The diplomatic spin-talk starts here

Never will you see a more blatant example of diplomatic spin talk as with the aftermath of the Armitage-Pakistan "stone age" dust up:

"We wanted to make sure they understood both the opportunities and the downside, but there was no threat,"

Mr. Armitage certainly can't be accused of having a silver tongue, but he wiggled out of that one pretty well. And President Bush? He was shocked, shocked that such a thing was said,

"I was taken aback by the harshness of the words," he said.

No, no, no. You see, Colin Powell said Musharraf fully understood the situation:

"All I can tell you is that shortly after 9/11, Secretary [of State] Colin Powell came in and said President Musharraf understands the stakes, and he wants to join and help route out an enemy that has come and killed 3,000 of our citizens."

Well of course he did...because...otherwise we'd bomb them back to the stone age! This brings to mind the scene in Ghostbusters where, after Bill Murray finds out that reversing the streams might leave them with an infintesimal chance to survive, says something like, "I love this plan, I'm behind it 100 percent".

But the stone age episode is light entertainment in comparison to what's been going on between these leaders during the past few weeks. Keep in mind the Taliban have been pouring over the border into Afghanistan after years of regrouping in the tribal regions of Pakistan thanks to General Musharraf's lack of control there.

Let's recap. First, news the Pakis had killed the rebel leader in Baluchistan Nawab Akbar Bugti in August. By the way, Baluchistan is the boyhood home to both World Trade Center bombers. That was followed in short order by the announcement of a peace deal with tribal leaders in the territories, initially saying that even bin Laden himself would be left alone if he renounced terrorism and kept quiet.

No, no, no, claimed Musharraf, that's incorrect. It was just a "gaffe".

Then we heard Bush say we couldn't hot pursuit bin Laden and Zawahiri into (what the map shows as) Pakistan because of soveriegnty issues, only to reverse himself a week later and say, heck yes, if we get good intel.

Then Musharraf again says, no, no, no, they'll take care of it themselves but nobody knows quite what that means, since they've just had their butts handed to them up there and signed the aforementioned peace deal agreeing to leave the area alone. Pardon the crudeness, but WTF?

The two leaders are meeting in America this week and have apparently gotten their stories straight:

...And when he says, if we find -- or when we find -- Osama bin Laden, he will be brought to justice, I believe him.

Hopefully Bush stops short of giving him a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

But seriously, this is one whale of an extremely tense predicament. We might very well be witnessing the highest level of political leverage ever used in modern times. Musharraf needs to help us or he'll be holding bones and sticks in a loin cloth amidst smoking remains. On the other hand he can't very well tick off the Islamists, our mortal enemies hiding in his country, or he'll quickly be separated from his head. It must stink to be him right now.

Meanwhile, the diplomatic show must go on. Bush continues to smile for the cameras and shake hands with the leaders while rolling off warm fuzzies about the great work Musharraf has done for us in the GWoT. But under his breath I bet he keeps whispering it, "stone age..Pervez, stone age..".

BROUGHT TO ULTIMATE JUSTICE? 9/23/06

This news blurb adds to the above weirdness. Or perhaps explains it.