DebateGate

Editing Romney’s ‘Apology’ Defense

A new ad from Mitt Romney’s campaign patches together pieces of Romney’s debate defense of his claim that Barack Obama began his presidency on an “apology tour” in the Middle East — leaving out parts that are demonstrably untrue. But even with the benefit of careful editing, Romney’s claim falls short of its billing.
 
Typically, when we fact-check quotes, it is often a matter of a candidate selectively grabbing bits and pieces of his opponent’s words, leaving out important pieces of context, to create a misleading impression. Here, we have an unusual case of a Romney ad selectively quoting its own candidate to misleading effect.

The ad begins with an edited version of Romney’s statements during the debate (we’ve included the words cut out of the ad in bold).
 

Romney: And then the president began what I’ve called an apology tour of going to various nations in the Middle East and criticizing America. I think they looked at that and saw weakness.

During the debate, but not shown in the ad, Obama fired back, saying that “this notion of me apologizing” has been “probably the biggest whopper that’s been told during the course of this campaign, and every fact-checker and every reporter that’s looked at it, governor, has said this is not true.”
 
Obama is right about that. As we noted in our fact-check of the debate, we reviewed all of the speeches that Romney cited in his book “No Apology” to back up his claim that Obama went on an “apology tour,” and we concluded that “we didn’t see that any of them rise to the level of an actual apology.” Our fact-checking colleagues at PolitiFact and the Washington Post Fact Checker reached the same conclusion.
 
Romney went on later in the debate to explain what he meant. Again, the ad shortens his words  — conveniently leaving out one grossly inaccurate claim. Here are Romney’s fuller comments at the debate (and again, we have bolded the words left out of the ad).
 
Romney: Mr. President, the reason I call it an apology tour is because you went to the Middle East and you flew to Egypt and to Saudi Arabia and to Turkey and Iraq. And, by the way, you skipped Israel, our closest friend in the region. But you went to the other nations. And by the way, they noticed that you skipped Israel. And then in those nations and on Arabic TV you said that America had been dismissive and derisive. You said that on occasion America had dictated to other nations. Mr. President, America has not dictated to other nations. We have freed other nations from dictators.

So the ad leaves out Romney’s claim that while in the Middle East and on Arabic TV, “you said that America had been dismissive and derisive.” And for good reason. As we noted in our debate fact-check, Obama’s “dismissive” and “derisive” comments were not actually made in the Middle East, as Romney said, but rather during a speech Obama gave in Strasbourg, France, in April 2009. Speaking to a European audience, Obama said that among Americans there has been “a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world” and that “there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”
 
As for Romney’s claim that Obama told audiences in the Middle East that America had “dictated to other nations,” the Romney campaign sent us two comments as backup.
 
The first came during an interview of Obama on Al Arabiya TV on Jan. 27, 2009, shortly after Obama had been inaugurated as president. Obama responded to a question about George Mitchell, then Obama’s personal envoy to the Middle East, and the task of trying to negotiate a cease-fire and ultimately, a lasting peace, between Israelis and Palestinians.
 
Obama said that with regard to negotiations with Israelis and Palestinians, he told Mitchell to “start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating — in the past on some of these issues –and we don’t always know all the factors that are involved. So let’s listen.”
 
Obama went on to say that “ultimately, we cannot tell either the Israelis or the Palestinians what’s best for them. They’re going to have to make some decisions.”
 
In this context, it is clear that Obama is not offering some sort of apology for “dictating” to other nations.
 
The second example cited by the Romney campaign was from remarks Obama made at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago on April 17, 2009.
 
Obama: While the United States has done much to promote peace and prosperity in the hemisphere, we have at times been disengaged, and at times we sought to dictate our terms. But I pledge to you that we seek an equal partnership. There is no senior partner and junior partner in our relations; there is simply engagement based on mutual respect and common interests and shared values. So I’m here to launch a new chapter of engagement that will be sustained throughout my administration.

First, and most important, Obama was not addressing an audience in the Middle East, as Romney said in the debate (and even in the shortened version of his comments in the ad).  And we stick by our assessment that neither these comments Obama made in Trinidad and Tobago, nor any others cited by Romney in his book, rise to the level of Obama apologizing for America.
 
– Robert Farley
http://factcheck.org/2012/10/editing-romneys-apology-defense/

New Romney ad misleads on auto bailout
By BETH FOUHY | Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — TITLE: "Who Will Do More?"

