon who the UN should sack forthwith.
Ban Ki-Moon is useless, he is failing to properly organise the military defence of UN workers in Afghanistan and elsewhere and UN workers are being killed like the 7 killed in Mazar-e-Sharif on Friday, 1st April 2011.
If not Ban Ki-moon then who for UN Secretary General?
Condoleezza Rice for UN Secretary General
I am hoping that Condi as UN Secretary General would find the weaknesses in the UN secretariat and administration and purge the incompetents whoever they are.
We need Condi as UN Secretary General, and I’ll be her head of security, if she’ll have me.
What would Condi do?
All I can say for sure is what I would do if I were responsible for UN security.
I can’t promise that Condi would appoint me as her Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security or that she would even give me a second thought. She has always seemed to ignore me.
So I can’t even promise that if Condi was made UN Secretary General she would instruct her Under-Secretary-General for Security and Safety to take expert advice from me.
In fact the guy that Ban Ki-moon appointed to that job, Gregory B. Starr
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced today the appointment of Gregory B. Starr of the United States as Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security. Mr. Starr will replace David Veness.[/quote]
used to work as US Director of Diplomatic Security responsible for the security of US diplomats.
Gregory B. Starr is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security. He was selected by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on May 6, 2009.[1]
Prior to his appointment with the United Nations, Starr was the Director of the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), and the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary within Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) from March 1, 2007.
So Starr was the guy watching Condi’s back as secretary of state. He may even have got his job at the UN working for Ban Ki-moon with a reference from Condi. I don’t know.
This guy Starr might not be up to his job at the UN but maybe it is because he is not getting the support he needs from the UN Secretary General? Maybe if Condi was his boss he would perform better?
I am certainly not going to vouch for Starr. If Starr is the problem I would advise Condi to sack or demote him. If that was the right move to take I feel Condi would take the right move, if not on my advice then on the advice of her other supporters.
Condi has a lot of clever friends and supporters and we would not see her fail just because she has inherited someone in the staff who is not up to the job.
How to get Ban Ki-moon out and Condi in
The UN Secretary General must be nominated by the UN Security Council.
Every country has a right to change its mind and change its vote. None of us signed away our freedom to Ban Ki-moon.
We are not now all slaves of Ban Ki-moon with no right to reject our imposed master.
Every permanent member of the security council – the USA, GB, France, Russia & China has a veto over the nomination of the UN Secretary general – and so if any of them change their mind about the incumbent UN Secretary General and want him out, their veto is available to withdraw the nomination of the Security Council.
I would say the way to go would be to take advantage of the UN head quarters being in New York.
The UN is administered from 5 main buildings in the world – New York, Geneva, Vienna, The Hague and Nairobi.
The US President should take short-term control of UN HQ in New York, dismissing Ban Ki-moon.
The US President should appoint Condi as acting UN Secretary General (New York)
The Swiss government could also appoint Cond as acting UN Secretary General (Geneva)
The Austrian government could also appoint Condi as acting UN Secretary (Vienna)
The Dutch government could appoint Condi as acting UN Secretary General (The Hague)
]The Kenyan government could appoint Condi as acting UN Secretary General (Nairobi)
Condi should appoint appropriate representatives from countries with dictatorships – so for example, the UN representative for Burma, (oops, “Myanmar” ) , would be Aung San Suu Kyi or her representative in New York, the UN representative for Libya would be the rebel leaders in Benghazi, new representatives for the Arab countries representing the “Arab Spring” revolutions and so on.
The new UN should then hopefully confirm Condi as permanent UN Secretary General.
In other words, kick out the dictatorships and make the UN what it is supposed to be – an organisation of nations, rather than an organisation of governments some of whom oppress their own nations.
To start the process the US in particular needs to come to its senses about Condi and stop pretending that having her out of power is in some way “a good thing”.
MORGAN: Condoleezza Rice rose to the highest level of American politics, but a lot has changed in the two years, from the Tea Party to the crosshairs politics. What does she think of the new landscape?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MORGAN: There’s been a big debate, Dr. Rice, in the country since what happened to Representative Giffords and, obviously, you yourself have been in high office. You’ve been presumably on the receiving end of similar threats. There wasn’t a threat there but you’ve had threats like that. You’ve had to live in the fear of potential assassination.
