Zardari – Mr. 10% available anywhere, anytime except in his own country which is in a state of veritable civil war — how much time has he spent away from the levers of power since the Swat campaign began?  Guess who’s in charge in Pakistan: Still the Army.

Ahmadinejad – He’s saying, “Look at me Bibi! Here’s my brother who already has nukes … Suck It.”

An Obama administration official said Wednesday that the president told his legal advisers last week that releasing the photos would endanger U.S. troops. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private.

Obama wants the issue to go back to the courts, although federal appeals judges have ruled the photos could be released.

Is this political expediency?

Perhaps from the president’s point of view, he’s thinking “I’ve got a full plate.”  Health care reform, the financial crisis, soon to be running two major automakers, he’s CEO of the world’s largest insurer (AIG), a new energy economy – the plate is full.

Fixing all of the things like health care which are broken is important.  Getting people back to work is important.  Re-establishing the rule of law and closing the book on executive branch excess is important, though, too.

Just when the Bush-Cheney torture accountability debate seemed to be quieting, the current Administration is faced with the release of thousands of photos depicting harsh interrogation tactics.  This is known as being off message.

Perhaps the Administration could look at this another way.  Releasing the photos shows the world that this country is making every attempt to purge the torture demon.  By releasing the photos, the U.S. is saying, we admit this happened, we’re rid of the idiots who let it happen and we continue to take measures to see that it never happens again.

As far as being off message or sidetracked by an effort at accountability regarding torture, the Administration could work with Congress to see that they either do the job they weren’t doing for the last 7 years or appoint a 9/11-style commission.

A lot of folks bought what candidate Obama was selling last year.  Pretending like Bush era abuses of power never happened doesn’t instill much HOPE that our out of touch government is going to CHANGE.

MR. DAVID GREGORY (HOST):  … But first, the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan. I sat down with both leaders earlier this week after their White House meetings. Pakistan’s President Zardari, in office for the last eight months, is the widower of slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. I began by asking about the Taliban and whether he agrees with the Obama administration that the group represents an existential threat to his country.

MR. ASIF ALI ZARDARI: No, I consider the philosophy of Taliban as threat to the world, not just to Pakistan and your country, but I feel it’s a larger threat.

MR. GREGORY: Existential threat to Pakistan?

MR. ZARDARI: Pakistan, the whole world. They start from the Horn of Africa and come down all the way to Pakistan. They don’t evolve from Pakistan and go up, they come down.

MR. GREGORY: Do you consider the Taliban to be a bigger threat today than India?

MR. ZARDARI: I consider it a different–they’re–India’s a country and Pakistan is a, a…(unintelligible)…we’re, we’re two states which in fact Pakistan stemmed out of the subcontinent out of India. So it’s a different relationship, it’s a different context.

MR. GREGORY: Is there a war with the Taliban inside Pakistan?

MR. ZARDARI: There is a war, sir.

MR. GREGORY: And is it America’s war or Pakistan’s war?

MR. ZARDARI: It’s a war of our existence. We’ve been fighting this war much before they attacked 9/11. They’re kind of a cancer created by both of us, Pakistan and America and the world. We got together, we created this cancer to fight the superpower and then we went away–rather, you went away without finding a cure for it. And now we’ve both come together to find a cure for it, and we’re looking for one.

MR. GREGORY: When you speak like that, it doesn’t sound as if you consider it Pakistan’s war, you consider it America’s responsibility.

MR. ZARDARI: No, I think it’s a joint responsibility. I think it’s the joint responsibilities of all the democracies of the world. That’s why we made this Friends of Democratic Pakistan, so we can bring most strength to the situation. You’ve got to admit that you all have been trying to battle it for the last eight years. The–all the…(unintelligible)…world powers have been trying to battle it for the last eight years in Afghanistan and nobody’s come out of victorious yet.

MR. GREGORY: And so you say there is a commitment on the part of Pakistan to fight the Taliban now. How many troops, how many Pakistani troops do you now have in the western part of your country battling the Taliban?

MR. ZARDARI: Three times the amount of troops you have battling them in Afghanistan. That’s 125,000 we have on ground.

MR. GREGORY: And yet the administration–you have a military force of roughly 660–650,000 men.

MR. ZARDARI: Oh.

MR. GREGORY: Has the administration said to you there should be more fighting men in the west?

MR. ZARDARI: There is a point of view that more men might improve the situation, but that’s something that’s still disputed by our military analysts. We don’t think that more–presence of more troops there–you must remember, 650-personnel strong army doesn’t mean they’re all infantry. That’s the fighting brigade of the infantry, that’s the teeth of the army. So they’re not all infantry. They’re tank drivers, they’re truck drivers, they’re other–gunners, etc., etc. So we have an infantry of 250,000, out of which 125,000 happens to be in those mountains.

MR. GREGORY: So you have a sufficient number of troops fighting the Taliban.

MR. ZARDARI: We think, we think they’re sufficient.

MR. GREGORY: You appeared on Capitol Hill this week, and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Howard Berman, said this, speaking of you. He said, “He did not present a coherent strategy for the defeat of this insurgency. I had a sense of what they’re doing today,” he said, “I did not have a sense of what they plan to do tomorrow.” What’s the strategy?

MR. ZARDARI: So, well, he didn’t even ask me, so that’s OK. But I’ll tell you what I’ve got planned to do. We, we’ve been loving…(unintelligible)…in, in America, my wife was loving, and we were of the view and always have been of the view that democracy is the answer to the problem. Like somebody said, it may be–not be the best form of government, but it’s the only form of government. Now we’ve got democracy. Democracy needs help. It needs a little more help than we’ve been getting in the past. What the American public and people at large do not understand is for 10 years you have given $10 billion to a dictator, but you’ve given them for the war in these mountains. So it’s actually reimbursement for the money spent; after all, 125,000 troops moving in logistically, otherwise do cost. So you’ve been paying back…(unintelligible)…into Pakistan for the expenses occurred as such. But we need to support democracy.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. ZARDARI: We need to support the country, we need support–we need to support the systems. And we’ve been involved for the last 30 years. It’s not 10 years.

MR. GREGORY: But is that a strategy for cracking down on the Taliban insurgency?

MR. ZARDARI: Sure it is. Sure it is. The stronger my institutions are, the more the youth I employ, the less fodder they have. The more poverty goes down, the less fodder they have to recruit from. That’s the strategy. What else can–what–there is no scientific theorem to that. And if there was one, if you had a strategy, you would’ve done it in a, in 10 years.

MR. GREGORY: But there’s a military question, which is, is Pakistan capable of dealing with an insurgency, capable of mounting an effective counterinsurgency when the orientation of your military’s primarily been to fight a big enemy to the east in India, predicated on the idea of some kind of deterrence? Are you able to mount a counterinsurgency strategy at this point?

MR. ZARDARI: Sir, we’ve been in this war for the last seven years. But if you see the record of the one year that the democratic government of Pakistan, the PPP government and its allies has been there, we’ve done more to damage the infrastructure of the Talibans or the–or these miscreants, whatever you need to call them, than ever before.

MR. GREGORY: And yet there are some who say that the strategy has not borne fruit. You went in–so people understand, you went into an area north of Islamabad, the Swat Valley, and you essentially made a deal with the Taliban, which is they would put down their arms if Islamic law could be applied, could be implemented there.

MR. ZARDARI: Incorrect.

MR. GREGORY: Incorrect. Tell me what’s correct.

MR. ZARDARI: The correct position is that we came up with the formula which was that there would be speedy justice there known as…(foreign language spoken). Nothing to do with Sharia law. It’s been interpreted by–as Sharia law by them. And then that didn’t work. But we had to get the population to be with us. The population was fed up with them and was fed up with the fighting. Some–the provincial government came up with this idea that let’s go for a peace deal and let’s get the people involved. They tried it. It hasn’t worked.

MR. GREGORY: But when you made this deal, when you actually signed this deal…

MR. ZARDARI: The parliament signed on this deal. The parliament recommended me–to me to sign.

MR. GREGORY: Were you against it?

MR. ZARDARI: I was–yes, I had a position against it.

MR. GREGORY: Right. Why? Why did you think it was misguided?

MR. ZARDARI: I thought that it won’t work.

MR. GREGORY: You think it was abdication to the Taliban?

MR. ZARDARI: No, it’s not abdication. I thought that the Talibans are not rational people. I don’t think there’s any good Talibans. The world does, so that’s a defensive opinion.

MR. GREGORY: But so you think there’s no negotiating with them.

MR. ZARDARI: I don’t think there should be a negotiating with them at the moment. Maybe one day when there is enough, we’ve done enough.

MR. GREGORY: Mm-hmm.

MR. ZARDARI: Then always–there cannot only, only be war. There has to be a–the parliament has come up with a strategy where there’s the three D’s: dialogue, deterrence and development. So we have to go into dialogue by the will of the people, which we did. It didn’t work. Now we’ve got to do the, the deterrence phase where we are fighting. And then once we’ve calmed the situation down in–then we’ll go to the development stage to give them the ownership, give them schools.

