Angela Merkel

Budget debate
German Chancellor Angela Merkel reacts during a German Bundestag parliamentary budget debate in Berlin on March 29.
(AP/Jan Bauer)
Mar. 29, 2006

Imagine...

... in a mythical state,
a governor announced a campaign to punish
African-Americans for alleged violence.

Step one is to confiscate the land owned by
African-Americans, evict them from it and use the land
to build massive new subdivisions. Only white
Protestant Christians may live in these subdivisions.

Step two is to connect these all-white Protestant
Christian settlements to each other by a highway on
which African-Americans are forbidden to drive. To
facilitate control, the automobile tags for
African-Americans will be a different color from the
tags issued to white motorists. Checkpoints would be
set up all around the state capitol to search and
harass African-Americans trying to enter.

Would you support such a plan? Would you hail that
mythical governor as a man of peace? Would you go to
your church congregation and ask the members to send
money to the occupants of these white settlements?
Would you lobby the federal government to subsidize
this new apartheid state in our midst?


.... Check your beliefs

Lie big and Stick to it

One article says:

Asked whether the United States has proof that Iran's government was behind these developments, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon briefing, "I do not, sir."

The other article says:

Rumsfeld's comments expanded on his recent accusations that the Al Quds Division of Iran's Revolutionary Guard is trying to stir up trouble in Iraq by helping to move explosives and bomb-making material across the border from Iran.

It is actually an old technique: Big Lie

Lets not miss the broader context!

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 13, 2006

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan
James S. Brady Briefing Room

.....

And with that, I will be glad to go to your questions.

Q Scott, can I ask you about the speech? You say that there's a lot of progress being made, but there's more work to do. When you say that speaking for the President, it sounds like he's dangerously out of touch with public opinion in this country about the war. And these speeches, which are kind of a PR blitz for the second time, seem to be about communicating the policy, and not addressing what a lot of people think is a failing policy.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I think it's convenient to try to simplify it and talk about it in those ways, but it misses the broader context of what we're working to achieve......

Source

Mind if I smoke?

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice looks at a charango given to her by Bolivia's President Evo Morales (R) in Valparaiso, Chile March, 11, 2006. Rice and Morales met in Chile while attending new Chilean President Michelle Bachelet's inauguration. REUTERS/Maglio Perez

The ultimate metaphore

This was in the news today:

Bolivia's new president, Evo Morales, discussed his country's fight against illegal drugs on Saturday with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and then gave her a guitar decorated with coca leaves.
Source

What a metaphor for all that is happening with Bush Administrations. It Talks about human right and democracy, then we end up with torture in Gunatanamo and Abu Gharib prison. It is fitting to talk about fight against drugs then give a give a guitar decorated with coca leaves.

The endorsement of the week

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to say just a word about the request here for democracy promotion money for Iran. We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran, whose policies are directed at developing a Middle East that would be 180 degrees different than the Middle East that we would like to see develop.


Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Opening Remarks before the Senate Appropriations Committee
Washington, DC
March 9, 2006

Source

With the current anti American sentiment at an all time high in the middle east, I wonder if the Secretary Rice understands the endorsement she has given to the Iranians.

Last 5 years according to Dick Chenney

Vice President's Remarks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee 2006 Policy Conference
The Washington D.C. Convention Center
Washington, D.C.

10:10 A.M. EST

.....And we will continue to act with the kind of resolve that has made these past five years a time of progress in the broader Middle East.

Consider for a moment where we were five years ago, when President Bush and I took office. The secret planning for the attacks of 9/11 was already well underway. Hijackers had been recruited; funds raised; training had taken place. Some of the hijackers were already in the United States. In Afghanistan, the Taliban were in power. Al Qaeda was operating training camps that in the late '90s turned out thousands of terrorists. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was in power, overseeing, along with his two malevolent sons, one of the bloodiest regimes of the 20th century.

Five years ago, there was a serious problem with proliferation, especially in the nuclear area. A. Q. Khan, the man who helped put Pakistan's nuclear program in place, had established a network that was providing nuclear weapons technology to rogue states including North Korea and Iran. And Moammar Ghadafi of Libya, one of the A.Q. Khan network's biggest customers, was spending millions to acquire nuclear weapons.

Today the picture is very different. The Taliban regime is now history, and 25 million Afghans are free. (Applause.) We have captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda; put its leaders on the run; and closed the camps that had trained the killers. (Applause.) Saddam Hussein wakes up every day in a jail cell, his sons are dead -- (applause) -- and Iraqis by the millions have embraced democracy. (Applause.) Iraq's leaders reflect the decency of the Iraqi people, and no dictator is taking their money and giving it to the families of suicide bombers. (Applause.)

Only days after Saddam was captured, the leader of Libya announced he would turn over all of his weapons of mass destruction materials. (Applause.) A short time later, Libya's uranium and centrifuges were sent to a U.S. facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. (Applause.) And the A.Q. Khan proliferation network has been shut down. (Applause.)

Our great country, which over the decades has aided the rise of new democracies in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, now serves that cause in the Middle East -- with courage, and firm purpose, and a level of generosity by the American people not seen since the Marshall Plan.

Five years ago, many would have found it hard to imagine that all these changes were on the way. And, obviously, they did not just happen. Because we've been willing to act on our convictions, we live in a better world today. We cannot know every turn that lies ahead in the fight against terror, and tyranny, and proliferation. Yet at every point, we will be patient and resolute -- because the supporters of democracy will need our help, and the enemies of democracy will test our will. And we will be confident, because events are moving in the direction of human liberty. Freedom's cause is the right cause, and every action we take in support of it makes this world better and safer for our children. (Applause.)

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate your hospitality this morning. The President and I are grateful for your counsel, for your commitment to the security of our country, and for all you do on behalf of America's friendship with Israel.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)
Source

This was also in the news today:

"We have opened the Pandora's box and the question is, what is the way forward?"

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad

Source

"There is an easy way for untying a Gordian knot."

'Why try to untie a knot with your teeth if you can do it with your hands?'


Hashemi Rafsanjani,
citing an old Persian proverb with respect to the current nuclear energy negotiations.