LENGTH: 30 seconds

AIRING: Northern Ohio markets, including Toledo and Youngstown.

KEY IMAGES: The ad opens with a car crossing a city bridge and cuts to other images of people in their cars — a young woman, a young black couple, and a baby in a booster seat.

"Who will do more to support the auto industry? Not Barack Obama," a male narrator says, adding, "Mitt Romney has a plan to help the auto industry." The ad then shows video of Lee Iacocca, noting Romney had been endorsed by the longtime auto executive.

The ad then cuts to images of old cars being crushed. "Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build jeeps in China," the narrator says. "Mitt Romney will fight for every American job."

ANALYSIS: This ad, airing in Ohio, a major battleground state, in the campaign's final days, is an effort by the Romney campaign to turn Obama's decision to bail out General Motors and Chrysler against the president.

Romney's opposition to the bailout has bedeviled him in Ohio, where thousands of auto industry jobs were saved by the federal intervention. Polls show Romney consistently trailing Obama in Ohio, and a loss there would make it extremely difficult for the Republican hopeful to assemble the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.

The ad, while technically accurate in its claims, is misleading.

Its assertion that Obama took GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy is true. But the ad fails to mention the billions in government loans he extended to the two companies that allowed them to come out of bankruptcy and reorganize. Both companies are now profitable.

Romney also pressed for GM and Chrysler to go bankrupt, which he does not mention in this ad. He also wrote in a widely publicized New York Times column that if the companies received a government bailout, "You can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye."

It's true that Chrysler is now largely owned by Fiat, an Italian auto company that purchased a large stake in Chrysler when it was going through its bankruptcy reorganization. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne gave Chrysler management expertise and technology that has helped the company make a comeback.

It's also true that Chrysler is looking to produce some of its Jeep product line in China. But the company's plans do not threaten Jeep production in the United States, as the ad seems to suggest.

The ad is more carefully worded that Romney's claim in Ohio last week that "one of the great manufacturers in this state, Jeep, now owned by the Italians, is thinking of moving all production to China." Democrats cried foul, and Chrysler quickly released a statement saying it had "no intention" of shifting production from the U.S. to China. A company spokesman said Chrysler would build new plants in China to satisfy demand in Asia and elsewhere but that "U.S. Jeep assembly lines will continue to stay in operation."

___

AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/bush-knew-more-bin-ladens-plans-realized-040141177.html?_esi=1

Cherry picking ring a bell?

Let's go with the guys whose info furthers our aims in Iraq...

Just stopped by to share a laugh. Carry on.

Chimp from 1930s US 'Tarzan' films dead at 80

Cheetah, a chimpanzee said to have performed in the "Tarzan" films of the 1930s, has died at the age of 80, according to the Florida sanctuary where he lived.

"It is with great sadness that the community has lost a dear friend and family member on December 24, 2011," the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor, Florida announced on its website.

Cheetah was said to have performed in "Tarzan the Ape Man" (1932) and "Tarzan and His Mate" (1934), classic films about a man reared in the jungle starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan.

Similar claims were made about another very old chimpanzee, named Cheeta, which lives in California. But a writer researching that chimp in 2008 found considerable evidence it was too young to have appeared in the films, and its owners have accepted the findings on their website, cheetathechimp.org.

The average life span of a wild chimpanzee is around 45 years.

Several chimpanzees were used in the filming of the "Tarzan" movies and subsequent films, during a period when the primates were widely used in Hollywood and often mistreated.

The Florida chimpanzee -- which reportedly arrived at the sanctuary in 1960 -- loved finger-painting and watching football, and was soothed by Christian music, the sanctuary's outreach director Debbie Cobb told the Tampa Tribune.

"He could tell if I was having a good day or a bad day. He was always trying to get me to laugh if he thought I was having a bad day. He was very in tune to human feelings," Cobb was quoted as saying.

Ron Priest, a sanctuary volunteer, told the Tribune that Cheetah stood out because he could walk upright with a straight back like a human, and was distinguished by other talents.

"When he didn't like somebody or something that was going on, he would pick up some poop and throw it at them. He could get you at 30 feet with bars in between," Priest said.

Why Republicans Embrace Simpletons and How it Hurts America

By James Marshall Crotty | Forbes

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, and philosophers and divines."-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (Self-Reliance)

Since I report on American education, including the intellectual lassitude of American voters, foreign observers routinely ask me: Why Do Republicans Gleefully Embrace Idiots as Presidential Candidates?

