foreign minister

The latest in the Jack Ryan movies nearly comes to life:

A mysterious night-time telephone call last week brought nuclear-armed India and Pakistan close to the brink of war at the height of the crisis over the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistani officials said Sunday.

They said the "threatening" call was made, ostensibly by Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee, to Pakistani President Asif Zardari, on Friday, November 28, two days into the Mumbai attacks, in which some 170 people died. India by then had declared that the militants who'd stormed Mumbai were all from Pakistan. The heated conversation left Zardari thinking that India was about to attack and led him to put Pakistan's armed forces on "high alert," according to Wajid Hasan, Pakistan's ambassador to London and a close associate of Zardari.

The phone call was hoax. We are really in dangerous times, and it’s not just terrorists – it’s people like this caller. Sadly we don’t have a Jack Ryan to protect us.

And how is this supposed to work in a "compromise"?

President Bush will not support a war spending bill that punishes the Iraqi government for failing to meet benchmarks for progress, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.

Rice's comments cast fresh doubt on a potential compromise between the Democratic-led Congress and the White House in getting money to U.S. troops.

Also, with a regional conference on Iraq set to begin Thursday in Egypt, Rice raised the possibility of a rare direct encounter between high-level U.S. and Iranian officials. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is expected to lead his country's delegation.

"I will not rule out that we may encounter one another," Rice said. "But what do we need to do? It's quite obvious. Stop the flow of arms to foreign fighters. Stop the flow of foreign fighters across the borders."

Make no mistake about it, Bush wants no compromise. Bush plans on continuing to dictate the conditions of his funding bill. Ironic that our forefathers purposely granted the power of the purse to the Congress to prevent such a dictatorship. If that wasn't the case then Bush would not have to go to Congress for the money - he would have it.

I believe it is time to take a page from the old Republican play book. With Bush acting like a dictator, he is obviously trying to lessen the meaning of our democracy. A democratic nation is a free nation and we were attacked on 9/11 because "they hate our freedoms" (in the world according to Republicans). So why is Bush and his Republicans trying the treasonous act of supporting the mantra of our true enemy - al Qaeda? Maybe Rudy has an answer to that one.

Well considering the this mornings news of the US denying reports of Iraq nearing civil war, here is something else to offer a little contradicition:

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said insurgents are trying ``everything'' to foment civil war as reprisal attacks followed yesterday's bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, sacred to Shiite Muslims.

``Anti-democratic forces have tried everything to push the country into a civil war and sectarian violence,'' Zebari said today in a phone interview from Baghdad, blaming the attack on extremists and supporters of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. ``This is the biggest challenge we as Iraqis face, and efforts are under way to prevent it.''

After the Samarra blast destroyed the shrine's golden dome, about 30 Sunni Muslim mosques were attacked, and at least three Mullahs, or religious leaders, were killed, Zebari said. Eighty bullet-ridden corpses have been taken to a Baghdad morgue since yesterday afternoon, Agence France-Presse reported.

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Yup. It might not be exactly there yet but damn, it sure is getting close. The worst part is once it happens, our troops are stuck right in the middle and will most likely fall victim to even more attacks. Murtha's plan sounds a lot better now - doesn't it?