condoleezza rice

India has raised their national security level to “war level” following last week’s attacks in Mumbai:

The fallout from a three-day rampage that killed nearly 200 people in Mumbai threatened on Sunday to unravel India's improving ties with Pakistan and prompted the resignation of India's security minister.

New Delhi said it was raising security to a "war level" and had no doubt of a Pakistani link to the attacks, which unleashed anger at home over the intelligence failure and the delayed response to the violence that paralyzed India's financial capital.

Officials in Islamabad have warned any escalation would force it to divert troops to the Indian border and away from a U.S.-led anti-militant campaign on the Afghan frontier.

India and Pakistan at war again. That’s real comforting in the world today, especially when we are talking about two nuclear nations. But don’t worry, we have Condi to the rescue:

President George W. Bush on Sunday dispatched Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to New Delhi in support of India following the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 200 people, including six Americans.</p>

Rice and Bush wanted an opportunity "to express the condolences of the American government directly to the Indian government and the Indian people," Rice spokesman Sean McCormack said.

The big F.U. that corporate media execs gave to the American people and, more importantly, U.S. soldiers. Jessica Yellin told Anderson Cooper last night the following:

Yellin: I think the press corps dropped the ball in the beginning when the lead up to war began, uh the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the President’s high approval ratings and my own experience at the White House was that the higher the President’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives, and I was not at this network at the time, but the more pressure I had from these executives to put on positive stories about the President. I think over time….

The video is available at Crooks and Liars.

As Glenn Greenwald puts it:

Yellin's admission is but the latest in a growing mountain of evidence demonstrating that corporate executives forced their news reporters to propagandize in favor of the Bush administration and the war, and censored stories that were critical of the Government. Katie Couric yesterday said that threats from the White House and accusations of being unpatriotic coerced the media into suppressing its questioning of the war. But last September, Couric revealed even more specifically the type of pressure that was put on her by NBC executives to refrain from criticizing the administration, after she conducted a "tough interview" with Condoleezza Rice:

That's what the FBI is wondering:

FBI agents investigating government watchdog Scott Bloch have subpoenaed any records that would reveal whether concerns about the 2004 elections prompted him to clear Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of ethics violations.

Bloch, the U.S. special counsel who investigates federal employee whistleblower complaints, found no merit to allegations that Rice, then President Bush's national security adviser, timed some of her trips to boost Bush's 2004 reelection campaign.

The FBI is investigating whether Bloch obstructed justice by destroying computer files to hinder an outside inquiry into allegations that he retaliated against employees who opposed his policies. He's also suspected of making false statements to investigators.

Please let McCain pick her for VP. Please!

Seriously - isn't that what we have heard for years? They blame Clinton and Carter. So then riddle me this one:

Anxious not to repeat mistakes of past Middle East peace-making, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has turned to former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter for tips ahead of her own conference this year.

Rice invited Carter, a vocal critic of Bush administration policies, to the State Department on Wednesday where the two discussed his Arab-Israeli peacemaking efforts in the 1970s, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday.

Their talks were "good and cordial," he said. They focused on the Middle East and not Carter's recent criticism of President George W. Bush's policies in Iraq and elsewhere.

A Soviet specialist, Rice also telephoned another former Democratic president, Bill Clinton, who tried, and ultimately failed, in his eight years in office to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together.

I guess Democrats weren't too bad for the Middle East. I can't wait for the Republicans to cry foul on this one!

Another "war" we are losing thanks to George Bush:

State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a nearly 30 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2006 to more than 14,000, almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday.

The annual report's release comes amid a bitter feud between the White House and Congress over funding for U.S. troops in Iraq and a deadline favored by Democrats to begin a U.S. troop withdrawal.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides earlier this week had considered postponing or downplaying the release of this year's edition of the terrorism report, officials in several agencies and on Capitol Hill said.

The last paragraph really gets me. They were going to "downplay" or "delay" this report. Why - because it proves that this administration is still failing? That would be the only answer I can think of.

A heads up. Keith will be giving a special comment on Countdown tonight:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged the Democratic-controlled Congress not to interfere in the conduct of the Iraq war and suggested President Bush would defy troop withdrawal legislation. "I can't imagine a circumstance in which it's a good thing that their flexibility is constrained by people sitting here in Washington, sitting in the Congress," Rice said. "The president is going to, as commander in chief, need to do what the country needs done," she said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/25/AR2007022500357.html

Sec. Rice, when asked about Democratic plans to revise the Iraq authorization, said this:

"It would be like saying that after Adolf Hitler was overthrown, we needed to change then, the resolution that allowed the United States to do that, so that we could deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown."

Keith's SPECIAL COMMENT on her remarks, tonight.

It has been a couple of weeks since we had one. We are over due. Thanks Keith!

Condi is out doing the tough talk on North Korea, but is she making promises she can't keep?

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reassured Japan on Wednesday that Washington would stand by a commitment to protect its Asian ally, trying to temper concerns of an Asian nuclear arms race after North Korea's atomic test.

"The United States has the will and the capability to meet the full range, and I underscore full range, of its deterrent and security commitments to Japan," Rice told a news conference in Tokyo, the first stop on a quick tour of North Asia.

The United States is worried Japan and South Korea might embark on an Asian arms race in response to North Korea building up a nuclear arsenal -- a concern Vice President Dick Cheney warned of two years ago.

"That is why it is extremely important to go out and reaffirm, and reaffirm strongly U.S. defense commitments to Japan and to South Korea," Rice told reporters traveling with her.

Wow I wish I lived in her America where we had an abundance of military forces. The America I live in can't even spare some extra helicopters to help fight in Afghanistan (you know - that little war involving the people who actually attacked us). Tomorrow she is going to South Korea to give basically the same speech. So now we are going to protect all of Asia? Hell we can't even keep our troops safe in Baghdad or protect our own people from Mother Nature. I am sure the leaders of Japan and South Korea know this and will let what Condi says go in one ear and out the other also.