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Obama veep announcement expected in coming days
Publication: The Associated Press
August 18, 2008, 22:27 EDT
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Veepstakes.html
The Illinois senator has staffers in place to aid the No. 2 and his or her spouse, including more than a dozen seasoned operatives who have set up shop in a section of the campaign’s Chicago headquarters. They are running through various logistical scenarios involved in taking over the relatively normal life of a person they do not know and thrusting them into the unrelenting glare of a presidential campaign.
Obama was believed to have narrowed his list to Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. While it seemed increasingly unlikely that he would choose his vanquished rival, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, some Democrats speculated Monday that he could pull a surprise and pick her.
Former South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle, a close Obama adviser, said Monday he had given the campaign personal information needed to examine the background of potential vice presidential nominees but was confident he wouldn’t be selected.
”I did give … documents a long time ago, but these matters have been resolved for a long time now as far as I’m concerned,” Daschle told The Associated Press in an interview.
Only Obama, his wife, Michelle, a handful of his most senior advisers and his two-member search committee know for certain who was on the initial list, who made the cuts, whose backgrounds were researched, whose names were floated to divert the media — and who Obama ultimately will choose.
He planned to campaign in Florida on Tuesday, and on Wednesday ride a bus through North Carolina and Virginia, where he was appearing with former Gov. Mark Warner, also mentioned as a possible contender for the No. 2 spot. After that, Obama’s schedule is wide open, leaving the end of the week as a more likely time to make the announcement before the Democratic National Convention begins next Monday in Denver.
Campaign manager David Plouffe e-mailed supporters last week telling them they would receive first word of Obama’s decision through a mass text message, but otherwise the team has revealed little about what to expect. Historically, presidential tickets then tour battleground states to maximize media exposure, and Obama is expected to do the same.
For his part, Republican rival John McCain is seriously considering naming his running mate between the end of the Democratic convention Aug. 28 and the Sept. 1 start of the GOP convention in hopes of stunting any uptick in polls for Obama. McCain has at least three large rallies planned in top battlegrounds — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan — before the Republican gathering in St. Paul, Minn.
His top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential pick in 2000 who now is an independent.
Since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, speculation has swirled about the prospective No. 2s.
Names mentioned have included Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a national security expert who traveled with Obama to Iraq and Afghanistan; former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, another foreign policy authority; and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a prominent Hispanic with vast international experience.
While Obama’s search committee reviewed its list of potential candidates during the past several weeks, the campaign was busy building the vice presidential staff operation that includes chief of staff Patti Solis Doyle, who was Clinton’s campaign manager, and spokesman David Wade, who was 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry’s traveling press secretary. Rick Siger, advance director for Kaine’s campaign, came on to oversee the travels of the eventual pick, increasing buzz that his former boss could be the likely choice.
The drama of Obama’s impending announcement drew dozens of new reporters to travel with his campaign Monday. They listened in vain for clues as Obama held a subdued meeting with several dozen women in New Mexico on the topic of wage discrimination, sticking to his word that he wouldn’t say anything about the decision until his announcement.
Obama was more animated Monday afternoon at a raucous town hall meeting, where Richardson introduced him. He praised Richardson as one of the nation’s best governors, but otherwise gave no hint of the governor’s future status.
Even as they were kept out of the loop on the decision, Obama’s staff debated who would make the right choice. Many said if the candidate asked them, they would suggest Biden because of his foreign policy experience and strong debate skills; Sebelius because she’s a respected Washington outsider who has won a Republican state; or Bayh because he can appeal to Democrats uneasy about Obama and could help him win Indiana.
Each candidate could pose problems, too. An Obama-Sebelius ticket would be especially light on international experience. Bayh supported the Iraq war; Obama did not and has said that is a leading indicator of judgment.
Republicans are already envisioning their response to a Biden pick — Obama is so inexperienced that he had to pick someone with a 26-year record in Senate. Biden has spent a longer time on Capitol Hill than McCain, they point out, which doesn’t exactly represent the kind of change Obama says is needed in Washington.
Biden was far from the speculation Monday; he traveled over the weekend to Georgia to meet with President Mikhail Saakashvili and discuss the country’s military clash with Russia.
Other potential vice presidential prospects also seemed to be going about business as usual. Sebelius was traveling to Michigan on Tuesday to help boost Obama’s support among women there, while Kaine helped unveil a bust of explorer Meriwether Lewis in Virginia’s old House chamber on Monday.
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Associated Press writers Beth Fouhy in Albuquerque, N.M., Liz Sidoti and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington, and Bob Lewis in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.