What were your thoughts about what happened and what do you think about the overall debate about aggressive political rhetoric being possibly an incendiary fuel to people who are perhaps a bit unstable.
RICE: Well, first of all, I — I think we all want very much to have continuous prayers for Representative Giffords and for those who were harmed as well as for the families with those who have lost their lives. It’s a terribly sad set of circumstances for the United States and it’s one of those days that’s going to live in all of our collective conscious.
I think it’s probably best to take some time and step back and to know what horrible motivations and dark motivations there may have been for — for this young man. And so I, myself, think it’s not a good time to jump to conclusions about what the relationship may have been to — but it’s been a spirited debate, no doubt, and this set of events.
MORGAN: As — as a principle, do you think it’s wise for any politician, anyone in the world, not just America, to use imagery like crosshairs? To use the language of the gun in –in that kind of way?
RICE: Well, the fact is that our politics is pretty rough. It is. I — I certainly —
MORGAN: But should it — should it be that rough?
RICE: — experienced it myself. Our politics has been rough for a long time. It didn’t start two years ago. Our politics has been rough for a long time.
And frankly, people across the whole spectrum use colorful and sometimes language that might be considered incendiary.
MORGAN: But your administration was a past master in that kind of language. I mean, it’s been pretty — pretty rough.
RICE: Well, I — well, we used pretty rough language for the people who committed the act of war against us on September 11th and I have no regrets for using very tough language about them. But all of that —
MORGAN: What about towards — what about towards opponents?
RICE: Well, let me just say — all of that said, I would like to see the politics cool down. I would like to see it — us cool off as a country. I’d like us all to be more careful what we say about one another and give politicians time to solve some of these very difficult issues that we face.
MORGAN: How did you deal psychologically with the threats that came to you personally when you were in office, because you must have had a lot.
RICE: Well, I — for the most part, you just try to ignore them. And you — when you’re in government, of course, you have protection and you have people who are looking out for your wellbeing, but you can’t live in a state of fear. If you do, then yes, you’re not going to do your job very well and you’re going to give yourself high blood pressure, which probably isn’t worth it.
So I — I tried, for the most part, to — to take precautions and I still do. I’m careful to take precautions. But I — I never lived in fear that something was going to happen. You, you know, there — there’s a God and I think I trust in Him.
MORGAN: How’s President Obama doing, do you think?
RICE: Well, I’m very fond of the president personally. I knew him when he was a senator in — and when I was Secretary, he was on Senate Foreign Relations, so I got to know him.
MORGAN: You were a Democrat.
RICE: I was for —
MORGAN: Then you became a Republican.
RICE: I was — I was a — I was a Democrat who voted for Jimmy Carter.
MORGAN: Yes. You flirted on both sides of this divide. I mean, could you be tempted to vote —
RICE: Well I was — I — I — let’s — it was 1976 when I was a Democrat, so let’s not extend that too far.
MORGAN: But could you have been tempted, do you think, in other circumstances, to vote for President Obama?
RICE: Well, I think that he is a fine person and he’s doing his best for this country and I was personally quite gratified that America elected a black president. And I went to the State Department press room that morning to say how — what it said about our country. It said that our country is what it claims to be. And so, all of that was great.
I’m a committed Republican. I believe very strongly in individual liberty. I tend not to think much in terms of group politics. I really am a kind of small government person and I’m most certainly a fiscal conservative and strong on national defense.
But I think there’s more commonality in the middle of our country than there might —
MORGAN: Given the way that President Obama is now talking about being more inclusive with the Republicans and getting America back on its feet — it seems to me a bigger picture here than just the normal partisan nonsense that goes on in Washington which is getting America revived as a nation.
I mean, if he came to you, President Obama, as I would if I was him, and said, you know, what, Condoleezza, I need someone like you in my administration. Would you do it?
RICE: He doesn’t need me in his administration. He has very fine people around him.
MORGAN: But if he did. Hypothetically?
RICE: I don’t do hypothetical, Piers. We don’t do anyone any good. But the fact is —
MORGAN: Actually, that can’t be true.
RICE: It’s true.
MORGAN: In office, you must do hypotheticals all the time.