The question naturally begs a larger question: How can a country, with the world’s highest national GDP, and absurdly complex systems regulating everything from credit default swaps to nuclear missile safety, possibly allow onto its national stage men and women of such transparently inferior intellect?

The easy answer is that there has always been a long, pathetic history of anti-intellectual paranoia in American politics, as Richard Hofstadter documented in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963). It is like kudzu. You just can’t kill it. No matter how advanced the U.S. becomes in technology, biomedicine, and weaponry, it not only attracts, but promotes, under the rubric of equal opportunity, a confederacy of dunces as Presidential candidates.

To be fair, Democrats have had their share of dolts, including the tax-cheating, race-baiting, college dropout Reverend Al Sharpton (who gained fame not only because of his courageous civil rights protests, but because he claims to be “Keepin’ It Real”; read: not formally educated), as well as Democrat-turned-Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond (whose 1948 campaign slogan was “Segregation Forever”). Nevertheless, in 2011, the God-fearing Ossified Party has rolled out the greatest assortment of Know-Nothings in its history, most of whom share a singular misconception: because I can do one small thing well (e.g., run a pizza chain), I can handle the world’s most demanding job.

At first blush, one thinks this embrace of incompetence has something to do with the uniquely American idea that anyone from any background can become President. It’s an old saw told to almost every young person in the country. I believed it. I also believed that I would be an astronaut or a professional basketball player.

However, reason suggests, that when a clear-headed adult, with no experience in national politics, no reputable training in public policy  -- as opposed to a bastion of Christian zealotry like the former Oral Roberts School of Law, which Michelle Bachman attended -- and little understanding of countries outside U.S. borders, says that he or she is running for President, his or her reasonable adult compadres should rightly say, “You are suffering from delusions of grandeur.” After all, you need advanced degrees to properly practice medicine, law, and nuclear physics. Why would we expect the Leader of the Free World to have anything less than the precise qualifications for such an elevated job opening?

However, only in America is no training or knowledge required to perform a job that is not only more complicated and demanding than the above three fields, but one which regulates the above three occupations and all sorts of other complex and nuanced occupations around the globe (including undercover agents in foreign lands).

But that’s only the beginning. What's far more troubling is that you can attract a huge amount of support in this country precisely because you lack qualifications to be president. Such reasoning is, in effect, the raison d’etre of all so-called “outside-the-Beltway” campaigns of recent vintage. However, to fully grasp why inexperience, incompetence and outright stupidity has such an emotional hold on Republicans in particular, you have to understand a core principle of conservative  orthodoxy: intelligence equates with moral relativism.  Which is why, after twice-electing a genuine, but fatally corrupt, thinking person in Richard Nixon, the Republican Party moved away from its historically pragmatic moderation in search of morally doctrinaire ideologues. Naturally, this paved the way for conservative extremists, who, while short on smarts -- or perhaps because they were short on smarts -- stuck to “conservative principles” like maggots to rotting meat. As my late diehard conservative Republican mother told me when I asked how she could rabidly support  such an obvious dullard as George W. Bush, "Because I don't trust the smart ones."

Ronald Reagan became the first of many morally unambiguous dimwits to warm the cockles of conservative hearts. Yes, with this post-Nixon strategy, the dwindling GOP intellectual fringe (historically held up by William Buckley and barely maintained to this day by the likes of David Brooks and Peggy Noonan) has had to stomach an occasional faux pas (e.g., Reagan's simpleton predecessor, Gerald Ford, claiming in a 1976 presidential debate that “there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe”), or gasp-inducing ignorance of foreign policy basics (e.g., Sarah Palin not knowing that there is a North and South Korea, or her hysterical notion that Sputnik bankrupted the Soviet Union). But, at least they knew their standard-bearer was not going wishy-washy on them (i.e., thinking hard for a living).

This gambit worked so well with Reagan, it naturally attracted other knuckleheads. First came George Bush Sr.’s running mate, William Danforth Quayle, who promptly showed his latent stupidity by public misspelling potato as “potatoe” … in front of a sixth-grader.

Thereafter, Quayle was the butt of many excellent late night jokes, but he lacked the earnest believability of a Reagan to ever accede to the Oval Office (though he did have a fairly hot wife). It took two terms of an intelligent commander-in-chief, and another moral equivocator, former law professor Bill Clinton, for the Republicans to search again for an unequivocal moral crusader with not a whole lot going on upstairs.

