After their opening remarks, the Kazakh Leader left his podium. That is when Condi chased him down and brought him back to the podium to answer reporter's questions! ....................................... QUESTION: Andrea Koppel with CNN. I have a question for both of you. Mr. President, one of your daughters controls the media. The other controls the main bank here. The opposition, the political opposition, is routinely harassed, arrested. What evidence is there that you are anything more than a dictator? ....................................... PRESIDENT NAZARBAYEV: (Via interpreter.) What I said about the freedom of speech, I said I underlined that it should not be a freedom of misinformation. So I think that our opposition has provided you with some...(blah, blah,...)
SECRETARY RICE: Andrea, I think if we were interested only in oil and the war on terrorism we would not be speaking in the way that we are about democracy here or in Saudi Arabia or throughout the Middle East.
And so quite clearly, while we do have interests in terms of resources and in terms of the struggle for terrorism, we have in no way allowed those interests to get in the way of our open and clear defense of freedom.
What are here views on key Conservative issues?
Darn... if only she was a social conservative as well. She would be the ultimate running mate to have, even presidential candidate.
But I've heard she is more moderate on social issues.
"ASTANA, Kazakhstan (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has refuted claims by the opposition in Kazakhstan that Washington's primary concern is oil."
This is one of those public statements/headlines that belongs in theater of the absurd.
Under what circumstances would she say the opposite, even though the opposite is OBVIOUSLY true in US petro-politics.
Thought-police and bushbots take note - I didn't say I oppose a petro-centric US policy, simply that we are never going to come out and say it even though it had BETTER be true. Failure to follow such a policy in Iran was not a resounding success in the late 70's.
If we support democracy over petro-stability, we are not going to have anyone except maybe scotland to import oil from.
We support monarchies, some impressively brutal, all over the middle east because they want to do business with us and the alternative is a bunch of wahabbists getting overt control of those countries, Saudi Arabia particularly.
Yes, indeed. Some would argue that the administration is interested only in the profits derived from oil and gas speculation and defense contracting.............
But really, talking about bringing peace and democracy to the muslins is the real agenda, right?