RICE: Well, but you keep — you keep them to yourself because the minute they turn out not to be true, you’re in trouble.
Look, he has — he has very fine people around him. I’ve had the chance to go. He nicely invited me to the White House when I was in Washington in October. We sat. We talked about the whole range of foreign policy issues. I was a supporter of — of the START Treaty, for instance. And so, when I find it helpful to speak on these issues I will.
But I also —
MORGAN: Would you — would you join the Tea Party?
RICE: Well, let me — let me finish with the —
(CROSSTALK)
MORGAN: Assuming you’re going to join him (INAUDIBLE)
RICE: Well just for one second — because he is my president, too. It doesn’t mean that I agree with everything. But I know what it’s like to have people on the outside tripping on you when you’re on the inside, because it’s a lot easier out here than it is in there, and so I’ve kept my criticisms to myself.
Now, as for the Tea Party, I think we shouldn’t be afraid of grassroots movements. These are, I think, overwhelmingly people who see a direction in the United States with which they disagree and they want to bring it to the attention of their leaders in Washington that the conversation in Washington and the conversation at their kitchen table isn’t the same thing.
MORGAN: But do you think that the Sarah Palin phenomenon which has come about in the last year, which I’ve watched with fascination. From — obviously I can’t vote either way, so I — I look at this and think how interesting, in the sense that when the Republicans come to do battle with the Democrats at the next election, I’m still trying to work out if she would be helpful or a hindrance to those chances.
Because if — if your party gets split by her and the Tea Party, isn’t that a big problem for you?
RICE: Well, there’s a long logic chain there. First of all, she is an important and consequential figure in American politics. She was the governor of a state, and —
MORGAN: Could you win with her do you think?
RICE: I — I have no — I do international politics.
MORGAN: You have an idea.
RICE: I don’t. I really don’t, because I think the political landscape is going to unfold in ways that we may not even understand over the next couple of years. Two years is a lifetime in politics.
Now, the Republican Party will, I’m quite certain, put forward a very good candidate. I don’t know who that will be. The Democrats will undoubtedly — most likely put forth President Obama —
MORGAN: Just to —
RICE: — and we will then have that debate.
MORGAN: — you’re not fearful of that candidate being Sarah Palin?
RICE: I — I’m not fearful of the — the candidates that are on the horizon.
MORGAN: OK.
RICE: I think there are a lot of very good people there. And when they go around the track a few times — because the American political system is very good at weeding.
MORGAN: Well, when they go around the track and start weeding, they might of course come back to you.
RICE: No, they won’t do that.
——————–
MORGAN: What ambitions do you have left? See I just can’t imagine you’re not going to be back in high office.
RICE: Oh, I can.
MORGAN: Really?
RICE: I can imagine that. Of course.
MORGAN: Isn’t there a little part of you that think — you know, something — we’ve had the first African American President. I can’t be that, but I can be the first female president.
RICE: No. I don’t really want to run for office.
MORGAN: Why? I mean you’re still very young, you’re fit.
RICE: Well, I’m young — younger.
MORGAN: But amazing experience.
RICE: I’m not very young anymore. But I —
MORGAN: What are you 30?
RICE: Thank you.
MORGAN: Thirty-nine?
RICE: We’ll leave it at that .
The last thing that I can imagine myself — well, maybe not the last thing, but I cannot imagine myself running for office. Not because politics is so tough, but uh, it’s just not me. I’ll do public service. I’m very involved in K-12 education; I’m very involved in, you know, trying to help the State of California, but —
MORGAN: Yes, but you were running the country? That’s not going to get your juices flowing, is it? RICE: It’s not going to get my juices flowing.
MORGAN: It’s like being a big NFL player and then you get, you know — you suddenly go and play little league somewhere. It’s not all the same.
RICE: No. Playing — oh, so you consider being a university professor little league; do you?
MORGAN: Compared to Secretary of State.
RICE: Compared to Secretary of State, it has a lot of things in common. Trying to persuade nineteen year olds is not all that different than trying to pursued some heads of state.
MORGAN: So look, ten years time, you can either be the first female president, or you can be happily married to a hunky NFL football player.