MR. GREGORY: You have the fighting that’s going on in Swat. You have the Taliban insurgency there. That insurgency has also spread into Punjab, to the state of Punjab. I don’t have to tell you, that’s where half of Pakistan’s population is. And it has lead to some dire assessments by analysts who look at your country with a critical eye, including a former adviser to General David Petraeus who helped him with the insurgency in Iraq, and he said this: “We’re now reaching the point where within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state,” because the Taliban insurgency has so destabilized Pakistan. Does he have that right?

MR. ZARDARI: I think you–he’s had other positions wrong before, so–and having said that, we have a threat, yes. Is the state of Pakistan going to collapse? No. We are 180 million people. The population is much, much more than the, the insurgents are. But we do have a problem. We have a problem because it’s been there. It was like I said, it was a monster created by all, all of us. We got together and we didn’t–we forgot to make a cure for it.

MR. GREGORY: Can you survive politically?

MR. ZARDARI: Of course.

MR. GREGORY: Is it possible to defeat this insurgency without U.S. soldiers fighting by your side or at least training your soldiers in Pakistan?

MR. ZARDARI: I think we need to find a strategy where the world gets together against this threat, because it’s not Pakistan specific, it’s not Afghanistan specific. Like I said, it’s all the way from the Horn of Africa. You’ve had attacks in Spain, you’ve had attacks in Britain, you’ve had attacks in America, you’ve had attacks in Africa, Saudi Arabia. So I think the world needs to understand that this is the new challenge of the 21st century and this is the new war, and we’ve all got together.

MR. GREGORY: The question a lot of people ask is are you–is Pakistan really committed to that war? In The New York Times Dexter Filkins, who, who’s reported from Afghanistan and Pakistan, writes this: “Whose side is Pakistan really on? … Little in Pakistan is what it appears. For years, the survival of Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders has depended on a double game: assuring the United States that they were vigorously repressing Islamic militants–and in some cases actually doing so–while simultaneously tolerating and assisting the same militants. From the anti-Soviet fighters of the 1980s and the Taliban of the 1990s to the homegrown militants of today, Pakistan’s leaders have been both public enemies and private friends. When the game works, it reaps great rewards: billions in aid to boost the Pakistani economy and military and Islamist proxies to extend the government’s reach into Afghanistan and India.”

MR. ZARDARI: I think it’s an old concept, an old theory that he’s talking about. And what billions are you talking about? Like I said, a billion dollar a year? That’s not even–altogether, this aid package is not even one tenth of what you gave AIG. So let’s face it; we need, in fact, much more help. We are responsible, a responsible state. We’ve brought democracy back, it’s a young democracy. Accept it, it was not me who was aiding the dictators of the past.

MR. GREGORY: Is there a view, however, in Pakistan that the Taliban should be kept around for a rainy day, as it’s been said, as a bulwark against Indian influence in neighboring Afghanistan?

MR. ZARDARI: I don’t think so. I don’t think so.

MR. GREGORY: You don’t think that was part of the past at all?

MR. ZARDARI: I think in–it was part of your past and our past, and the ISI and the CIA created them together. And I can find you 10 books and 10 philosophers and 10 write-ups on that, of what all you didn’t do.

MR. GREGORY: Fair argument, certainly, a lot of people would agree with you. But did the game change after 9/11 to a point where the U.S. decided to root out this threat and Pakistan was straddling both sides?

MR. ZARDARI: You tell me. I was imprisoned by the same dictator you were supporting. You were supporting a dictator who…

MR. GREGORY: You’re speaking of General Musharraf.

MR. ZARDARI: I’m speaking of General Musharraf. In fact, I lost my wife on his watch and I has–I spent five years in his prison.

MR. GREGORY: But, Mr. President, you know well that there is a widespread belief that your military and your intelligence services still have these same sympathies for the Taliban.

MR. ZARDARI: I wouldn’t agree with you. I think General Musharraf may have had a mind-set that I–to run with the head and hunt with the hound. But certainly not on our watch. We don’t have that thought process at all.

MR. GREGORY: Let me ask you about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. There’s been a question about the security of that arsenal. You’ve assured the world that those nuclear weapons are secure. But I wonder why you’re continuing to add to your stockpile, add to your arsenal at what is described as a pretty fast rate when there’s so much instability in the country?

MR. ZARDARI: That’s, that’s, that’s not a fact. It’s a, it’s a position that some people have taken. We, we’re not adding to our stockpile as such. Why do we need more?

MR. GREGORY: So you’re not adding to your nuclear arsenal at all?

MR. ZARDARI: I don’t think so, no.

MR. GREGORY: You don’t–do you know?

MR. ZARDARI: Even if I did, I wasn’t going to tell you.

MR. GREGORY: There is a view that–in the intelligence community in this country that it does not know where all the nuclear weapons are within Pakistan. Why not share that information so there could be a joint strategy to keep those weapons secure?

MR. ZARDARI: Why don’t you do the same with other countries yourself? I think it’s a sovereignty issue and we have a right to our own sovereignty. It’s a sovereign country.

MR. GREGORY: Who’s in control of Pakistan, you or the military?

MR. ZARDARI: I think the military is in control of their hemisphere and I’m in control of the whole country.

MR. GREGORY: Can they overrule you?

MR. ZARDARI: No. I can overrule them.

MR. GREGORY: Haven’t they overruled you in the past?

MR. ZARDARI: No. We’ve gone to their position and they’ve come to our positions.

MR. GREGORY: But you still have final say?

MR. ZARDARI: The parliament has final say. It’s the parliament that forms government, and I am a product of the parliament.

MR. GREGORY: But why is it when you wanted your intelligence chief to go to Mumbai you were overruled by your military?

MR. ZARDARI: No, it was not overruled by the military. They thought it was too, too soon. And eventually we’ve offered for the intelligence chief to meet.

MR. GREGORY: There’s a lot of discussion about additional aid, as you’ve been talking about throughout our conversation, for Pakistan, $1.5 billion for five years, a total of $7.5 billion. But as you know, there’s discussion about putting some strings, some limits on that aid based on performance by Pakistan. Do you disagree with that policy?

MR. ZARDARI: I think it’s doubting an ally before you go into action together. If we are allies–and we, and we understand, it’s an accepted position that you–we cannot work this problem out unless Pakistan, Afghanistan and America are on the same page. How do you go and take an ally along by saying, “OK, I don’t trust you,” from the first day? It’s not a, a good position to be in. So I feel that we shouldn’t have any, any kind of conditionalities. We should have a result, a result-oriented relationship where I should be given a time line and I’ll give you all a time line so we can both give each other time lines and meet the time lines on, on the, on, on the positive.

MR. GREGORY: In terms of U.S.-Pakikstani cooperation, there are drones that fire missiles and target Taliban and other extremists, al-Qaeda figures, within Pakistan. Do you consider those to be effective?

MR. ZARDARI: I would consider them to be very effective if they were part of my arsenal. I’ve been asking for them, but I haven’t got a positive answer as yet. But I’m not giving up.

MR. GREGORY: Where is Osama bin Laden?

MR. ZARDARI: You all have been there for eight years, you tell me. You lost him in Tora Bora, I didn’t. I was in prison. In fact, my wife warned America about Osama bin Laden in ’89. She rung up senior Bush and asked, asked of him, “Are you destabilizing my government?” Because he paid the then opposition $10 million to do–overthrow the first woman elected in Islamic country. So we knew that he was your operator. And…

MR. GREGORY: But you’re not actively looking for him?

MR. ZARDARI: I think the world is looking for him, and we are part of the world’s lookout brigade.

MR. GREGORY: Do you think he’s alive or dead?

MR. ZARDARI: I’ve said before that he–I don’t think he’s alive.

MR. GREGORY: And you believe that.

MR. ZARDARI: I have a strong feeling and I have sole reason to believe that, because I’ve asked my counterparts in the American intelligence agencies and they haven’t heard of him since seven years.

MR. GREGORY: Mr. President, thank you very much for your views and good luck with your work.

MR. ZARDARI: Thank you, sir.

MR. GREGORY: Coming next, seven years after 9/11 and the war rages on with the insurgent Taliban still controlling parts of Afghanistan. Can the government regain control? And the tough issue of civilian casualties due to U.S. air strikes. Some harsh words from President Hamid Karzai. Our exclusive interview from earlier this week is next.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai after this brief commercial break.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY: Mr. President, welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.

MR. HAMID KARZAI: Happy to be here.

MR. GREGORY: President Obama talked about the deterioration in Afghanistan during a speech back in March. This is what he said.

(Videotape, March 27, 2009)

PRES. OBAMA: The situation is increasingly perilous. It’s been more than seven years since the Taliban was removed from power, yet war rages on. Insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Attacks against our troops, our NATO allies and the Afghan government have ridden–risen steadily. And most painfully, 2008 was the deadliest year of the war for American forces.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: So here we are seven years after the attacks of September 11th, 2001. Another American president is committing troops to Afghanistan, 21,000 additional troops. By this summer there’ll be 68,000 U.S. troops. My question: Is it too little, too late?