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On the Net:
Obama: http://www.barackobama.com
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Amid promise of peace, Georgians live in terror
Written by Luke Harding for the Guardian, August 14, 2008
The first armoured personnel carrier nudged past the top of the hill. It paused as if getting its bearings, and then set off towards Tbilisi. Behind it, an endless column of Russian military vehicles appeared on a shimmering horizon – trucks, tankers, and a beaten-up Nissan.
The Russian army was on the move. What wasn’t clear was where it was going. For the next hour the column continued its sedate progress, past yellow fields and a hazy mountain valley, from Gori towards the Georgian capital,Tbilisi.
Thirty miles from the city, it stopped. A Russian soldier hopped out of his vehicle and began directing traffic. “We’ve been told to stay there,” he explained, pointing down a rough dirt track towards the rustic hamlet of Orjosari, just over a mile away.
The soldier said Russia didn’t intend to keep going down the main highway connecting Tbilisi to Gori, and the east and west of the country. “The only reason we’ve come here is because of a provokazia by Mikheil Saakashvili,” he said, accusing Georgia’s president of wrongdoing.
In theory the conflict between Russia and Georgia is now over, as European negotiators led by France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, hammer out a peace deal. In reality, Russia’s mighty war machine was trundling insouciantly through Georgia.
Several Russian trucks overshot and missed their turning. One broke down. A soldier got the wheezing vehicle going again. Where was he from? “Chechnya. We’ve come here to help,” he said.
For the terrified residents of Gori and surrounding villages, it didn’t seem like help. Yesterday morning, as the Russian tanks advanced from their base in South Ossetia they passed through Georgian controlled-villages, telling residents to hang out white flags or be shot.
Behind them, according to people fleeing those villages, came a militia army of Chechen and Ossetian volunteers who had joined up with the regular Russian army. The volunteers embarked on an orgy of looting, burning, murdering and rape, witnesses claimed, adding that the irregulars had carried off young girls and men.
“They killed my neighbour’s 15-year-old son. Everyone was fleeing in panic,” Larisa Lazarashvili, 45, said. “The Russian tanks arrived at our village at 11.20am. We ran away. We left everything – our cattle, our house, and our possessions.”
Achiko Khitarishvili, 39, from Berbuki, added: “They were killing, burning and stealing. My village isn’t in a conflict zone. It’s pure Georgia.”
These claims of Russian atrocities were impossible to verify. But the mood of panic was real enough – with villagers fleeing towards Tbilisi by all means possible. One family of eight piled into a tiny white Lada; others fled on tractors.
For much of the day the Russian troops in Gori were busying destroying Georgia’s military infrastructure. Smoke poured from the military supply camp in the village of Uplistsikhe.
Those who fled expressed a feeling of betrayal. They said Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, had duped them. “I believed him when he said there was peace. That’s why we stayed in our homes. But it isn’t true,” Lamzika Tushmali, 62, said. She added: “There is no ceasefire.”
At the end of the Russian column, a group of volunteers arrived in a shabby mini-van flying a Russian flag. One of them had his face covered with a balaclava; all were heavily armed; their mood was exuberant. What were they doing? “We’ve come for a holiday,” one said.
For most of the day there was no sign of the Georgian army. After five days of ferocious bombardment by Russian warplanes, it appears not to exist. With rumours swirling of an imminent Russian attack on Tbilisi, however, Georgia mustered a platoon of 50 soldiers, who took up positions 10 miles down the road from where the Russians appeared to have parked up for the night.
On Georgian radio, meanwhile, military experts were discussing the possibility of a new partisan war against the Russians – suggesting that the government’s failure meant that it was time for ordinary Georgians to take the initiative.
It’s an idea that may take root. “I spent two years in the Soviet army. If there is a partisan army I’ll be in the first row,” Koba Chkhirodze, 41, said yesterday.
Russia rejects west’s call to recognise Georgian sovereignty
Written by Ian Traynor for the Guardian, August 13, 19:07 BST
The US and the Europe today demanded that any settlement of the conflict in Georgia had to be based on recognition of the small Black Sea country’s territorial integrity. But after overrunning Georgia in five days with troops, tanks, and bombers, Russia rejected the terms.
The EU unveiled a blueprint for ending the bloodshed in Georgia following several days of French-led shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Tbilisi that resulted in a six-point plan underpinning a fragile ceasefire.
George Bush warned the Kremlin that it had to “keep its word and act to end this crisis.”
But Russia refused to accept those terms, declined to acknowledge Georgian sovereignty over all of its recognised territory, and refused to have any reference to it in the six-point peace plan mediated by the French and agreed by both Moscow and Tbilisi.
European states agreed to dispatch scores of ceasefire monitors to Georgia as quickly as possible in the hope of securing the truce announced on yesterday. They may also lead an international peacekeeping mission to Georgia if the Georgians and Russians agree and a UN mandate is obtained, senior European officials said.
