More on Bush's new best friend Pervez Musharraf. Beyond being bombed back to the Stone Age, Pakistan's president knows what it is like to be up against the Evil Ones TM:
Bush said Musharraf understood the war on terrorism because he had been the target of a terrorist attack. "After all," Bush said, "they tried to take his life."
Good gracious! That's just what Saddam tried to do to Bush's dad.
Plus more clarity at the White House:
Q So you do have permission to go inside Pakistan?
PRESIDENT BUSH: All I can tell you is, is that when Osama bin Laden is found, he will be brought to justice. And that's what we've continually discussed.
PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: May I add?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes, please.
PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: I think, as the President said, we are on the hunt together against these people. Now why are we bothering or how to -- the semantics of the tactics of how to deal with the situation? We will deal with it. We are on the hunt together. You want the person -- if at all we confront him, if at all we find out his location, we are quite clear what to do.
But let's not get involved in how it ought to be done, by whom it ought to be done. There's total coordination at the intelligence level between the two forces, there's coordination at the operational level, at the strategic level, even at the tactical level. So, therefore, we are working together, and when the situation arises, we need to pick the right decision to strike.
Is there hope?This may be the first public occasion on record where George (Bush) did not refer to his counterpart informally by his first name. Maybe Pervez was too tough to pronounce.
And it stoned me.Bomb them back to the stone age is just some of the wisdom of General Curtis Lemay.
LeMay later claimed he only meant to say there was a capability to bomb the North Vietnamese back to the Stone Age.
The truth is once you load a conversation with bombs like this, it's hard to pull the bombs back. And yes, it does seem like it is Armitage month here. Who knew supposed diplomats had such loose lips? But sometimes they say just what they are told.