MR. KARZAI: Well, a very important question, indeed. When we began in 2001 with the arrival of the international community in Afghanistan and the two–the Afghan people and the international community joining hands, we together defeated the Taliban and the terrorists and al-Qaeda in less than a month and a half. Subsequent to that the Afghan people would, as we established the interim government, would come in large numbers, hundreds of them, to my office and ask for more international forces in the country, in their villages, in their towns, in their districts. That didn’t happen at that time. So in that sense, the arrival of more forces is late. It should’ve happened then, six years ago, and we should’ve paid attention then, six years ago, to the sanctuaries, to the training grounds, to the–those financing the terrorists. It’s a bit late. But as we all know, it’s never too late for a good thing to do.

MR. GREGORY: With 21,000 additional troops, there’s a question of what can be gained. But the issue of civilian casualties as a result of U.S. air strikes, how much damage does that do to the U.S. effort?

MR. KARZAI: A lot of damage. This is something that I’ve been engaged with with our allies for at least six years now.

MR. GREGORY: And you talked to President Obama about it.

MR. KARZAI: Oh, very, very much. For as least six years now, in different ways and different forms. The Afghan people are allies of the United States. The Afghan people want this effort together to succeed. The Afghan people see that the presence of the international community in Afghanistan brings us plenty of good things. But Afghan people also want to have their children safe. The Afghan people say we are fighting together with you, shoulder to shoulder against terrorism, that we are part of the struggle; that we are not–our homes, our villages are not places for terrorism and that they should be safe. It’s an important thing that America recognize that civilian casualties are the biggest concern of Afghanistan and a damage to the effort against terrorists.

MR. GREGORY: When President Obama addressed the American people and announced more troops going to your country, he raised a very important question, which is what is America’s purpose…

MR. KARZAI: Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY: …in Afghanistan? Dexter Filkins, veteran war correspondent, has covered Afghanistan and Pakistan thoroughly for The New York Times, writes in the current edition of The New Republic this, and he starts with a question: “What can be won in Afghanistan? Driving around the country, as I did recently, one is constantly overwhelmed by how little has been accomplished there. In December 2001, the country lay in ruins. Today, it is still pretty much the same place. … Today, Taliban fighters move freely across the countryside, and in some places they have set up a shadow government. … After eight years of neglect, the Afghanistan state is a weak and pathetic thing.” Pretty strong words. Why is that the case?

MR. KARZAI: Very wrong words.

MR. GREGORY: Wrong. You say it’s wrong.

MR. KARZAI: Very wrong words. Pretty strong, wrong words. It isn’t like that. In 2001, Afghanistan did not have a single kilometer of paved road. Today Afghanistan has its ring road completed, nearly 3,000 kilometers and above. Today we have many of the roads in the cities paved. Today we have health services, which were only to about 9 percent of the Afghan population in 2002, reaching nearly 85 percent and over of the Afghan population. The rural developing program of Afghanistan goes to more than half of Afghanistan’s 40,000 villages. In 2002, we had 4,000 students in Afghanistan universities and only three or four universities. Today we have 75,000 students in Afghan universities, 14 public universities and, and many private universities. In 2002, the 4,000 students that we had were all boys, men. Today, nearly 40 percent are girls of the 75,000. Today we have thousands of Afghans studying abroad, at least 1,000 each year in India and hundreds in Europe and America. We have experts return to Afghanistan. I met with them three months ago. The country is a lot better.

MR. GREGORY: Back in 2003, this is what you said about the Taliban. They were the ones who provided safe haven to al-Qaeda, these are the people that threatened both Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is what you said back in June of 2003: “I am not worried about the resurgence of the Taliban. The Taliban movement as a movement is finished and is gone.” Were you wrong about that?

MR. KARZAI: I was not wrong about that.

MR. GREGORY: But they’re back.

MR. KARZAI: I was, I–no. It’s–there’s a difference. The Taliban as a movement is gone from ruling Afghanistan. They were the government in Afghanistan. In 2001 they were the government. Today they are not the government. In 2002 they were threatening you. Today they are not, from Afghanistan. Yes, they are a threat in the form of the terrorism that they bring upon us, in the form of the violence that they bring upon us; not as an organized political force holding the government in Afghanistan. That’s not there.

MR. GREGORY: Are they an existential threat to your leadership?

MR. KARZAI: They’re not an existential threat to Afghanistan’s government. They are a threat to our, to our efforts towards more security, more progress, more reconstruction and a more peaceful life. That threat they definitely are, and especially in parts of the country. That’s strongly there, yes.

MR. GREGORY: The new administration has a slightly different strategy for trying to deal with the Taliban, and it has to do with operations on a tactical level, similar to what was done in Iraq, to try to turn some of these what might be called irreconcilables and bring them into the American fold.

MR. KARZAI: Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY: This is how the president described it back in that March speech.

(Videotape, March 27, 2009)

PRES. OBAMA: There is an uncompromising core of the Taliban. They must be met with force and they must be defeated. But there are also those who’ve taken up arms because of coercion or simply for a price. These Afghans must have the option to choose a different course. And that’s why we will work with local leaders, the Afghan government and international partners to have a reconciliation process in every province.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Now, you have called that reconciliation process…

MR. KARZAI: Yes.

MR. GREGORY: …unworkable. Why do you believe that?

MR. KARZAI: No. I, I didn’t call the reconciliation process unworkable. And by the way, I agree with President Obama’s description of the elements of peacemaking with the Taliban. Those Taliban who have been driven out of the country by fear or coercion or intimidation by our forces or the international forces, or by whatever other circumstances that they’ve found themselves compelled to leave the country and take guns against us are the ones that we want to reconcile with. They are the sons of the soil, they must return. To be very precise, those of the Taliban who are part of al-Qaeda or other terrorist networks, or those who are in the grip of, you know, intelligence services must not and cannot come to Afghanistan because they will continue to bring violence and destruction and, and, and damage to Afghanistan. But those who have been driven out of fear or the other circumstances that I described earlier are welcome. They’re the sons of our soil, they’re from our country and we want to reconcile with them. And that’s what President Obama was referring to. What I was objecting to was the international forces directly engaging at local level with the Taliban commanders for reconciliation. That is the job of the Afghan government.

MR. GREGORY: Speaking about the Taliban and the defeat of the Taliban and al-Qaeda generally, do you have more confidence today in Pakistan’s commitment to fighting and defeating the Taliban than you did under General Musharraf?

MR. KARZAI: Definitely more, yes. Definitely there is a recognition the Pakistani leadership and the democratically-elected leadership. They see very much the same way things that, that, that–as we see; therefore, we have a lot more confidence there. We had a very good meeting in Washington. I hope that this will be taken into further steps, meaning implementation on the ground. I’m a lot more confident and a lot more hopeful.

MR. GREGORY: You are running for re-election, and as you campaign you’ve had some pretty pointed messages. You’re critical of the United States for civilian casualties as a result of U.S. air raids. You also were at a rally recently during which you were very clear and you said, “Look, I have made certain demands of the Americans, and if they do not provide additional aircraft, for instance, I’ll go somewhere else and I’ll get it.” You appeared to threaten the administration, and I wonder whether your core political message is an anti-American message.

MR. KARZAI: It is not. It is very much a pro-American message. So the Afghans do want this relationship with America to continue, but of course Afghanistan has a character of its own and an interest of its own and a demand upon our allies as well. We are, we are your front line in the war on terrorism. The Afghan people have given everything on a daily basis in the war on terrorism. We have our police dying every day, at least five, six of them. Our security forces…(unintelligible)…people. Our villages are not where the terrorists are. And that’s what we kept telling the U.S. administration, that the war on terrorism is not in the Afghan villages, not in the Afghan homes. Respect that. Civilian casualties are undermining support in the Afghan people for the war on terrorism and for the, the, the relations with America. How can you expect a people who keep losing their children to remain friendly?

MR. GREGORY: And yet…

MR. KARZAI: And, and, and that’s a moral question as well. We have to be morally on a much higher platform in our force to win the war on terrorism.

MR. GREGORY: And do you worry, do you worry that the U.S. has not met that standard?

MR. KARZAI: The U.S. has…

MR. GREGORY: Have they not met their own moral standard?

MR. KARZAI: The U.S., the U.S., the U.S. has not met that standard in Afghanistan. The United States must stand on a much higher moral platform in order for us together to win this war.

MR. GREGORY: Let me be clear about what you are saying. Are you suggesting that the United States is waging an immoral war in Afghanistan?