RICE: I’m well beyond —
MORGAN: If there are any guys I know who — who watch football all day long —
RICE: — Let’s — let’s put it this way —
MORGAN: — and eat fried chicken.
RICE: I’m — I’m well beyond the age at which I’m about to be married to an NFL football player, but I am — very much love what I do. I love being a university profession. I know that’s hard to believe. I know it’s hard for people in Washington to believe, because Washington is very much its own conversation.
But there is nothing better than being in a classroom with really, really brilliant students, and opening up new worlds to them in the way that a profession opened up new worlds to me.
The allegory of Condoleezza Rice as Moses bringing revolution and freedom to the people of Tunisia.
Condi as a young girl with her mother.
God of Abraham, take my child into thy hands that she may live to thy service.
Condi as a young girl outside the White House.
and I will send thee Condoleezza unto Washington that thou mayest bring my people out of segregation
Look at her face. She has seen God.
Hear my word Ben Ali and obey.
If there is one more problem upon Tunisia it is by your word that God will bring it.
Arise oh Tunisia, behold the dawn of freedom!
For hundreds of years we have waited. The Almighty has heard our cries from bondage.
You are the chosen one.
Fear not. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lady.
The Lady of Hosts will do battle for us.
Algiers, September 6, 2008. Condi parts the sea of people before flying to Tunisia to set the people free.
Condi photoshopped as “Moses” leading the people of Tunisia to freedom.
Behold her mighty hand.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice waves to photographers upon her departure from Tunisia on September 6, 2008 after pressing the now ousted President Ben Ali for democratic reform.
December 3, 2010. Condoleezza Rice replies to a question by Katie Couric and one from a member of a studio audience about WikiLeaks.
Condoleezza Rice
I think what has happened is a crime. It is up to the Justice Department to figure out exactly what crime it is but it’s got to be prosecuted and punished or it’s going to keep happening and I hope the penalty is really severe because maybe that will deter this kind of behaviour.
The United States cannot exist in a world where we can’t share information within the government with the expectation that is somehow going to end up on the front pages of newspapers. You can’t do business that way. So I hope it is prosecuted and prosecuted severely.
The event was organised by the Council on Foreign Relation for their HBO History Makers Series.
If, as the Independent says, this is a fight between WikiLeaks and “The Machine”, I, for one, am siding with the machine.
I, at least, know the value of discipline and loyalty to the leaders of the free world, whereas it seems Assange and WikiLeaks want to make the headlines irrespective of outcome – sometimes doing good, sometimes risking danger to others.
WikiLeaks is too anarchic right now and Condi should be supported as and when she decides to crack the whip on them.
As Condoleezza Rice, who is, in my opinion anyway, the leader of the free world, precisely promotes freedom and human dignity for all the people in the world therefore WikiLeaks should be more careful to take their lead from her.
I think WikiLeaks needs a new management ethos and organisation hierarchy which works with Condi and her staff at the US State Department (or ex-staff but you know what I mean).
If Assange and WikiLeaks come to order, give an undertaking to toe the line and generally work with “the machine” then maybe Condi will be less severe in the punishments she is looking for.
Generally it is the best advice to appease Condi and give her what she is asking for, most times anyway. The “New World Order” is not an Imperial dictatorship but the world does need a president and it should be Condi, not Assange.
WFAA – TV reports on the ground breaking event for the new George W. Bush Presidential Center at the Southern Methodist University Campus, Dallas, Texas.
“and that healthy societies are more likely to be partners in peace and in prosperity” – Secretary Condoleezza Rice
“and I believe that the ultimate responsibility of a leader is to not do what is easy or popular but to do what is necessary and right” – President George W. Bush.
“free political systems require the insights of women in government, journalism and the law” – First Lady Laura Bush.
The George W. Bush Institute works to unleash human potential through our focus on education reform, global health, human freedom, and economic growth. All our programs engage women and social entrepreneurs as proven agents of change in society. Our work focuses on turning big ideas into practical, measurable solutions for pressing public problems.
Efforts of the Institute are guided by the founding principles of freedom, opportunity, responsibility and compassion.
The Bush Institute draws upon the unique ability of President and Mrs. Bush to convene, spotlight and inspire.
Moe Lane
Steve Maley
Daniel Horowitz
Jake Walker
Victoria Coates
