News Cut Category Archive: War

Pakistan is crumbling, or so it seems. The Taliban set off two suicide attacks on a weapons factory in the country. And Pervez Musharraf, viewed in Washington as a pal, has been forced from power.

Most of the articles in the paper this morning seem to be focusing on the effect of a every-man-for-himself Pakistan in the terror war. But isn't there another important question that few people seem to be asking?

Who's got the nukes?

The country reportedly has 24-48 nuclear warheads. A 2001 report from the Defense Department contained this chilling summary: "no one has been able to ascertain the validity of Pakistan's assurances about their nuclear weapons security."

Judging by the news coverage, there aren't a lot of people on this side of the Atlantic who seem terribly concerned. "Experts say a 10-member committee makes decisions on how to use them and only a complete meltdown in governance - still a distant prospect in Pakistan - could put the atomic bomb in the hands of extremists," the Associated Press reported last week.

Last fall, the New York Times reported that the U.S. is intimately involved in guarding Pakistan's nukes. But it's a "highly classified" program and who knows what a collapsed government's effect on the program is?

A more recent story in the Times -- last week -- indicated U.S. officials have been unable to scrutinize security procedures in Pakistan.

Perhaps the greatest concern is what one senior Bush administration official recently termed "steadfast efforts" by the extremist groups to infiltrate Pakistan's nuclear laboratories, the heart of a vast infrastructure that employs tens of thousands of people. Some of the efforts, officials said, are believed to have involved Pakistani scientists trained abroad.

With a Russian general suggesting a nuclear response to the U.S. - Poland deal on missiles, and a member of the nuclear club under assault by the surrogates for Osama bin Laden, shouldn't this subject have a higher profile in the presidential race than who the vice presidential picks are going to be?

Photo: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

The war between Russia and Georgia -- and more importantly, the effect on the relations between Russia and the United States -- didn't provide any more comforting moments today .

Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that relations between the U.S. and Russia could be strained for years. But he did say there's no chance the U.S. is going to get involved militarily.

Still, it appears to be a situation that will be one of the first to end up in the lap of a new president.

John McCain, speaking in Michigan, called for a complete review of U.S. relations with its Cold War enemy, the International Herald Tribune reported.

McCain said there should be heightened security arrangements for Ukraine, the Baltic states and Poland. But he offered no specifics, and ruled out military action against Russia or a return to the cold war.

Barack Obama, on vacation in Hawaii, condemned the Russia invasion and called for a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Here are the statements of both candidates:

As for Minnesota politicians, I asked an official in Rep. Michele Bachman's office for an interview today. I got a statement from the congresswoman instead:

"Obviously, the Russia-Georgia conflict is very disturbing and I am monitoring it very closely. In fact, this afternoon, I expect to participate in a conference call with Republican leadership on this matter.

"I was pleased to see that the President is taking a firm stand with Moscow and that he's dispatched Condoleezza Rice to Tbilisi. This is a volatile region and I am hopeful that tough diplomacy and humanitarian aid are all that will be needed to keep the conflict from spreading."

So far, only Sen. Norm Coleman, Bachmann, and Rep. Jim Oberstar have provided reaction to the ongoing events.

Update 6:03 p.m. Rep. Betty McCollum has issued a statement:

"I strongly condemn Russia's coordinated assault and invasion of the sovereign, democratic Republic of Georgia. In an attempt to re-establish control over its neighbors through military force, Russia is sending a worrisome signal to the international community that its vision of the future looks like the troubled Soviet past.

"As a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State Department and Foreign Operations, I support the Bush Administration's commitment to provide immediate humanitarian assistance to relieve the Georgian peoples' suffering. The United States and our European allies should now initiate high-level, persistent diplomatic talks with Georgia and Russia, focused on restoring and sustaining a cease-fire."

Bombs are dropping in Tblisi, in what we used to call Soviet Georgia. While everyone was focused on the Beijing Olympics, the Russians and Georgians (correction) have started a war.

