James Baker report

[mr2mk1g 10]

I'm surprised I've not seen anything on here about this yet. It's been on the radio here for a day or so now.

Apparently the Iraq Study Group (headed by a key Bush aid) is about to come out with a report advising of the need to pull out of Iraq and ask Syria and Iran for help in stabilizing the country. Supposedly the report advises that the only option that is most certainly not viable is "stay the course".

Iraq is already behind it apparently, with their PM stating it would bring an end to violence within a month (his word's not mine) and be the beginning of the end of terrorism!

Any thoughts?

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1541442006

[TheAnvil 0]

Hmmm...interesting. I'd like to read the report. Off the top of my head, diplomatic engagement with Syria and Iran on any issue would be a good thing. If we don't put any 'stop nuke testing or else' caveat on initiating such talks the Iranians might be inclined to agree. Given the religious demographics of Iraq, I think its Balkanization/break up is highly likely to occur, with Iran absorbing a good part of it.

I'll have to think on that a bit more. Like to read the report. Thanks.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[Gawain 0]

I saw an interview of Baker on PBS the other day. Their report won't be released until after the elections. The reason for that is that they don't want it used as pre-election leverage one way or the other. The ISG's task is to examine the whole strategy involving Iraq.

The study group hasn't written the report yet, so the report is taking quite a bit of liberty with the reality.

I do expect however, that it will recommend significant changes in some parts of policy, while maintaining others. I don't think it will be the "bombshell" the article claims.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[kallend 2,151]

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I saw an interview of Baker on PBS the other day. Their report won't be released until after the elections. The reason for that is that they don't want it used as pre-election leverage one way or the other. The ISG's task is to examine the whole strategy involving Iraq.

.

We wouldn't want an independent appraisal of the situation to interfere with electioneering, would we? The "cut and run" slurs wouldn't go over so well.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[StreetScooby 5]

Holy s--t! And, asking Iran and Syria to get involved? I am simply stunned right now.

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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We wouldn't want an independent appraisal of the situation to interfere with electioneering, would we?

Clearly you're not a politician. Timing is a very important consideration in the real world. Even Comics know that.

We are all engines of karma

[kallend 2,151]

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We wouldn't want an independent appraisal of the situation to interfere with electioneering, would we?

Clearly you're not a politician. .

Thank you for that compliment.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[StreetScooby 5]

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Thank you for that compliment.

LOL!

We are all engines of karma

[mr2mk1g 10]

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Holy s--t! And, asking Iran and Syria to get involved? I am simply stunned right now.

So am I. Hence why I was so surprised this hadn't hit the US news as big as it had over here.

Bush has been selling Iran and Syria as the next Nazi Germany for a while now, (quite literally recently with the White House's introduction of the term "islamofascist" into their dictionary).

The fact that their own report would then, (reportedly), come out and suggest that the best bet for the region would be to pull out and have Iran and Syria take over security was a big surprise to me.

Even if the White House were to agree with the report's findings and honestly think their recommendations were the right thing to do... I doubt they would actually be able to sell the change in stance to the nation anyway!

[StreetScooby 5]

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Hence why I was so surprised this hadn't hit the US news as big as it had over here.

There's alot of news that doesn't hit the major US papers. Alot.

We are all engines of karma

[Skyrad 0]

I saw James Baker on the news last night and he described the situation in Iraq as 'a Helluva Mess'

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[shropshire 0]

He sounds like a switched on sort of chap.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Skyrad 0]

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Holy s--t! And, asking Iran and Syria to get involved? I am simply stunned right now.

LOL.. Dude if you're not careful you'll end up like one of those old men who won't buy German or Japaneese

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[StreetScooby 5]

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He sounds like a switched on sort of chap.

James Baker is an asset to the US. A voice of reason. Without a doubt. He only took the assignment from GWB if GWB was going to listen to him. This is going to be interesting to watch...

We are all engines of karma

[StreetScooby 5]

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Dude if you're not careful you'll end up like one of those old men who won't buy German or Japaneese

I don't do that now. BTW, you left out Chinese.

We are all engines of karma

[freethefly 6]

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James Baker is an asset to the US. A voice of reason. Without a doubt. He only took the assignment from GWB if GWB was going to listen to him. This is going to be interesting to watch...

I can only imagine that Bush will have the same reaction as Nixon did on the Presidential Commission on Marijuana report. Bush will scream hogwash and stay the course...

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[idrankwhat 0]

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James Baker is an asset to the US. A voice of reason. Without a doubt. He only took the assignment from GWB if GWB was going to listen to him. This is going to be interesting to watch...

I can only imagine that Bush will have the same reaction as Nixon did on the Presidential Commission on Marijuana report. Bush will scream hogwash and stay the course...

It will be interesting to see how he handles this. "Uncle Jimmy" goes way back with the Bushies both family and business wise. W's circle of wagons is getting smaller and smaller. I'm seeing Rummy, Cheney and Bush all huddled together defiantly these days (it's only a flesh wound....I am INVINCIBLE) Of course W has already stated that he prefers to take his advice from " a higher father" so you're probably not too far off target.

