Make No Distinction...

Lets start today with an important quote:
“America makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror, and those that harbor and support them, because they’re equally guilty of murder.”

GW Bush

Which leads us to the headline below:
Pakistan gives safe haven to Taliban and at Qaeda militants: Less than two weeks after the head of U.S. Central Command Gen. John Abizaid

said the Pakistani government is not conspiring with the Taliban, a new peace agreement between the two groups has emerged. The deal will "allow militants to operate freely in one of Pakistan's most restive" areas bordering Afghanistan, North Waziristan. The agreement, "widely viewed as a face-saving retreat for the Pakistani Army," gives sanctuary to Taliban and al Qaeda militants operating in the region "in return for a pledge to halt attacks and infiltration into Afghanistan." But ABC's Brian Ross notes,"Pakistan signed a similar deal two years ago with militants in Southern Waziristan, who broke their word to refrain from violence almost immediately." The most egregious aspect of the deal, however, centers around Osama bin Laden. In an interview with ABC, Pakistani Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan said that if bin Laden, who is believed to be "hiding somewhere in the tribal areas of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border," is in Pakistan, he "would not be taken into custody" as long as he was "being like a peaceful citizen." The Pakistani government has since denied it would not capture bin Laden if given the opportunity. The announcement of this deal comes just two months after the CIA closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants.

Interesting dialogue from Gonzales/ Cleland interview yesterday on Situation Room
BLITZER: Because I asked the question, I read this morning this national strategy for combating terrorism that the administration put out. And in a detailed summary, I didn't see a lot of new information in there, but there was a lot of material about the war on terrorism.

At one point though, there were a list of successes, what has been achieved over these past five years, a lengthy list. And then there's a list of what are called challenges. Some of the major challenges facing the United States right now in the war on terrorism. None of that -- in none of those challenges did I see any reference to Osama Bin Laden himself or his Deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.

GONZALES: Well I want the American people to know that that still remains an objective, an important priority for the administration is to get Bin Laden and to bring Bin Laden to justice.

BLITZER: You have just come back from the region. You were in Iraq, you went to the Persian Gulf, you were in London. Do you, as the nations top law enforcement official, do you have a sense of where Osama bin Laden is right now?

GONZALES: I do. I have a sense of where he's at but I --

BLITZER: Where is that?

GONZALES: Well, in the Middle East is all I'm going to say. But we have difficult terrain that we sometimes have to work with. We have sometimes sympathetic people in the region. Sometimes there are issues relating to cooperation with governments. And so there are challenges that we have to deal with in trying to find one individual in a region of the world. And -- but I guess what I want to reassure the American people is that we remain focused on this challenge and that there are obviously other challenges that we have to worry about, other issues that we have to worry about. But capturing Bin Laden remains an important priority for the administration.

BLITZER: You keep saying an important. It's not the most important priority in this war on terrorism? Symbolically a man who ordered the murder of 3,000 Americans and others in the World Trade Center, Pennsylvania, and here in Washington?

GONZALES: Perhaps the reason I don't say it is the number one objective, is because even if he were captured -- if we could capture him and that would win the war on terror, I think I could without qualification say that is the number one objective. But that doesn't end the fight. And so there are other challenges to this government and to our country that we also have to focus on. Because those continue and will continue even after Bin Laden is captured.

BLITZER: And just to reiterate, America remains vulnerable today?

GONZALES: I think America is safer today, but yes, it is possible because of the type of society that we have, because of the type of freedoms that we enjoy in this country, because of the type of enemy that we're dealing with. I think we're safer today but we are not yet safe.

BLITZER: Attorney General, thanks very much.

GONZALES: Thank you.

BLITZER: And for another perspective on this debate concerning the war on terror, Max Cleland is joining us. He's a former democratic senator from Georgia, joining us from the CNN Center in Atlanta. Senator, thanks very much for coming in. Do you agree with the attorney general as far as his assessment of the importance or lack thereof, if you will, of Osama bin Laden overall in terms of the war on terror?

MAX CLELAND (D), FORMER GEORGIA SENATOR: I don't agree with a damn thing the attorney general said. It is al Qaeda, stupid. It is Osama bin Laden and his terrorist cadre that must be killed or captured, period. If we don't have high government officials in Washington who understand that, we need new high government officials. This is five years after September 11th. I went through September 11th, along with this nation. I was in Washington. I was just a couple of miles from the pentagon. I saw the smoke. I thought I was back in Vietnam. It is al Qaeda, stupid. It is not Iraq. That is why we've got to redeploy the troops out of Iraq, recover them to this country and make sure that our national guard and our reserves take care of this country and refocus our active duty military on killing and capturing Osama bin Laden. He is the key to worldwide terrorism. If we don't get that now, we'll never get it. Now, the thing that bothers me is that instead of going after Osama bin Laden and his terrorist cadre, they're going after Jack Murtha who after five years have looked at this situation and having more than 30 years experience in the marine corps and more than 30 years in congress, they're going after Jack Murtha and trying to take him out and strip vote him. And I'm not going to let that happen. Me and my fellow veterans are going to demonstrate in Johnstown, Pennsylvania for Jack Murtha September 30th. We invite all Americans to come. We're going to fight back this year.

Quickies:
On the eve of his first trip to Washington, former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami warned that U.S. military action in the Middle East has backfired, producing greater terrorism, imperiling the future of Iraq and

damaging America's long-term interests.

Bush states "The families of the 9/11 attacks have waited patiently for justice," as he admits to secret prisons that the administration originally said didn't exist.

Iraq's parliament yesterday voted to extend by a month a nationwide state of emergency. The state of emergency has been extended several times since it was first imposed in 2004 and there has been

no serious move to roll it back.

Despite an effort by House and Senate Republicans to focus congressional attention almost exclusively on national security ahead of the November elections, they are "

splintering" over possible legislation to officially sanction the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has

reinstated his hold on the Senate's porkbusting database bill, which would create an easily-accessible Google-like database of all federal spending, which totaled $2.5 trillion last year.

Time For Some Football ! Lynn Swann doesn't take trash talk from clowns. At an Allentown Fair dunk tank, the former Pittsburgh Steelers star -- and candidate for Pennsylvania governor -- failed to send a "mouthy" clown into the water. "I hope you do better at the polls, buddy," the clown joked. "

That did it. Swann, who had turned to leave, went back to the tank, throwing ball after ball until he hit the target. As the clown dropped into the water, Swann stuck his fists in the air, beaming in triumph."

ABC Docudrama Blames President Clinton For 9/11
Next week, Americans will commemorate the five-year anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. ABC Television is marking this important moment with a miniseries called "

The Path to 9/11." Promos for the movie say it is "based on the 9/11 Commission Report." The miniseries' writer, Cyrus Nowrasteh, says he “wanted to match the just-the-facts tone of the report,” and describes the project as “an objective telling of the events of 9/11.”

A key scene in "The Path to 9/11" involves President Clinton's national security adviser Samuel Berger, "who freezes in dithering apprehension" when a CIA agent radios in from Afghanistan to say that he and a group of local tribesmen "have Osama bin Laden within sight." The CIA character "begs for the green light to capture or kill the al Qaeda chieftain, but the line goes dead, suggesting that Berger and his colleagues, including Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, frozen in indecision, had hung up on the CIA man." The left calls it rife with inacuracies, while the right asks "why does the left hate 'the path to 9/11'"

Judge for yourself !

(Sources: Seattle Times, NY Times, ABC, Washington Post, Townhall.com, TPM, FOXNews, ThinkProgress, Time, FrontPage, CNN, Washington Times)