This is an ongoing thread with some of the highlights:

It's not all bombs. It's also a battle on the Internet. The Russians have reportedly launched a massive cyberwar, hijacking the routing of communications and attacking government Web sites.

Russia -- or more specifically, Russia Today -- is using YouTube to get its message out. And it's one of peace, the latest video insists:

There is some information getting out from Georgia. The Georgia Ministry of Foreign Affairs set up a blog on Google's blogspot service. The images are quite disturbing. There's also a minute-by-minute account of the war being posted.

A similar blog -- Russia and George At War -- exists here, although its pedigree is unclear. Another blog -- The State Minister for Reintegration -- also has images and information from a Georgia perspective.

But back to the Russians. Siberian Light, which bills itself as "The Russia Blog," isn't carrying a word about the hostilities. Its top story is the Russian space shuttle floating toward a museum in Germany.

I've sent an e-mail to the writer to ask why he's not covering the war. I'll let you know what I hear back.

Update: The response is:

Yes. I'm on holiday in an isolated Cretan village with only expensive mobile phone Internet access. I'm watching events as closely as I can, but won't be able to blog again for at least two weeks.

Russia blog, on the other hand, is tackling the story head-on, and clearly writing to an American audience:

What would have United States done if a bordering country (let's say Mexico) slaughtered 1,400 U.S. citizens and 10 U.S. soldiers overnight, leaving U.S. citizens by the tens of thousands without food and water?

If you are following other blogs, feel free to post their links below.
However, if you don't know html, just send the URL it to me, please.

Update: Here's a really good list.

If something happens often enough, eventually we'll stop noticing it. National Guard deployments to Iraq have happened often enough that, for the most part, the deployment ceremonies go unnoticed.

But not today.

Editor & Publisher Magazine reports that Joseph Patrick Dwyer died last week of a drug overdose. The North Carolina Army medic was "made famous by a photograph that showed him carrying an injured Iraqi boy during the first week of the war," the Web site said.

Now the test: Do you remember this picture?

It was an odd day in American journalism today. A story about the war in Iraq made the front page. "Report rips post-surge planning for Iraq," said the Pioneer Press. "Progress in Iraq, but it's tenuous, U.S. audits find," said the Star Tribune. Of course, both stories about Iraq did not come from Iraq.

What's going on in Iraq? Good luck finding out.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism found that "In the first three months of 2008, coverage of the campaign outstripped coverage of the war by a margin of nearly 11-to-one (43% of the newshole compared to 4%). In an environment in which newsroom cutbacks and decreasing resources may make it more difficult for news outlets to stay atop two ongoing mega-stories, the media, for now, have made their priorities clear."

On this morning's Midmorning, MPR's Kerri Miller tried -- mightily -- to find out why this is.

"The campaign has taken up the news hole," one guest said. But how's this for circular reasoning? According to the tens of thousands -- 669,916 as of this morning -- of people who have taken MPR's Select A Candidate, it is ranked as the most important issue of the campaign. So how can the most important issue of the campaign not be covered because journalists are too busy covering the campaign?

David Folkenflik, National Public Radio media correspondent, responded to Kerri asking why she's not hearing Anne Garrels on the air much anymore (side note: Has it really been five years since she did her media tour through the Twin Cities?) by saying it's too dangerous for reporters to go out, something that doesn't seem to be stopping Leila Fadel, the Baghdad bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers.

The excuses continued to the frustration, I'm guessing, of most listeners. One suggested that because Americans haven't been asked to sacrifice, they're not interested in the war. But don't 99.4% (that's an actual statistic!) of the people who rated it on Select A Candidate as important or very important tell us that's not it, either?

Finally, Sean Aday, a professor of media and public affairs and international affairs at George Washington University, offered this: Once the surge started working (At least in terms of reduced violence, many of the goals of the surge have not been met), Democrats stopped talking about it.

And reporters stopped asking.