The Russians and the Georgians agreed to “international discussions” on South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but the Russians kept their options open on the two pro-Russian breakaway provinces.
An EU statement said any peace settlement had to be based on Georgia’s recognised territorial integrity. Speaking at the White House, Bush said: “The United States of America stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia. We insist that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected.”
But Sergei Ivanov, Russia’s deputy prime minister and former defence minister, repeatedly refused to recognize Georgian control over its territory.
“We recognise the sovereignty and independence of Georgia … But territorial integrity, it’s just another matter,” he told BBC’s Hardtalk. “South Ossetia and Abkhazia never were part of Georgia as an independent country.”
The foreign ministers of the 27 EU countries interrupted their holidays for an emergency session on the Caucasus crisis today in Brussels. France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, just back from the conflict zone, admitted that the deal he and President Nicolas Sarkozy mediated was “partially unsatisfactory”, but that the priority was to obtain a durable ceasefire before embarking on more substantive political negotiations.
The points agreed by Moscow and Tbilisi proscribe the use of force, pledge a ceasefire and guarantee access for humanitarian aid. But the political and military aspects of the agreement are problematic and the deal could yet unravel.
At Russian insistence, Georgian forces have to return to bases while Russian “peacekeepers” in the contested northern province of South Ossetia are allowed to stage security patrols “and additional security measures” until an “international mechanism” is agreed.
“That gives the Russians undefined security rights in undefined territory in Georgia. That’s an invitation to further problems,” the Swedish foreign minister, Carl Bildt, told the Guardian.
The Russians, whose invasion of Georgia at the weekend has shocked the west and which today stirred more detailed talk of specific sanctions against Russia, agreed to “international negotiations on the modalities of security and stability” in South Ossetia and Abkhazia after having initially demanded talks on the status of the two provinces.
Both regions have been beyond the Georgian government’s control since the early 90s and the small ethnic wars that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia launched an abortive and disastrous bid to retake control of South Ossetia last week only to see his country invaded by the Russians and his military crushed.
Prospective western reprisals against Moscow came into clearer focus today, with the Americans calling a special session of Nato foreign ministers which could decide to suspend Russia’s formal consultative link with the western alliance while David Milliband, the foreign secretary, suggested Russia could be expelled from the G8 and that the EU could halt negotiations just started on a far-reaching strategic partnership pact between Russia and Europe.
“The Russians have been in breach of international law. There will be consequences of some sort,” said Bildt.
But any such moves will trigger resistance in a divided EU. Brussels’ attempts to play the key mediating role also limit its scope for taking sides.
“We don’t have time now to get into long discussions on blame,” said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German foreign minister.
“We shouldn’t make any moral judgments on this war. Stopping the war, that’s what we’re interested in,” said Kouchner. “Don’t ask us who’s good and who’s bad here.”
Saakashvili accused the west – the Americans, Nato, and the EU – of disunity on the crisis and of consistently underestimating the Russian threat.
“The response has not been adequate. It looks like appeasement to me. We need real action, not just words.”
Congressman Demands Investigation Of Army Recruitment Threats
Courtesy of Infowars.net
Written by Steve Watson
August 8, 2008
URL: http://infowars.net/articles/august2008/080808Recruitment.htm
Houston congressman Gene Green has demanded that the House Armed Services Committee hold hearings after it was revealed that an army recruiter has been lying to and threatening high school students to get them to enlist.
KHOU 11 News in Houston broke the story last week, revealing that students who signed up to a non-binding military “delayed entry program” were told by recruiter, Sgt. Glenn Marquette that they were bound under federal law to stick to the agreement and could be arrested and jailed as deserters if they did not follow through and enlist.
The network also revealed that the situation was an ongoing saga with the same tactics having been exposed three years ago. Rather than being discharged or demoted, the officer involved in the earlier incident, a Sgt.Thomas Kelt, was promoted to be a station commander, responsible for training and supervising other recruiters.
Douglas Smith, a spokesman for U.S. Army recruiting headquarters defended the action by telling Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! “Just because someone has done something wrong, doesn’t mean that they get the death penalty.” He refused to elaborate on what if any punishment Kelt had received.
Congressman Green has since sent a letter to the Pentagon demanding to know “Why more was not done,” and “What steps the Army will take to ensure this will not happen again.”
Referring to news that recruiter wrongdoing citations have nearly doubled over the past several years, Green replied:
“That’s not what our country’s about… There’s a problem with the system in the Army, and we can blame the sergeant or the corporal at the Greenspoint facility, but it sounds like they’re also hearing it from nationally.”
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