Enter George W. Bush, who, like Reagan, also enjoyed two terms in office, despite beliefs in brazen poppycock such as Intelligent Design and in the whopper of all disastrous absurdities, that Saddam Hussein was not only marshalling weapons of mass destruction to directly attack the U.S. (no, he was bluffing to deter his real enemy, neighboring Iran), but that he was also behind 9/11 (never let a good crisis go to waste, eh Mr. Cheney?). Only a true rube could believe such specious nonsense. And G.W. Bush – who exemplified the adage, “Never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity” -- fit the bill. The Republican Party loved him for it, bending over backwards to sanitize and “Hannitize” his many blunders, while selling his disinformation to a gullible American public still in shock from the attacks of 9/11.

At last count, the Iraq Detour has cost this nation trillions of dollars (with more trillions to come, as this country keeps its commitment to care for wounded and mentally shell-shocked Iraq War veterans and their loved ones). It also cost the lives of 125,000 Iraqi civilians, and many times more than that who’ve been wounded or displaced by the Iraqi misadventure.  All because of a lie and Americans’ willingness to either believe that lie or not forthrightly contest it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the empirical cost of stupidity.

After the costly policy blunders of Bush, Jr. -- for which this country is still paying dearly in lower credit ratings and draconian cuts in funding for parks, libraries, law enforcement, and more -- in came yet another Democratic law professor to clean up yet another Republican mess. Except this Democrat, Barack Obama, did not carry the moral and ethical baggage of his Democratic predecessor.

However, for reasons both racial and political, though primarily intellectual (President Obama is too cosmopolitan, too wordly, too nuanced, too calm, too Europe-friendly), Republicans have aggressively sought to cut Obama’s tenure short. Unfortunately, this time around they lack a bona fide, morally unequivocal, conservative with enough general election appeal to take Obama on. Each hopeful successor to the Republican Dumbass Throne (the coveted RDT) has proven so cartoonishly dopey as to offend even the intelligence of diehard Iowa primary voters, easily the most unbending conservatives in the U.S.

Things are now so bad on the dumbass front that, in a poll announced yesterday, Iowans are no longer interested in the current crop of Republican cretins. This includes Texas Governor Rick “Oops” Perry, who, in a colossal boneheaded moment in a live nationally televised debate, could not remember the third federal agency he would cut as president.

In an empirical validation of the anti-intellectual streak in GOP Politics, Perry then went on national talk shows the following morning to defend his stupidity as a reason to vote for him. On CNN’s “American Morning,” Perry said, "We've got a debater-in-chief right now, and you gotta ask yourself: 'How's that working out for America?'" In other words, being a good debater, and knowing the issues, is bad for America. This list also includes Michelle “Pray the Gay Away” Bachman, who believes that “Founding Fathers” like John Quincy Adams “worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States” (except J. Q. Adams died in 1848, long before “slavery was no more”). Even though the self-righteous Bachman is a native of Waterloo, Iowa, voters in her home state just cannot see trusting her with the codes to the U.S. nuclear arsenal (trusting a Creationist like Bachman on any public policy would be like trusting a phrenologist with curing your cancer).

And, yes, this also includes the endlessly entertaining Herman “I’m Not Supposed to Know Anything About Foreign Policy” Cain, whose inability to construct a coherent sentence on Libya and stated desire to prevent an already nuclear-armed China from “going nuclear” are now part of national dumbass folklore.

And lets not forget the deeply annoying Rick "Sanctum" Santorum, who said publicly that former P.O.W. John McCain “didn’t understand advanced interrogation techniques.” A Republican dumbass hallmark: arrogance wed to ignorance.

As a result of such transparently dumb stooges, Iowa Republicans, and conservatives in general, are actually settling on a bona fide shyster in the Richard Nixon mold: the pudgy, pompous, nastiness known as Newt Gingrich. As I made clear in my previous column, Darth Gingrich Vs. the Romney Ken Doll, the Republican nomination is now a race between Gingrich and Romney, which, once all the baggage of the corrupt former Speaker is laid out for all to see, could tilt to the nomination back to the Massachusetts Mormon, where’s it’s been for most of this Republican election cycle.

