Quickhits - Fighting Blogger
I'm tired of fighting Blogger this morning, so, I'm going to dump it all in a quickhits post.
(Reuters) Iraqi rebels make $1 billion a year from refinery.
(UPI) The US is changing its rules and will allow local Sunnis to serve in the Iraqi Army in Anbar. (It will help get above the 50% fill rate, but I would think infiltration will be huge.)
(UPI) Iraqi troops will receive a $150/month bonus for deploying to Baghdad. (That is a big money bribe in today's Iraq.)
(Reuters) Pakistan bombed a camp in the S. Waziristan border region. (There are already suspicions it was the US again.)
(AP) The attack came (coincidentally) on the same day Gates visited Afghanistan.
And, I found this story on the Republican backbiting over Mel Matinez being put up for "general chairman" of the Republican party quite entertaining. Immigration is the issue, and already they're using the coded language against Martinez, "Outsourcing our leadership at this critical time is not an option."
(Reuters) Iraqi rebels make $1 billion a year from refinery.
(UPI) The US is changing its rules and will allow local Sunnis to serve in the Iraqi Army in Anbar. (It will help get above the 50% fill rate, but I would think infiltration will be huge.)
(UPI) Iraqi troops will receive a $150/month bonus for deploying to Baghdad. (That is a big money bribe in today's Iraq.)
(Reuters) Pakistan bombed a camp in the S. Waziristan border region. (There are already suspicions it was the US again.)
(AP) The attack came (coincidentally) on the same day Gates visited Afghanistan.
And, I found this story on the Republican backbiting over Mel Matinez being put up for "general chairman" of the Republican party quite entertaining. Immigration is the issue, and already they're using the coded language against Martinez, "Outsourcing our leadership at this critical time is not an option."
posted by mikevotes at
9:15 AM
4 Comments:
And there's the NY Times analysis of Rice's trip to Egypt where the tough talk of "democracy" and the "rule of law" was flush away and replaced by sucking up.
“I especially want to thank President Mubarak for receiving me and for spending so much time with me to talk about the issues of common interest here in the Middle East,” Ms. Rice said. “Obviously the relationship with Egypt is an important strategic relationship — one that we value greatly.”
The analysis cites a couple of interesting observations from the locals. Fist that the US "had decided that stability, not democracy, was its priority." And that "The United States is so unpopular in the region now, many here say, that its support is enough to undermine a government’s legitimacy with its public."
By
-epm, at 10:06 AM
I saw that line about democracy as well, but I must have read past the second.
And, that's the bind we've put these countries in. They really can't help too overtly without huge cost.
Egypt did give the plan a thumbs up, though.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 1:11 PM
Egypt did give the plan a thumbs up, though.
As did Saudi Arabia. But I don't for a minute think they'll ACT any differently. This is all a flash-in-the-pan show. For them; to shore up financial and military deals. For Condi/Bush; to spin a news cycle. In less than a fortnight this will all be like sand in the desert...
By
-epm, at 3:31 PM
Right. The Saudi approval was extremely tepid. Amidst everything else, they didn't want to send Condi Rice away disgraced. The current rumor is they're really mulling serious support for the Sunnis in Iraq.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 4:34 PM
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