Cover-up...

Amman, Jordan: A veiled woman [Mohammad Abu Ghosh/AP]

yup, looks like a veil to me… heavily veiled.

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In other nooz… it probably helps to have a story line, and to stick to it.  It’s not like we have representative, responsive, flexible government… now or anytime in the foreseeable future.  So, we get a story line.  In this case, hen’s scratchings.

Tapper v Gibbs:

TAPPER:  The president today in the Oval Office with the NATO secretary general said that he defined the mission in Afghanistan as dismantling, disrupting, destroying the Al Qaida network and effectively working with the Afghan government to provide the security necessary for that country. What — how would he define “effectively working with the Afghan government to provide the security necessary for that country”?  Can you explain more what he means, Robert?

GIBBS:  Well, look, I think you’ve got — I think, as you’ve seen in places around the world, we’ve — while we can help the security environment in the short term, there has to be a training mission for police and security forces that that country can use to secure their own territory. Because we cannot stay there forever.  Eventually, the functions of security and the functions of policing are going to have to be assumed by the Afghans.  So, obviously, some robust training mission has to happen.

TAPPER:  That’s what you mean by — just, kind of, open-ended concept of they need to be able to arm themselves…

(CROSSTALK)

GIBBS:  They have to be able to — they have to be able to secure their own physical territory.

TAPPER:  That’s obviously not the case right now.

GIBBS:  And that’s why — that’s part of — part of what the president talked about in March and part of what is in — obviously in the assessment from General McChrystal.

TAPPER:  One other question is that retired General Gration is quoted in The Washington Post today making comments about U.S. policy toward Sudan that include suggestions that — that his goal is to normalize relations with Sudan.  And there are a lot of other comments that have alarmed troops whose existence is to — to object to the genocide in Darfur. Did you guys have a reaction to that comment…

(CROSSTALK)

GIBBS:  Well, just — my reaction is more to the story  The policy is being worked on.  There aren’t new announcements of a new policy.  Obviously, our policy would not include that unless there were a significant change on the ground in Khartoum.

– jpt

Or in the air.  Ground, air, what’s  the difference?  Your border, my border… autonomous nations (or people), sovereign nations… they are ALL our borders.  we’ll tell you where to put them and then what you can do with them….

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Out of curiosity I went and looked at the Whitehouse.gov text of the full briefing. For the story line, you know…

Don’t know who the questioner is here…

Q Robert, was Rasmussen speaking for the President when he said today in the Oval Office, “We will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes”?

MR. GIBBS: Obviously, I’m not going to get into parsing the words of –

Q It’s pretty straightforward.

MR. GIBBS: I understand, I just don’t currently hold the position of his spokesperson.

Q Well, does the President agree with that?

MR. GIBBS: I think the President believes that we have to do — we have to, as I said earlier, disrupt, dismantle and destroy al Qaeda, prevent it from having a safe haven that would allow it to plan the type of activities that we saw happen in September of 2001 in this country.

Q And that is the objective for which the U.S. will stay in Afghanistan, as long as it takes?

MR. GIBBS: That is the objective of our U.S. policy toward Afghanistan.

Other than low grade comedy, there is no point to this. A trained and diapered monkey could, at random, hold up signs that said:

I have not seen the president in a couple of hours, so I cannot answer that.

I had not heard that.

I am not able to comment on that.

And even if I knew, I would not say.

We obviously want to proceed carefully, wars may be entered into wrongly, but we must leave rightly.

Under this president, on day one, we banned torture.

We pledge to the American people to keep them safe, in their beds if they have one.  But no matter, we will hunt down terrorists and kill them, randomly and specifically.  In their beds, if they have one.  Otherwise, at large.

We will.

And the monkey can laugh whenever he wants.  I’d suggest using a little Capuchin monkey, the breed they use to attend the very disabled.  Comb hair and so on…

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