[Gawain 0]

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He sounds like a switched on sort of chap.

James Baker is an asset to the US. A voice of reason. Without a doubt. He only took the assignment from GWB if GWB was going to listen to him. This is going to be interesting to watch...

Baker has been a Bush family friend for decades. The President will listen. In fact, contrary to popular belief, he listens a lot already. He is underestimated in this respect.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[idrankwhat 0]

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Baker has been a Bush family friend for decades. The President will listen. In fact, contrary to popular belief, he listens a lot already. He is underestimated in this respect.

You mean "misunderestimated".

(sorry, that was too easy to pass up)

[kallend 2,151]

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Baker has been a Bush family friend for decades. The President will listen. In fact, contrary to popular belief, he listens a lot already. He is underestimated in this respect.

So he listens. I guess that means he just ignores what he hears?

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[StreetScooby 5]

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I guess that means he just ignores what he hears?

Well, he surely ignored what Colin Powell told him.

We are all engines of karma

[freethefly 6]

Yup, Bush ignores the truth and only hears what he wants to hear. He is still screaming "stay the course" while his generals and his coalition partners are saying otherwise. In the last 18 days more than 70 americans have died and countless others have been injured. An unknown nuber of Iraqis have been killed and their country is in dire straights. They are deep in a civil war and sliding fast towards an Islamist state that will surely wage war upon the U.S. in due time. All the while the group responsible for 9/11 is still operating freely. There is but one group to blame for what is to come and that group is the Bush administration. Meanwhile N.Korea is building an arsenal to protect itself against , what it percieves to be a likely invasion from the U.S.. The words spoken by Bush only increases their paranoia. Bush has done nothing to make the world safer. His actions will be the main reason if the world is tossed into war. It should be understandable that every country should not bend to the will of the U.S. and that threatening everyone with "a grave consequence" is not the path to peace and only heightens tension. You cannot force peace by threats of war. The world is quickly turning against the U.S. due to Bush's policy of war.

BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese envoy met North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and delivered a personal message from President Hu Jintao on Thursday in the highest-level Chinese visit to its isolated ally since the North's nuclear test last week.

A North Korean general, meanwhile, told ABC News that Pyongyang's nuclear weapons were defensive only and would not be sold to third parties, but he added that war on the peninsula was inevitable if President Bush continues to ask the country to "kneel."

The meeting with Kim by State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan came as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was making an Asian tour to push for cooperation in enforcing U.N. sanctions for the North's Oct. 9 blast amid signs that Pyongyang may be preparing a second atomic test.

She said the United States wants to lower tensions, not aggravate them.

"We want to leave open the path of negotiation. We don't want the crisis to escalate," Rice told reporters in Seoul.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said he had no details of the message conveyed by Tang in Pyongyang, but said Kim and the diplomat had "in-depth discussions" about the nuclear dispute. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency said Tang also brought a gift for Kim but did not say what it was.

Tang's trip might be a way for Beijing to express frustration at the test and warn against conducting any more while wooing it back to six-party talks on the North's nuclear program.

But relations between North Korea and China, the main source of food and fuel aid to its decrepit economy, have deteriorated in recent years, and Beijing's influence over Pyongyang appears to be eroding.

"This is a very significant visit, against the backdrop of major changes on the Korean Peninsula," Liu said at a regular news briefing. "We hope China's diplomatic efforts ... will bear fruit."

Washington hoped that Tang delivered a stern warning to the North Koreans about more atomic blasts, said a senior U.S. official speaking to reporters on Rice's plane as she traveled to Seoul from Tokyo.

"I'm pretty convinced that the Chinese will have a very strong message about future tests," said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity, due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Tang, a former foreign minister whose Cabinet post ranks above minister, was accompanied by Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo and Wu Dawei, the Chinese envoy to the six-nation nuclear disarmament talks.

A day after Bush said Pyongyang would face "a grave consequence" if it transferred nuclear weapons to Iran or al-Qaida, North Korean Gen. Ri Chan Bok told ABC that the arms were to defend the country and not to earn money or be transferred to third parties.

"We have nuclear weapons to defend our country and our people," said Ri, chief of the Korean People's Army Panmunjom mission.

Ri told ABC that Bush wants North Korea to "kneel" but that the communist country cannot agree to that.

If that continues, he said, "war will be inevitable," ABC correspondent Diane Sawyer quoted Ri as saying.

"He keeps talking about North Korea as the 'axis of evil,' as an outpost of tyranny, as an unacceptable government that makes its own people hungry," Ri told ABC. "We would ask him please to stop making these bad comments on our nation, and I'm speaking not just for myself but for all people in this country."

Ri also told ABC that North Korea did not care if negotiations are bilateral or as part of six-party talks, but that sanctions against country must be lifted for progress to begin.

Discussions involving the United States, host China, the two Koreas, Japan and Russia have been stalled for a year because of a boycott by the North over U.S. financial sanctions.

Rice was to arrive in Beijing Friday for meetings with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and other Chinese officials.