MR. KARZAI: No. No. It’s not immoral war, it’s the standard of morality that we are seeking which is also one that is being desired and spoken about in America. In other words, are we the same as the terrorists, are we the same as the bad guys, or are we standing on a much higher moral, moral platform? Are we better human beings or not? We must definitely be better human beings in order for us to tell the people that, “Look, those guys are wrong and we are better.” And we must show that in our practice, and that practice should be extreme care for civilians and their children and their homes and, and, for the civilians to see us completely distinct and separate from the terrorists. So we have to be better. My moral, moral platform has to be a lot higher, a lot more distinct and likeable than the terrorists and the bad guys. That’s what separates us. Otherwise there’ll be no difference, so why should the people care about us or–and not care about them? Do you get my point?

MR. GREGORY: And yet Secretary of Defense Gates has made the point that there has to be sustained commitment on the part of the Afghan people and the Afghan government.

MR. KARZAI: And there is.

MR. GREGORY: He says this: “It’s absolutely critical that the Afghans believe that this is their war. it is their war against people who are trying to overthrow their government that they democratically elected.” Do you think that’s the view of your people?

MR. KARZAI: That is absolutely the view of our people. And that’s why our people, even when they are bombed, even when they suffer, they still come to us. They receive me in their midst when I go to, to offer my condolences. They receive the American soldiers, they receive the American officers when a, when an incident like that. In Farah there was an incident of massive civilian casualties, and the U.S. military officials and the Afghan government went together to the population. That means the people are still with us. Had they been against us, they would have not received us, they would have not come to us. But then, there is a limit to all of that. Any society will, will, will get fed up with, with, with continued violence and continued casualties. That is something very, very serious. And I, and I have conveyed this to my friends in America in all humility and friendship, on behalf of the Afghan people, that Afghans are a straightforward, honest allies, believing in the cause that we have undertaken, and that’s why we were able to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda in less than a month and a half. And if you continue to behave the way we are, we will lose that. And that’s, and that’s a correct thing to do.

MR. GREGORY: Before you go, just a couple of other issues. One of the big issues fueling the insurgency in Afghanistan is the poppy crop, opium. This is what you said on this program back in 2004.

(Videotape, June 13, 2004)

MR. KARZAI: This production of, of, of poppies supports terrorism. It criminalizes the economy. It undermines institution building in Afghanistan. Afghanistan will have to destroy it for the sake of the Afghan people and also because of…(unintelligible). We will succeed because we have to succeed.

(End of videotape)

MR. GREGORY: And yet today 60 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is poppy, it is opium. It accounts for 93 percent of the world’s production of opium. That’s not a very strong record.

MR. KARZAI: It isn’t, it isn’t like that today. When I was speaking, was it 2004, we had only–well, in 2005 we had only three provinces free of poppies in Afghanistan. Today we have 22 provinces free of poppies in Afghanistan, either completely or mostly, you know, to, to a bigger extent. Only one province in the country is producing poppies to the quantity that it can make 60 percent of Afghanistan’s exports. So Afghanistan has made progress in, in, in, in reducing poppies in Afghanistan, in eradicating and removing it from, from our, our culture. But the money that is spent to eradicate poppies and to provide it with alternative livelihoods is something that we have a question about with our allies.

MR. GREGORY: Finally, this spring you signed a law that makes it legal for Afghan men to rape their wives. Now, you have said in the past month that you were reviewing that law. Are you going to repeal it?

MR. KARZAI: It has been reviewed. When–there’s so much that I can talk about in response to what is there. It is not exactly as, as is printed in the, in the, in parts of the world media. But when I heard of this, I called the minister of justice and he told me that there were problems in this law and that it will be–then I instructed the review and amendment of the law. I called in the clergy in the country, the senior most who, who had a hand in drafting this law, and they’d redo the…(unintelligible)…amend it and redraft it, and even parts of the law removed. I’ve already done that. The minister of justice was with me about 10 days ago to give me the amended law that will be sent to the parliament. So it’s something that we have to do.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. KARZAI: And we have to correct it, regardless of whether it’s…

MR. GREGORY: So how–just to be clear then, how are you correcting it? What is permissible behavior?

MR. KARZAI: But it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s–well, it’s, it’s, it’s the–it’s not my choice. It has to go through a legal process and consultation and back to the parliament. We are a democratic country. We have a parliament that, that passes laws like that, that debates them and then sends them back to the concerned lobbies.

MR. GREGORY: But, but are basic human rights part of your democratic values?

MR. KARZAI: Absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

MR. GREGORY: So, so raping of women is a crime in Afghanistan and will be a crime?

MR. KARZAI: Absolutely. Absolutely. A crime in Afghanistan, because our religion is extremely, extremely difficult on that.

MR. GREGORY: So this particular area, the, the ability to rape your wife is something that will be repealed.

MR. KARZAI: Rape has, rape has…

MR. GREGORY: Is that–are you saying that unequivocally?

MR. KARZAI: It is not, it is not in the law. This–it’s not in these very sharp words that are described in the Western media. Even if it is milder than that, it is wrong and it will be repealed, it will be removed and the amendment will be made in this law. So the Afghan people don’t want that and the Afghan people are sensitive about it. I assure you that has been done.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. KARZAI: It’s something that really embarrassed us when it came out. We are a lot more aware a nation, a lot more culturally good nation than sometimes we are seen in, in, in the rest of the world.

MR. GREGORY: So in democratic Afghanistan it is illegal for a man to rape his wife?

MR. KARZAI: Absolutely. Absolutely. Like hell. Sure.

MR. GREGORY: All right, Mr. President, thank you very much. Good luck with your important work.

MR. KARZAI: Thank you.

Q Make this a habit.

MR. GIBBS: Yes — keep you guys busy.
The President has obviously concluded the meetings with President Karzai and President Zardari. And as promised, we’ll give a — get a readout from General Jones, the President’s National Security Advisor.

General.

GENERAL JONES: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I’m pleased to be here to talk a little bit about the meetings that were held this afternoon that you’ve already heard quite a bit about. I’d just like to add a couple of points to those that have been already been made.

The President started out his meeting with President Karzai by commenting with great sympathy on the tragedies that have happened out in western Afghanistan, and indicating that we regret the loss of life, particularly of innocent people, and that the investigations underway will be pursued aggressively with full intent to discover what, in fact, did happen, how it happened, and how we can make sure that things like that do not happen again. And it was clear that President Karzai was moved by that — by the President’s statement, and he thanked the President for starting off the meeting with that expression of condolence.

The President also continued to offer considerable support to Afghanistan, emphasizing the fact that the U.S. would be supporting in as many ways as possible, stressing the fact that the upcoming elections in Afghanistan should be as fair and open as possible, and certainly as much as possible, beyond any question that they’re not honest elections.

He also commented on the new strategy that we’re implementing in Afghanistan as a result of the strategic review; emphasizing that it’s not just about military options, that despite the fact that we’re going to contribute 21,000 U.S. troops to help stabilize the southern part of the country; but also emphasizing that the role of reconstruction, the role of governance and rule of law are all things that have to be undertaken in concert with the security efforts, so that the security-economic development and governance and rule of law — and especially good governance at the local, regional, and national levels — has to be put in evidence. So the emphasis on civilian and military efforts is a cornerstone of the new strategy, as is the more accelerated development of the Afghan army and the Afghan police capabilities.

He also made reference to judicial reform and encouraged the President to do whatever he could to stamp out corruption wherever he found it, or the perception of corruption, and asked that we see concrete results in that regard.

He also commented to the President he was very encouraged, as we all are, by the new relationship with Pakistan. It’s obvious that the two Presidents get along well and it’s obvious that both governments have pledged to work together to cross a wide range of potential areas of cooperation to include security measures, but also economic measures and the like. We’ll continue to work on things like cross-border trade, for example.

And finally, the President emphasized that Afghanistan should be encouraged to continue to develop civil liberties and human rights. And the Afghan President responded that one of the great pleasures of his administration was seeing the rise in education and the number of Afghan students participating in higher education. He quoted the figure of 4,000 students in 2002, and 75,000 Afghan students, men and women, participating at the university level, and emphasized the fact that in 2002 there were no female students at all in the university system. So he was extremely proud of that.

President Karzai responded that in addition to his appreciation for the President’s gesture on the casualties, that he supports the new strategy fully and that — asked for more focused assistance on not only military training but civilian training for young people.

And I might say that throughout the discussion the President had with both heads of state, that the idea of doing things for the young people came up time and time again — with some emotion, I might add, on some of the participants — that this is about the future of two new, young democracies and within those democracies we are talking really about the future of the next generation. And so this was said several times.

President Karzai also indicated that he wanted to do whatever he could to restore an Afghan economy. He wanted to develop its export business; wanted focused help on agriculture; and wanted to do things where people would notice the change in their lives. If they’re surrounded by good governance, if they have secure living conditions, if they have the applied and focused help that they need in order to develop their economies, they will do better.

He recognized that they need to do more with regard to judicial reform and pledged to go after corruption wherever it existed. And he closed by saying that above all, whether he’s reelected or not, he would like to make sure that he contributes to institutionalizing democratic ideals in Afghanistan.

