And what's with the "updated" frikkin' rewrite?
"Afghan war tops agenda at summit in Chicago; Rift with Pakistan further exposed at NATO event" by Helene Cooper and Matthew Rosenberg | New York Times, May 21, 2012
CHICAGO - President Obama was struggling to balance the United States’ relationship with two crucial but difficult allies Sunday, after a deal to reopen supply lines through Pakistan to Afghanistan fell apart just as Obama began talks on ending the NATO alliance’s combat role in the Afghan war.
As a two-day NATO summit meeting opened in Chicago, Obama remained at loggerheads with President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, refusing even to meet with him without an agreement on the supply routes, which officials in both countries acknowledged would not be coming soon.
Zardari, who flew to Chicago with hopes of lifting his stature with a
meeting with Obama, was preparing to leave empty-handed as the two
countries continued to feel the repercussions of a fatal US airstrike
last November, for which Obama has offered condolences but no apology.
Zardari did, however, meet with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton to discuss the supply routes.
Related: Pakistan may allow NATO supply runs to resume
White House, Pakistan in talks on supply lines
NATO believes Pakistani supply lines to open soon
That's all the mass-murdering war managers care about.
Related: Pakistan may allow NATO supply runs to resume
White House, Pakistan in talks on supply lines
NATO believes Pakistani supply lines to open soon
That's all the mass-murdering war managers care about.
“This whole breakdown in the relationship between the US and Pakistan has come down to a fixation of this apology issue,’’ said Vali Nasr, a former State Department adviser on Pakistan. The combination of no apology and no meeting, Nasr said, “will send a powerfully humiliating message back to Pakistan.’’
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Obama and his other tenuous ally in the region, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, huddled together Sunday morning to grapple with stalled reconciliation talks with the Taliban.
It was a measure of just how bad things have gotten between the United States and Pakistan that, by contrast, Obama’s relationship with Karzai - which has been rocky ever since Obama came into office vowing to end what he viewed as former President George W. Bush’s coddling of the mercurial Afghan leader - looked calm and stable....
On the Pakistani front, however, things seemed to deteriorate.
US officials said the main sticking point over the supply routes, through which about 40 percent of NATO’s nonlethal supplies had passed, was the amount NATO would pay for each truck carrying supplies from Karachi, on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast, to the Afghan border. Before the closing, the payment per truck was about $250. Pakistan is now asking for “upward of $5,000’’ for each truck, another US official said....
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What was whacked in favor of shit (I had to hand-type the print before because it's been scrubbed from the web).
"The failure to strike a deal on the supply routes ahead of the summit injects new tension into the relationship. "When NATO extended the invitation, we thought it would move the Pakistanis off the dime," a senior US official said....
The NATO coalition also has been strained by the pledge by President Francois Hollande of France to end his country's combat mission two years early. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany invoked the credo of the allies in the Afghanistan war, "in together, out together," and her foreign minister cautioned Sunday against a "withdrawal competition" by coalition countries.
NATO's top officer, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, asserted that "there will be no rush for the exits" in Afghanistan. "Our goal, our strategy, our timetable remain unchanged," he said, although the strategy and timetable have shifted many times in more than 10 years of war....
That's why I don't take seriously the election-year propaganda about the war ending seriously.
Support for the war has fallen lower in Europe and the United States. A majority of Americans say the war unwinnable or not worth continuing, according to several recent polls....
See: Support for Afghanistan war hits new low
"NATO leaders set course for withdrawal from Afghanistan; NATO nations agree on a plan to wind down war" by Karen DeYoung | Washington Post, May 22, 2012
CHICAGO — The declaration comes at a delicate moment. There is severe war fatigue in the United States and Europe, as well as fiscal constraints placed on NATO members and other contributing countries by a widespread economic crisis.
NATO members are sharply cutting defense budgets, facing high public opposition to the war, and preparing for months of difficult fighting against the Taliban, even as the size of the coalition force decreases.
We don't just oppose it: we hate it
NATO’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said he did not anticipate dramatic coalition withdrawals next year....
In other words, IT'S ALL PROPAGANDA and a BIG SHIT SHOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
One area that remains unresolved is the reopening of NATO’s ground-supply routes through Pakistan....
Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, attended the summit, but President Obama did not hold a formal meeting with him. Obama had what White House officials called a “brief pull-aside’’ with the Pakistani leader, together with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
In his remarks opening the Monday morning session, Obama pointedly thanked members of the Northern Distribution Network, a collection of Central Asian nations now allowing NATO supplies to pass through their territory and into Afghanistan. Zardari looked on uncomfortably.
In his remarks, Obama cited “important progress’’ over the past two years, since the leaders last met for a NATO summit. “Our forces broke the Taliban’s momentum,’’ Obama said. “More Afghans are reclaiming their communities.’’
Even as the Taliban open up "new fronts in the north and west and [are] stepping up attacks in the east"
I'm sorry, readers, but I'm sick of shit showing up in my newspaper.
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