Now, you might ask, why aren’t Republicans in love with Romney? After all, he’s been a successful businessman in the Republican mold, essentially downsizing companies to their bare essentials and then reselling them for profit. He has that vague, detached, tall Ken Doll vibe that Republicans idealized in Reagan. In addition, as a devout Mormon, he’s squeaky clean in the morals department. Dude doesn’t drink, smoke, do drugs, or drink hot caffeinated beverages. He’s more straight edge than the Crotty, and that’s saying something.

Unfortunately, Romney, a Harvard graduate (and not a faux one like G.W. Bush), is just not seen as dumb enough. Though he and his Mormon faithful believe in preposterous canards (e.g., that Jesus Came to America), Romney consistently demonstrates a frustrating lack of imbecility, particularly in the the artful compromises he’s engineered over his political career, including his momentous achievement of passing mandatory health insurance in his adopted home state of Massachusetts. This subtlety of purpose, this nuance, is anathema to politically and morally unambiguous conservatives, who see the world in great big Murdoch-style tabloid dualism.

Which makes their sudden embrace of Mr. Gingrich so hilarious. Because, even more than Romney, it is Gingrich who has demonstrated enormous flexibility in his core conservative principles. He voted for NAFTA and the WTO; loan guarantees for China; most favored nation status for China; $1.2 billion in aid to the United Nations; and the creation of the Department of Education. Moreover, he reached across the aisle to make deals with Democrat Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, while achieving a compromise on global warming with Nanci Pelosi (which he has since pathetically renounced in an attempt to appeal to the Hannity-Bennett blockhead wing of the GOP). Recently, he attacked Paul Ryan’s budget plan as “right-wing social engineering” (before backing off that claim as well).

What Gingrich proves is not his electability, but, rather, the disastrous absurdity of the Conservative fealty test. Like other fealty tests in American history (from Truman’s Executive Order 9835, a.k.a. the “Loyalty Order,” to Grover Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge, right up to Herman Cain’s Muslim Loyalty Test), it is bound to end badly for the candidate, the party, and the country, which is governed best when the commander-in-chief is given enormous flexibility to do the practical, diplomatic, and, thus, smart, thing, not the ideologically pure one.

http://news.yahoo.com/why-republicans-embrace-simpletons-hurts-america-192501947.html

Fox News Viewers Uninformed, NPR Listeners Not, Poll Suggests
By Kenneth Rapoza | Forbes

A poll by Farleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey showed that of all the news channels out there, Fox News viewers are the least informed.
 
People were asked questions about news habits and current events in a statewide poll of 600 New Jersey residents recently. Results showed that viewers of Sunday morning news shows were the most informed about current events, while Fox News viewers were the least informed.  In fact, FDU poll results showed they were even less informed than those who they don?t watch any news at all.
 
Readers of The New York Times, USA Today and listeners to National Public Radio were better informed about international events than other media outlets.
 
In one major example, New Jersey poll participants were questioned about the outcome of the so-called Arab Spring uprisings in North Africa earlier in the year. A total of 53% of respondents know that Egyptians were successful in overthrowing dictator Hosni Mubarak. Also, 48% know that the Syrian uprising has thus far been unsuccessful in Assad. But on balance, Fox News viewers were 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watched no news at all.  Fox News viewers were also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news at all, suggesting a daily dose of soundbytes from CNN at the gym, and headlines from Google News were enough to surpass what average Fox viewers polled knew about current events.
 
Fox News is the leading cable news channel.
 
"Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News," said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind Poll. "Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don?t watch any news at all."
 
The kicker is that MSNBC didn't do all that much better. In one question, some 11% of MSNBC viewers actually believed that Occupy Wall Street protesters were Republicans compared to just 3% of Fox viewers.
 
"Ideological media does a very poor job overall," Cassino told Forbes. "They don't challenge people's assumptions. In traditional news, you will find that more often than not, there actually is a correct answer and there is no gray area. People who tune into ideological media are motivated to hear their side of the debate and so you can have someone who watches MSNBC be so used to hearing about protests coming from the right that they automatically believe that Occupy is mostly a Republican protest."
 
Occupy Wall Street leaders are not in support of any political party.
 
On international news, Fox viewers were by far the least likely to know that the Egyptian protests led to the resignation of Hosni Mubarek, followed by MSNBC in a distant second for least informed.
 