"We look forward to in-depth discussions with Secretary Rice and hope we can work toward easing the situation and achieve denuclearization through consultation and dialogue," Liu said.

The rush of diplomatic exchanges has sparked speculation that a larger conference was imminent. But Liu said he could not confirm news reports of a planned meeting in Beijing of officials from the six governments in the nuclear talks.

China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council with power to veto U.N. actions, is traditionally reluctant to punish the North. But it voted last weekend for the resolution imposing sanctions in response to the nuclear test.

Beijing has since warned its neighbor against taking any steps that would heighten tensions.

However, Beijing's U.N. ambassador has indicated that inspectors will not board ships to search for equipment or material that can be used to make nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or ballistic missiles. China and South Korea worry that the North would consider the action provocative.

The U.N. resolution "is a balanced resolution and the spirit must also be reflected in its implementation," Liu said. "The parties, while implementing it, should not try to expand the sanctions mandated by the resolution."

Liu said that while China will "implement in earnest" the sanctions, they were not an end in themselves.

"They are rather the means to an end, which is to solve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful way," he said.

On Thursday, Rice met in Seoul with President Roh Moo-hyun and Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, who is slated to be the next U.N. secretary-general.

While South Korea and the United States expressed a united front against the nuclear test and support of U.N. sanctions, Seoul showed no signs that it would immediately move to adopt Washington's hard-line approach to dealing with Pyongyang.

Rice said she didn't mean to pressure the South to take any specific steps, but said that "everyone should take stock of the leverage we have to get North Korea to return to the six-party talks."

Rice, Ban and Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso also met, reaffirming security commitments and calling on the North to return to nuclear talks. The sides agreed to "strongly reject another nuclear test by North Korea and its possession of nuclear" weapons, Aso told reporters.

The South has faced criticism for a pair of landmark inter-Korean projects - a tourism venture and joint economic zone, both in North Korea - that are symbols of hopes for the peninsula's reunification.

Ban said Seoul would consider adjusting those projects to have them come in line with the U.N. sanctions. He also said he explained the merits of the industrial zone to facilitate reforms in the communist nation, and that he believed the U.S. understood.

While visiting Tokyo on Wednesday, Rice said the U.S. was willing to use its full military might to defend Japan in light of the North's nuclear test. She also sought to assure Asian countries there is no need to jump into a nuclear arms race.

Rice also made the same assurances to Seoul that Washington stands behind its pledge to defend the country if the North attacked.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[billvon 3,120]

>The President will listen.

To who?

He didn't listen to Colin Powell. He didn't listen to the Presidential Daily Briefing that warned that Bin Laden was determined to strike the US just before 9/11. He didn't listen to the budget analyst who warned him the costs of the war might exceed $150 billion - indeed, he fired him. He did not listen to generals who warned him that a) they badly needed a post-war plan and b) they needed more troops than they had. Again, one analyst was threatened with termination if he brought up the issue of post-war planning one more time.

I hope someday he _will_ find someone competent that he is willing to listen to. (Perhaps Baker will be the one.) The lives of thousands of americans (and tens of thousands of Iraqis) depend on it.

[Gravitymaster 0]

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>The President will listen.

To who?

He didn't listen to Colin Powell. He didn't listen to the Presidential Daily Briefing that warned that Bin Laden was determined to strike the US just before 9/11. He didn't listen to the budget analyst who warned him the costs of the war might exceed $150 billion - indeed, he fired him. He did not listen to generals who warned him that a) they badly needed a post-war plan and b) they needed more troops than they had. Again, one analyst was threatened with termination if he brought up the issue of post-war planning one more time.

I hope someday he _will_ find someone competent that he is willing to listen to. (Perhaps Baker will be the one.) The lives of thousands of americans (and tens of thousands of Iraqis) depend on it.

And you know all this, how? Listening to someone doesn't mean you agree with them or think they are right. I'm sure there were others with differing opinions who had as much credibility as the people you listed. Just because Bush didn't act on their advice doesn't mean he didn't listen. Heck, I've had my broker advise me to buy certain stocks and to sell others. Sometimes I act on his advice and other times I don't. When he's wrong I'm glad I didn't listen, when he's right, I wish I did. It's still my decision and I make them based on the advice of more than one source.

Bush is in the same position. If he makes a decision that turns out to be ill advised because he acted on the advice of one advisor and not another, the left gets their panties in a twist. Of course we seldom hear any praise for the hundreds of decisions he makes that are well advised.

Nice Moday morning quarterbacking, though.

[wmw999 2,589]

There were a shitload of people who were saying it was a really bad idea to go into Iraq; that it was going to turn into a quagmire, and that it was going to cost a whole lot more than they were saying.

Some of the biggest decisions were the really bad ones. His reaction to 9/11 (i.e. going into Afghanistan) was right on the money. His subsequent (apparent) decision that as US we could do whatever the fuck we wanted and other countries should fall in line was pretty much guaranteed to piss off many other countries in the world. They have the temerity to actually think that their opinion matters too when the world is shared among many, and not just the US.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)