With President Zardari, the President started out by declaring that he wanted to be of help to the people of Pakistan not just in a military way, but to help Pakistan with a new beginning; to again help the government institutionalize democracy and make progress, recognizing that these are difficult times, and the threat of extremists to Pakistan requires a concerted action. And on that score, he emphasized that this is a regional problem and this is why getting together with both Presidents and our government for these few days of very intensive conferences are going to be very important, because we’re going to approach this as a regional problem.

As you know, the AFPAK strategy review emphasized the fact that we have several countries but we have one theater. And this is the way we’re looking at it. It’s important to occasionally remind ourselves that this is a common struggle, and we’re approaching it that way.

So the central goal here is to make sure that all parties understand that this is a united front, not only among the Presidents, but among the Ministers of Defense, the Foreign Ministers, and the various echelons of government involved with economic reconstruction, judicial reform, and all of those things that go into stabilizing a situation.

The President pledged to do whatever we could, to do as quickly — to do what we can as quickly as possible to help the Pakistani government, and said this type of aid would not just be restricted to military, but we would aid in any ways we can to help with health and education, institution-building, advisors, whatever we can do to help the government and the military resist this very serious threat. Miracles will not happen, so this won’t happen quickly. But with a common focus, we can make strides hopefully in the near future.

President Zardari responded by affirming his commitment to work within this regional context to preserve democracy in Pakistan; to want to do more economically for the people — he spoke of building schools and hospitals — but underlying all of his remarks was a pledge to meet the threat and to be successful, and assured the President that they were properly focused on it; was thankful for the assistance that the President offered, and looked forward to working with us in a concerted in the weeks and months ahead.

I think it was a very warm meeting between the three Presidents. They have embraced common themes, an intent to work together, and I think was a very good start. And we will have more meetings the next couple of days at the ministers’ levels to continue to develop these issues.

And I’ll be happy to take any questions.
Q General Jones, if I’m reading between the lines, forgive me here, but it sounds like in the first meeting with President Karzai, there was more telling him that he should be more — do more on human rights and corruption, whereas, with President Zardari, there wasn’t that tone. Am I reading that correctly?

GENERAL JONES: Oh, I don’t know. I think the — the tone of both meetings was pretty much the same. We have a longer history with Afghanistan in terms of understanding and having the ability to do more things because of that relationship having taken a number of years now.

I think with Pakistan we are learning about the things that we can do. But I think the balance of tone was just about the same and I wouldn’t say that he was more directed one way or the other.

Q General Jones, you said that President Zardari — underlying all of his remarks with a pledge to meet the threat and to be successful. Is there anything specific we can point to as far as what the Pakistani army or the Pakistani government is going to do on meeting the threat of the Taliban insurgence in the eastern part of the country?

GENERAL JONES: Well, I’d characterize it by saying that it’s clear that he and his fellow Presidents have come to an agreement that this is not a individual national belong that belongs to either Afghanistan or Pakistan; that this is in fact a regional problem. We have adopted that as our centerpiece of our strategy.

And so the dialogue between the three about not only doing things militarily to correct the situation, but politically between the two principal countries in the region, Afghanistan and Pakistan, to work on economic issues, and to do those things that show their respective populations that there is an alternative, there is a better way and there is greater hope for their children in the future. And as I said, this was a common theme.

I think this was a pretty powerful expression, a recognition of what the right attitude and the right approach has to be. The details will be worked out over time, but I think all three were focused on the seriousness of the threat and I think, in Pakistan’s case, he made a number of points to illustrate that he was focused on it and that they had every intention to do something about that in very real time. And I think there’s some evidence that they’ve started doing that, which is encouraging.

Q As part of President Obama’s message of condolence about the airstrike, did President Karzai ask that they be suspended pending the end of this investigation, or reduced in intensity? And also, did President Zardari bring up the idea that — the Predator strikes in those areas?

GENERAL JONES: The answer is no to both questions. The President was genuine in his acceptance. I think he deeply appreciated the President’s words. And the issue of — operational issues did not come up with President Zardari.

Q In the past the Presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan have come to Washington and said, okay, we’re going to do this, we’re going to fight together against extremism. What specific steps would you seek in the next few weeks, few months so that people who aren’t privy to intelligence or defense information can judge that this time it’s actually going to be different?

GENERAL JONES: Well, as you know, in developing our strategic review concerning Afghanistan and Pakistan, we did this in concert with both countries. Both countries had teams here; they participated with us in the development of a strategy. We also extended a wider hand to our NATO allies, as well, And brought in, probably in an unparalleled way, just an awful lot of countries to make sure that we had the benefit of their thinking collectively, so that we could develop a document that other people could buy into.

And so this was accomplished. And one of the characteristics, I think the telling characteristics of the document and the agreement was that it does focus on things beyond simply military capacity. It focuses a lot on reconstruction.

In Afghanistan, of course, this is going to be a particularly important part of the strategy. It focuses a lot on rule of law and good governance. And as we continue to develop our relationship with Pakistan, which as you know is somewhat embryonic in some terms because we’ve had no mil-to-mil relations — military-to-military relations — with Pakistan for almost a decade, and so we’re trying to build these relationships up in very real time to face a very real threat.

So the fact that people recognize that this is a regional problem — that’s relatively new I think, within the last six months — the fact that we have a written strategy to address this regional problem which requires regional solutions, the fact that we’re going beyond military solutions and stimulating economic development — trade, bringing in other countries — we have a regional representative, Richard Holbrooke; we have a new ambassador in Kabul; we have a new deputy to the U.N.’s special representative in Kabul — we have a lot of things in place now that allow us to take a regional approach and a regional focus to implementing the strategy.

Q General, the President mentioned al Qaeda repeatedly, but he never said the Taliban in his remarks, and I was wondering if that was purposeful. Also is General Kayani mobilizing and deploying the 11th Corps? And if not, why should we take his efforts seriously?

GENERAL JONES: I’m sorry, why should you take General Kayani’s effort seriously?

Q No, the Pakistani President, I mean his word that he’s serious about this. Is the 11th Corps crucial to that, and what commitment have you got on that?

GENERAL JONES: I think those issues will be discussed in follow-on meetings, so I don’t have an answer for you on that as of today because we didn’t get down to that level of specificity.

The President — of course, his focus — we are focused on al Qaeda, but we’re also focused on extremism of any form, especially those extremists that want to strike outside of their borders and destabilize democratically elected governments. And that’s what we’re there to defeat. And I think this meeting was an affirmation that we will be successful.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

MR. GIBBS: Thanks, guys.

Well folks, as an American who “loves” other countries and their people, I know we all got the ultimate bad rap for around six of Bush’s years.  The reason why of course is that leaders matter, especially when they’re elected by the people.  Leaders make decisions and carry out policies that affect people outside of their own borders.

The Iranians have an opportunity to send Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back under a rock in a few weeks.  If they don’t, he’s still speaking for all of them.  We had the same opportunity in 2004.  Let me just say to my Iranian friends tonight: If you vote this guy back in, things can get worse.

At any rate here’s what Ahmadinejad had to say today, courtesy of AFP:

On the United States:

Ahmadinejad, whose visit to Damascus came as Defence Secretary Robert Gates toured US allies in the region to reassure them about overtures to the Tehran regime by President Barack Obama, hit out at the continuing US military presence on Iran’s borders.

“They weren’t invited in. They’re unwelcome visitors who should leave Afghanistan and the borders of Pakistan,” the Iranian president said.

“We don’t want honey from bees that sting us. Efforts must be made to rid the region of the presence of foreigners… and to reform the unjust global political and economic system.”

Ahmadinejad said Iran and Syria were standing together to “resist foreign intervention and the major powers trying to impose their hegemony over the region.”

The United States “has put pressure on Syria and Iran, but it needs us and wants to develop relations,” he said.

On Israel:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad slammed Zionism as “occupation” and “aggression” Tuesday as he delivered his latest diatribe against the Jewish state on a visit to key Middle East ally Syria.
“The Zionist occupiers are destructive microbes, because Zionism itself is occupation, aggression, the use of assassination and annihilation,” he told a joint news conference with President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian capital.

“Zionism was created to threaten us. To support the Palestinian resistance is a humanitarian and popular obligation,” Ahmadinejad said in remarks in Farsi that were translated into Arabic.

“Syria and Iran are united in supporting the Palestinian resistance.”

Despite the erratic behavior of the Pervez Musharraf government for most of George W. Bush’s presidency, of the Big Worry — Pakistan’s nukes — we were always told, no problem.  I can remember Pentagon and Bush Administration officials speaking cryptically of fail-safe mechanisms which would keep the weapons or nuclear material from ever falling into the wrong hands.

Today’s story in the Times says something different.  Apparently, for at least the last two weeks, Obama Administration officials have been concerned:

As the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda spreads in Pakistan, senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.

The officials emphasized that there was no reason to believe that the arsenal, most of which is south of the capital, Islamabad, faced an imminent threat. President Obama said last week that he remained confident that keeping the country’s nuclear infrastructure secure was the top priority of Pakistan’s armed forces.