See: Some News Leaves People Knowing Less--Farleigh Dickinson University, poll results and methodology
http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/

==============================

Well, I do know that back when I was on the road in 2001 and 2002, about the only news and commentary I could get was on NPR, and from that I came to the (correct) conclusion that there were no WMD in Iraq, no Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, and that the American public was being lied to about the situation there to gull them into supporting the invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile, several folks whom I found relied on Fox News and derided all other sources thought there were WMD, etc. Seems things haven't changed much.

While all those other Occupy sites were being broken up, things proceeded pretty peacefully here at Occupy Westside until yesterday, when Officer Bubba Grant of the local sheriff's department stopped by. We all knew he was looking for trouble when he got out ot his patrol car with one hand on his TASER and the other on his can of Mace.

"What's this I hear about your protest getting out of hand?" he asked, his eyes no doubt swivelling from side to side to take in the scene behind his de riguere mirrored sunglasses. "We been getting complaints about loud protests, people sleeping outside at night, place getting all trashy and sech..."

I pointed at Grampa sitting in his rocker whittling, and explained, "Well, Grampa here had his hearing aid turned off by accident, so we was all having to yell to talk to him, but we found out what the problem was and got that fixed..."

Officer Bubba seemed a bit disappaointed at that...

"And Junior here, he wanted to get an early start on deer season without waking everyone up in the house when he left, so he slept out on the porch the other night..."

Officer Bubba deflated a bit more, then pointed at the pile of trash out by the curb. "Awright," he said, hiking up his belt and showing his pistol, "What about that?"

A moment later, air brakes hissing, the city trash truck pulled up to the curb, blocking officer Bubba Grant's patrol car in as Zeb and Chuck jumped off the truck and began throwing trash bags and emptying cans into the back of the truck.

"Weekly trash pickup," I told him, and held out a Dunkin' box. "Doughnut?"

Officer Bubba scowled, seeing he wasn't gonna get the chance to use his Mace or TASER, or handcuff anyone and drag 'em off to jail. He took a blueberry creme filled and waited for the truck to move so he could get in his patrol car and leave.

Afghanistan to back Pakistan if wars with U.S.: Karzai
By Augustine Anthony | Reuters

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Afghanistan would support Pakistan in case of military conflict between Pakistan and the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview to a private Pakistani TV channel broadcast on Saturday.

The remarks were in sharp contrast to recent tension between the two neighbors over cross-border raids, and Afghan accusations that Pakistan was involved in killing the chief Afghan peace envoy, former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, by a suicide bomber on September 20.

"God forbid, If ever there is a war between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan," he said in the interview to Geo television.

"If Pakistan is attacked and if the people of Pakistan needs Afghanistan's help, Afghanistan will be there with you."

Such a situation is extremely unlikely, however. Despite months of tension and tough talk between Washington and Islamabad, the two allies appear to be working to ease tension.

In a two-day visit to Islamabad, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued stern warnings and asked for more cooperation in winding down the war in Afghanistan, but ruled out "boots on the ground" in North Waziristan, where Washington has been pushing Pakistan to tackle the Haqqani network.

The Haqqani are a group of militants Washington has blamed for a series of attacks in Afghanistan, using sanctuaries in the Pakistani tribal region along the Afghan border.

Pakistan is seen as a critical to the U.S. drive to end the conflict in Afghanistan.

Pressure on Islamabad has been mounting since U.S. special forces found and killed Osama bin Laden in May in a Pakistani garrison town, where he apparently had been living for years.

The secret bin Laden raid was the biggest blow to U.S.-Pakistan relations since Islamabad joined the U.S. "war on terror" after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Karzai said tensions between the United States and Pakistan did not have any impact in his country's attitude toward Pakistan.

The TV channel, Geo, did not say when the interview was conducted.

Afghans have long been suspicious of Pakistan's intentions in their country and question its promise to help bring peace. Karzai repeated that concern in his remarks.

"Please brother, stop using all methods that hurt us and that are now hurting you.

"Let's engage from a different platform, a platform in which the two brothers only progress toward a better future in peace and harmony," he said.

Following the death of Rabbani, Karzai said he would cease attempting to reach out to the Afghan Taliban and instead negotiate directly with Pakistan, saying its military and intelligence services could influence the militants to make peace.

(Reporting by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Chris Allbritton and Michael Roddy)

http://news.yahoo.com/afghanistan-back-pakistan-wars-u-karzai-023316217.html