But the United States does not know where all of Pakistan’s nuclear sites are located, and its concerns have intensified in the last two weeks since the Taliban entered Buner, a district 60 miles from the capital. The spread of the insurgency has left American officials less willing to accept blanket assurances from Pakistan that the weapons are safe.

Pakistani officials have continued to deflect American requests for more details about the location and security of the country’s nuclear sites, the officials said.

One only need read Ahmed Rashid’s latest work, Descent Into Chaos, to believe in the likelihood of one scenario American planners worry over.  What if warheads need to be moved due to instability or insurgency where they are located?  Can the Pakistanis claim that there are no Taliban or al-Qaeda sympathizers among the ranks of the military which would effect that move?  The answer is no.  The further answer, according to my reading of Rashid’s work, is that there have been and continue to be Islamic extremists in leadership and rank and file positions within Pakistan’s nuclear program.

The Obama Administration picked a good week to signal “no more B.S.” to Pakistan.  Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is due at the White House on Wednesday.  When the last American president used to meet with the last Pakistani president, what came of the meetings were little more than photo-ops with Bush heaping praise on Musharraf.

Just hours after the Times hit newsstands, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen gave a news briefing where he used diplomatic but strong language to describe the state of affairs with Pakistan and what is needed from them as stalwart U.S. allies:

“But Afghanistan has been an ‘economy-of-force’ operation for far too long,” Mullen said. “The Taliban, aided by al-Qaida and other extremists and safe havens across the border, are recruiting through intimidation, controlling through fear and advancing an unwelcome ideology through thuggery.”

The Taliban also are making advances in Pakistan. “I am gravely concerned about the progress they have made in the south and inside Pakistan,” the chairman said. “The consequences of their success directly threaten our national interests in the region and our safety here at home. This isn’t about ‘can-do’ any more; this is about ‘must-do.’”

The United States must increase its efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Mullen said. More manpower is flowing into Afghanistan, and more money and resources are moving in to Afghanistan and Pakistan. “But we need a commensurate commitment from the civilian side,” he said. “And as I’ve said many times before, we need more, and more concerted, pressure applied from Pakistan as well.”

Mullen’s “must-do” goes for Afghan President Hamid Karzai as well.  Karzai sent his own message to the world today when he named former defense minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim as one of his two running mates. Fahim, a bad seed even by that region’s standards was pushed aside as Karzai’s 2004 running mate for being a warlord not totally supportive of an Afghan central authority.  Fahim has been accused of war crimes in the past and was one of the several warlords entitled by the CIA and Pentagon during the first several years of the Bush War on Terror.  Those entitlements – and millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars – worked against peace and prosperity in Afghanistan once the Taliban were thought to have been defeated.

Karzai will be joining Zardari and Obama Wednesday for a summit in which Obama really has his work cut out for him.  It appears the mistakes of the Bush Administration in allowing South Asia to go to hell in a handbasket are not lost on Obama’s team.  There seems to be the laying of groundwork for a tough meeting — we’ll have to wait and see what comes of it all.

Many Sunnis in Iraq were not long-time sympathizers with the likes of al-Qaeda and its twisted view of Islam and nihilistic world view.  Sure, many of them threw in their lot with al-Qaeda in Iraq, but at the time I believe that was perhaps an action rooted in self preservation.  The U.S. took out the despotic Saddam Hussein regime and in the process created a vacuum where the Shia majority began having its way with the Sunni minority.  It was retribution in large part for the Sunni’s own political subjugation of the Shia and Kurds for decades.  By the time of the “Surge” and General David Petraeus’ more effective counter-insurgency tactics, the Iraqi Sunni flirtation with al-Qaeda was already losing steam.  Many of the tribal elders were ready to work with U.S. military and civilian leaders to rid themselves of the terrorists. Again, these Sunnis could perhaps be described as more passionate about their tribal affiliations and regionalism than to the specific Islamic theology which al-Qaeda bases its terror campaigns on.

The Taliban are altogether different.  The Taliban actually ran their own state for a time according to a fundamentalist view of Islam and Shari’a laws which forbid the participation of women and girls in society, outlawed cultural expression, and turned education into the madrasa system where boys learn little more than rote memorization of the Koran and are programmed for violent jihad.  There were public executions for those who did not conform and rape and pillage tactics used to spread their “government” throughout Afghanistan.

Of course, by early 2002, U.S. and Northern Alliance forces toppled the Taliban’s regime in Kabul.  The Talib, however, merely melted into the background and across the border into Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Northwest Frontier Provinces.  In Afghanistan people were liberated, girls began to go to school again, the U.S. and our allies built those schools and things were perhaps going to be different.  Enter the Iraqi War and Afghanistan became for a time a backwater.

We backslid.

Anyone who votes in this country or cares about our South Asian entanglements should watch a Frontline World Documentary which aired this past week.  Called, Children of the Taliban, it takes viewers on the ground in the FATA where the Taliban is not only hiding out, they are taking over.  Here in the states we are fairly aware that Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters slip across the Af-Pak border to raid and sometimes re-exert control over swaths of Afghani real estate.  They leave burned schools and the headless corpses of those who resist in their wake.  What we might not realize is that they are now also focusing their political sights on Pakistan.  The FATA and Northwest Provinces are no longer merely hiding places.  The Talib are also at work there taking over villages, winning new recruits and luring a new generation of young Pakistani boys into those madrassas.

Many of these places being taken over are the Wild West according to our standards.  What they are becoming is Afghanistan pre-9/11 only now on the territory of a fragile state with nuclear weapons.  The documentary also reports that the Taliban are gaining ground in some of Pakistan’s major cities not located on its fringe.  This is scary as hell and not just for ordinary Pakistanis.

The Taliban cannot be “negotiated” with.  There is no place in the 21st century for their world view and especially for their method of ruling through violence.  Negotiation with some Taliban may gain us brief respites in the level of violence in Af-Pak, but the moment we turn our backs, these bastards will be right back to their evil ways.

MR. GREGORY:  Senator McCain, welcome back to MEET THE PRESS.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ):  Thanks, David.

MR. GREGORY:  Very, very nice to have you here.

SEN. McCAIN:  Nice to be back.

MR. GREGORY:  You just heard Secretary Geithner.  What’s your level of confidence in him?

SEN. McCAIN:  Well, I have some confidence in him.  I think he’s very smart. And I hope that this new plan–which, by the way, I thought was well-described…

MR. GREGORY:  Good.

SEN. McCAIN:  …earlier–will work.  My preference would have been to go in and, you know, with stress testing these banks and go ahead and sell off the–take the toxic assets and sell them off, and then let the good asset banks continue.  But this proposal, I hope it works.  We all want it to work. But what I’m most worried about is laying a debt on future generations of Americans.  The, the multitrillion-dollar debts, unprecedented debts that we are–we are committing generational theft.  I’m confident that the economy will recover.  The question is after it recovers, what kind of a debt are we going to carry which will cause us to print money, inflation, and go through a worse wringing out than we went in the late 1970s and early ’80s?

MR. GREGORY:  And I want to ask you specifically about the debt in just a moment.

SEN. McCAIN:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  But more generally, in terms of fixing of the economy, fixing the financial industry, if you look at all of the programs that the government has now put in place, do you think they got the prescription right?

SEN. McCAIN:  Well, I hope they do with this plan.  I think the markets reacted well.  And I’m not an expert, but it seems to me that it gave us a little optimism that there was a plan that people could understand, that was coherent, that might lead us out of this mess that we are in.  So there was a great deal of incoherency for a long time, beginning with Secretary Paulson saying the TARP money would be used to…

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

SEN. McCAIN:  …on the home loan mortgage crisis, and then switch to financial institutions.  And it seemed that every few days there was a target du jour, and that obviously eroded dramatically any confidence that Americans might have.

MR. GREGORY:  Do you think that the banks will need more government money, and would you be willing to support that?

SEN. McCAIN:  I would not unless I certainly saw a way that it would not be used the–as the first TARP money was.  I think that’s the general opinion throughout the Congress on both sides of the aisle.  There’s got to be more transparency.  You didn’t ask him, but the secretary of Treasury I understand will not reveal is how much money is left in TARP 1.  Don’t you think the American people should know that?  There–we still don’t have the transparency and oversight.

One other thing we need, we do need a select committee in Congress to look at what happened so people can–this train hit them without any knowledge.  They still don’t know what happened.  Why did it happen?  So then they would have some more confidence on, in what actions we might take in the future to prevent it from happening again.

MR. GREGORY:  And what is your take on the anger, the populist anger in the country?  Do you think it’s justified, or do you think it’s been overblown? Has the president showed leadership in standing up to it?

SEN. McCAIN:  I think the president was trying to walk a careful line between reflecting public anger–which is all justified.  It’s all justified, ranging from the extreme of Madoff to just outright greed and people who knew better. So I think he was trying to walk a fine line between rechanneling and reflecting anger, at the same time not bashing people that are innocent.  I think that, that what we need to do here is understand, too, that sometimes Congress overreacts.  I share all that anger.  My constituents share that anger.  It’s, it’s real, it’s palpable and it’s justified.  But bills of attainder, basically going back and taxing people for what they’ve already by contract earned or are going to earn, I think is a dangerous course of action as well.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me ask you for your assessment of your former opponent in the presidential race and now president, Obama.  This is what you said on election night.  Let’s watch.

(Videotape, November 4, 2008)

SEN. McCAIN:  I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  Have Republicans heeded that call, and do you think President Obama has heeded that call?

SEN. McCAIN:  I think neither side, perhaps, has done it as much as maybe we should.  But you establish an environment.  Really, bipartisanship is sitting down across a table from each other and negotiating, recognizing there’s got to be compromise.  And in all due respect to the incoming administration, the speaker said, “We won.  We wrote the bill.” There was never any serious negotiations over the stimulus package, over the omnibus spending bill.  Now there doesn’t seem to be any on the budget.  Those are all party line votes. There’s not the negotiations.  And I–look, I’ll take blame on our side for maybe not being more forthcoming, but really the president does beat the drum and sets the pace.  And so far there has not been not an instance where they sat down across the table and said, “OK, what do you want?  What are you demanding here?  What do you think is best?” And including some of those concerns as we come–as we move forward with really large, encompassing packages about the future of this country.

MR. GREGORY:  Instead, the administration has…

SEN. McCAIN:  I–could I say–could I just also say, though…

MR. GREGORY:  Yes.

SEN. McCAIN:  …on national security policy I think the president has done the right thing on Iraq.  We may get to it.  I think his proposal for Afghanistan, I might modify it a little, is good.  So I, I think in the area of national security policy there has been some working together.

MR. GREGORY:  And yet the White House says the Republicans have become the party of no.  Is that fair?

SEN. McCAIN:  Well, we did have an alternative to the stimulus package, we had an alternative to–on the omnibus bill.  We will have an alternative budget.  And so the–I, I understand the White House saying that.  But the White House, in order to have legitimacy to that charge, has got to give me one example where on a major issue we’ve sat across a table negotiating, each putting forth their proposals and reaching a compromise.  As far as I can tell, on any domestic issue that hasn’t happened.

MR. GREGORY:  Has the president been true to his word to change the way Washington operates?

SEN. McCAIN:  I think he’s trying.  I want to give him credit for trying.  I think this is early in his administration.  I don’t think we should make judgments.  There’s no doubt this president has as great a challenges as any president ever has in the history of this country, certainly amongst the top three or four.  So let’s continue to work to, to try to make him succeed.  I believe the role of loyal opposition is loyal to the country, yet opposition where we disagree on principles and philosophy.  That makes for vigorous debate.  Could that debate be more respectful?  Yes.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.  Earlier this month you took to the floor on that spending bill over earmarks, and you were quite upset about it.  This is what you said.

(Videotape, March 2, 2009)

SEN. McCAIN:  I just went through a campaign, Mr. President, where both candidates promised change in Washington; promised change from the wasteful, disgraceful, corrupting practice of earmark, pork-barrel spending.

So what are we doing here?  Not only business as usual, but an outrageous insult to the American people.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  You made it very clear, in that instance the president had not been true to his word.

SEN. McCAIN:  The president said he’d go line by line over any appropriations bill and get rid of those that are unnecessary.  All he had to do was veto that bill, send it back and say, “No more earmarks.  None of this stuff now while the American people can’t keep their jobs, can’t–don’t have health care, all, all the challenges we’re facing.” One point seven million dollars for pig odor research, on and on and on.  But the practice–the reason why I sounded as upset and I am as upset, because it’s not just wasteful spending, it’s not everything I just said, it’s also corruption.  A senior staff member of the Appropriations Committee just pled guilty in federal court.  A lobbying outfit was shut down and the FBI investigated it.  I mean, there’s former members of Congress in federal prison.  And we need it now, we need the confidence and trust of the American people as never before.  Instead, on this earmarking, pork-barrel spending, it’s business as usual.  And someone will come on here and say, “It’s only a small amount of money, only a few billion dollars.” I just don’t buy that and I don’t think Americans do, either.

MR. GREGORY:  On the economy, I don’t have to remind you, during the campaign you said, as this financial crisis was really unraveling, as the economy was taking a dive, that the fundamentals of the economy were strong.  You were criticized as being out of it, not getting it, not understanding the economy. And yet just a couple of weeks ago this was the president in the Oval Office. Watch.

(Videotape, March 13, 2009)

PRES. OBAMA:  If we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy, then we’re going to get through this.  And I’m very confident about that.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  What did you think when you saw that?

SEN. McCAIN:  I think we’re in agreement.  I think what the president is saying now, and it’s needed to be said to the American people, that we have the best workers, we’re the most innovative, we’re the most productive.  We still have the fundamentals of a very strong economy.  And we need some confidence to get, to get through this.  We need–that’s part of, of the recovery.  So I’m glad we’re in agreement.

MR. GREGORY:  In the, the campaign, you think that criticism was unfair?

SEN. McCAIN:  Life isn’t fair.  We all know that.

MR. GREGORY:  Let’s move on to the budget and the deficit picture that you referenced just a moment ago.  The Washington Examiner reported this this week:  “Last week in a little-noticed conference call featuring Budget Director Peter Orszag…[Orszag was asked:] Are those deficits sustainable? Relenting, Orszag said such deficits, in the range of 5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, `would lead to rising debt-to-GDP ratios in a manner that would ultimately not be sustainable.’ The simple version of that is:  If the Congressional Budget Office projections are correct, we’re headed for hell in a handbasket.” How concerned are you that, with the goals the administration has for spending on major programs, they’re going to have to raise taxes?

SEN. McCAIN:  Well, that’s always the inevitable result of increasing spending and increasing the size of government.  They’ve earmarked $634 billion for cap and trade; by the way, a betrayal of everything I’ve ever believed in about cap and trade, which I’m a supporter of.  They, they have earmarked or budgeted for hundreds of billions of dollars in increases in spending in health care to bring down the cost of health care.  So my great worry, my great worry is the trillions.  The $10 trillion we already owe, the $1 trillion or $2 trillion that the Chinese now own.  The Chinese comments about a world currency and their complaints about our fiscal policies concern me.  The–you know, there’s only one thing worse than, than the Chinese owning a lot of American debt, and that is Chinese stop buying American debt.

MR. GREGORY:  Is that a real fear in your mind?

SEN. McCAIN:  Oh, I think it’s of a concern.  I don’t think in the short term.  But we’ve got to get our fiscal house in order.  We were talking about the party of saying no.  Our proposal on the stimulus package was once this country reaches a 2 percent increase in GDP, inflation adjusted, then we’d be on an automatic spending reduction path.  We’ve got to get the spending under control.  And the old line about deficits as far as the eye can see is, is now so large that it staggers the imagination.  And it can’t continue.  No country can continue to do this.

MR. GREGORY:  During his press conference on Tuesday, the president pushed back a bit.

SEN. McCAIN:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  This is what he said.

(Videotape, Tuesday)

PRES. OBAMA:  I suspect that some of those Republican critics have a short memory.  Because as I recall, I’m inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit from them.  That would be point number one.

Now, none of us know exactly what’s going to happen six or eight or 10 years from now.  Here’s what I do know.  If we don’t tackle energy, if we don’t improve our education system, if we don’t drive down the costs of health care, if we’re not making serious investments in science and technology and our infrastructure, then we won’t grow 2.6 percent, we won’t grow 2.2 percent.  We won’t grow.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  The response?

SEN. McCAIN:  Well, first of all, let me say he was inheriting about half of what he described until we added the spending.  Second of all, no…

MR. GREGORY:  This new round of spending from, from last year.

SEN. McCAIN:  Yeah.  No, no nation can spend this way and get out of it without debasing the currency and us returning to a period that we had in the late ’70s and the early ’80s where we had inflation, a high unemployment and higher taxes, because it, it–you can’t do it.  And so I hope that the president’s next objective will be to work on this deficit.

MR. GREGORY:  Do you think that Republicans should provide a detailed budget alternative?

SEN. McCAIN:  Yes.

MR. GREGORY:  With numbers?

SEN. McCAIN:  Yes.

MR. GREGORY:  Will that happen in the Senate?

SEN. McCAIN:  We’re working on it, working very hard on it.

MR. GREGORY:  And the, the key elements of it would be what?

SEN. McCAIN:  Well, obviously less spending, obviously more restraints, obviously not having $630 billion for “revenues from cap and trade.” By the way, that’s cap and tax, that’s not cap and trade.  The other spending restraint measures that would–that have to be taken.  We’ll, we’ll–we’re working on it very hard.

MR. GREGORY:  Let me turn to the issue of Afghanistan.  The president has ordered 17,000 additional forces to go to Afghanistan and announced on Friday 4,000 additional, so a total of 21,000.  Those 4,000 additional would specifically help police and Afghan forces.  This is the threat that the president described on Friday.

(Videotape, Friday)

PRES. OBAMA:  The situation is increasingly perilous.  Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al-Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan.  And if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  Does this strategy have it right when it comes to preventing that sort of outcome?

SEN. McCAIN:  I believe so.  As you know, and is well-known inside the Beltway in this town, there was a big debate in the White House over–and the administration–over a minimalist approach, send a few more troops, kill some bad guys and then get out as quick as you can.  I think this–the outlines of this proposal are good.  The best way to get out of Afghanistan fast is people to think we’re staying.  We have to more than double the size of the Afghan army.  We have to–I, I would have announced that 10,000 additional that have been requested would have been sent.  There’s several other changes.

MR. GREGORY:  You think more troops are necessary, as you did in Iraq.

SEN. McCAIN:  I know they are.  I know they are.  And the main thing I would have done in that speech, I’m sorry to say, tell the American people it’s going to be long and hard and tough.  And as these additional troops come in and we move into the south, which we do not have control of, the southern part of Afghanistan, there’s going to be an increase in casualties.  You’ve got to prepare the American people for a significant expenditure of American blood and treasure.  I think the president laid out the threat very well.

MR. GREGORY:  How do you define victory in Afghanistan?

SEN. McCAIN:  The same way as in Iraq.  You have a governing place where al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations cannot base attacks on the United States and other–and our allies.  You have a government that functions ineffectively, but–I mean, with some effect.  You have an economy that’s growing.  You have normal trappings of emerging democracies as they move forward the difficult path towards a free and prosperous nation.  And this is complicated by Pakistan.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.

SEN. McCAIN:  On the issue of Pakistan, we have to have a policy that’s oriented to Pakistan, not Afghanistan.  Pakistan’s a nuclear-armed country. It’s a huge country.  It’s an important country no matter what.  And we can–we need to work with Pakistan as much as possible, cooperate in those border areas in the problems and issues we all know about.  But the fact that we may not get as much help from Pakistan as we want because of their internal dynamics does not mean, necessarily, we don’t achieve success in Afghanistan. It does not mean that.  It mean–we can still succeed in Afghanistan and still have some of the difficulties that have in Pakistan.

MR. GREGORY:  It’s been suggested that the Taliban, which is now reconstituting itself primarily in Pakistan…

SEN. McCAIN:  Yes.

MR. GREGORY:  …to launch attacks into Afghanistan, that one of the ways to deal with them is to start negotiating with them…

SEN. McCAIN:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  …with those elements who are not as hard-core as, as other elements.  The vice president suggested this, the president alluded to this and Hamid Karzai is saying that that should be done.

SEN. McCAIN:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  Is that the smart thing to do?

SEN. McCAIN:  Well, it’s a smart thing to do as long as you–as these people believe that you’re not leaving and that you are not abandoning your goals as articulated by the president.  And by the way, we have problems with–in, in Iraq, and still do from Iran, from Syria.  And we didn’t invade those countries.  We were, we were able to achieve a strategy of success with those problems remaining.  And there’s no direct analogies.  There’s always difference in circumstances.  But I believe that we can succeed.  And the issue of Pakistan is vital not only because of Afghanistan, but because Pakistan is a nuclear-armed nation we–with tensions with India, with all of the, the, the problems with democracy and corruption that they have there as well.  I think that Karzai’s comments about the president’s policy can be helpful.

MR. GREGORY:  I want to move on to a couple of other topics, including one that hits very close to home for you as an Arizona senator, and that’s this drug violence on the border with Mexico.  What is your assessment of the threat, and what should the United States be doing about it?

SEN. McCAIN:  I think it’s an existential threat to the government of Mexico. I applaud President Calderon.  He is the first president of Mexico to really take on the drug cartels.  The corruption level is very high there.  The violence will spill over into the United States of America.  It already has to some small degree.  The Merida Initiative of working and helping the Mexican government and law enforcement has been succeeding, but it’s a huge problem. It is–my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, is now the kidnapping capital.  That’s got all to do with the drug cartels.  These coyotes, these smugglers of illegal immigrants.  And it, it argues for us to work as closely as we can with the Mexicans, and that job is to secure our borders.

MR. GREGORY:  Does that mean U.S. troops if necessary, National Guard troops?  What?

SEN. McCAIN:  Both the, both the governor of Texas and the governor of Arizona have asked for National Guard troops on the border.  I think we need them.

MR. GREGORY:  And what would they do?

SEN. McCAIN:  I think they would help with enforcement.  We simply don’t have enough now of boots on the ground.  I think they would help with the enforcement.  And obviously that would require additional training, but we could give it to them.

MR. GREGORY:  I want to, in our couple minutes left, ask you about, as you look back on your 2008 campaign and think about the Republican Party, the future of the party.  Mike Murphy, who of course worked for you in 2000 as a Republican strategist…

SEN. McCAIN:  Mm-hmm.

MR. GREGORY:  …was on the program on March 1st, and he talked about what has to happen for the party.  Listen to this.

(Videotape, March 1, 2009)

MR. MIKE MURPHY:  At the end of the day, here’s the one statistic we all got to remember:  The country’s changing.  Ronald Reagan won in 1980 with 51 percent of the vote.  We all worship Ronald Reagan.  But if that election had been held with the current demographics of America today, Ronald Reagan would have gotten 47 percent of the vote.  The math is changing.  Anglo vote’s 74 percent now, not 89.  And if we don’t modernize conservatism, we’re going to have a party of 25 percent of the vote going to Limbaugh rallies, enjoying every, every applause line, ripping the furniture up.  We’re going to be in permanent minority status.

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY:  Given that, assuming you agree, how does conservatism modernize itself?  How does the party get back to power?

SEN. McCAIN:  The party of ideas, party of inclusiveness, outreach to other ethnic aspects of the American electorate; in my part of the country especially, Hispanic voters.  We have to recruit and elect Hispanics to office.  We have to welcome new ideas.  And there are–you know, a lot of people complain about divisions within the Republican Party.  That’s good right now.  Let’s let a thousand flowers bloom.  Let’s have different clashes of ideas, sharing the same principles and goals.  Look, if we were having this show in 1982, Republican Party was dead.  1994, the Democratic Party was dead. Right now–there’s, there’s a great resilience in American politics, and I have–I’m very optimistic about the future of the Republican Party if we do the right things.

MR. GREGORY:  Speaking about the Hispanic vote, would you like to work on immigration policy with this president?

SEN. McCAIN:  At any time I stand ready, but the president has to lead.  The, the administration has to lead with a proposal.

MR. GREGORY:  Do you think they have that proposal, want to do that?

SEN. McCAIN:  They have not come forward with one yet.  They said that they are going to–I understand the president met with the Hispanic Caucus and he said he would have some forums and, and other things.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

SEN. McCAIN:  But they have not come forward with a proposal.

MR. GREGORY:  In terms of future leaders of the Republican Party, would you like to see Sarah Palin become president?

SEN. McCAIN:  I’d like to see her compete.  I think we’ve got some very good candidates:  Jon Huntsman and–the problem when I run down these names, I always leave, leave out a, a name–Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty.  There’s, there’s so many.  There’s a lot of good, fresh talent out there.

MR. GREGORY:  But would you support Palin?

SEN. McCAIN:  Oh, I’d have to see who the candidates are and, and what the situation is at the time.  But have no doubt of my respect, admiration and love for Sarah and her family.

MR. GREGORY:  This is your 54th appearance on MEET THE PRESS.  Now, I know you’re a competitive guy.  Bob Dole still holds the record at 63.  And so we’ve been doing the calculations here.  We think we can make this up, maybe within a year’s time.

SEN. McCAIN:  I’d love…

MR. GREGORY:  If you’re game for that.

SEN. McCAIN:  I’d love to try.  Thank you, David.

MR. GREGORY:  Senator McCain, thank you very much for being here.

Q    Thank you.  The President mentioned the Kerry-Lugar bill, billions of dollars’ worth of aid to Pakistan.  He also said that Pakistan won’t be given a blank check.  So I’m wondering what restrictions does the administration want to see on that money specifically?

And also, how do you react to statements from some senators, such as Senator Levin, who have said that this strategy places too much dependence on the Pakistani government to deal with extremists, and perhaps gives too much of a reliance on them to help us make progress in Afghanistan?

MR. RIEDEL:  I’m not going to comment on Senator Levin’s remarks.  I’ll say this:  For the last eight years, Pakistan received billions of dollars in support from the United States — much of it was unaccountable; much the Pakistanis don’t even know where it went.

As the President indicated in his speech, we’re going to make sure that there is rigorous oversight by an Inspector General’s office.  And we’re going to work very, very intensively with our Pakistani partners, the democratically elected civilian leadership in Pakistan, to see that we’re moving in the right direction, in the same direction that we want to go.

(Source: White House Transcript)