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SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. - Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, was twice the legal limit when he side-swiped a semi-truck at an intersection in Spokane Valley on August 14, according to Trooper Troy Briggs with the Washington State Patrol. Crocker, 63, who's from Spokane, was arrested for DUI and hit and run after a collision with the semi at the intersection of Sprague Ave. and Pines Road at 2:05p.m. Crocker's blood alcohol content (BAC) was .160 and .152 following two breathalyzer tests. The legal limit in Washington is .08.

Clinton: Budget Cuts Could Undermine US Influence VOA News March 02, 2011 U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says cutting funding for State Department programs could upset America's strategic interests around the world. Speaking to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Wednesday, Clinton objected to cuts that would eliminate funding for the Asia Pacific region, where she said the U.S. is in competition with China for energy projects.

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is convening an unprecedented mass meeting of U.S. ambassadors.</p>

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is flying to Haiti to mediate in a political crisis there while other administration officials are keeping watch on violent protests halfway across the world in Egypt. Clinton will meet Sunday with President Rene Preval and the three candidates vying to succeed him during her visit. She will also see a treatment center for the cholera epidemic that has killed almost 4,000 people.

There is a growing bipartisan consensus that Hillary Clinton is the best ever Secretary of State, US President Barack Obama has said. His decision to appoint Clinton as the Secretary of State was one of his better decisions, the US President has said. Obama who made a rare appearance at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department to attend the holiday reception party hosted by the Washington's vibrant diplomatic community by Clinton said, "I think there's a consensus building that this may be one of the best Secretaries of State we've ever had in this country’s history." "One of...

While visiting the State Department's official website, curious to see if Hillary or Obama would post a Good Friday/Passover message to the Jewish community, as he is so fond of recognizing other foreign national holidays, I clicked onto the "Countries & Regions" tab at the top, a list of search options drop down, the first is the "A-Z List of Countries and Regions." I clicked on it, then clicked 'I' for Israel. It took a while, then came the headline: "We’re sorry. That page can’t be found and may have moved" IN BOLD RED LETTERS. So, I then clicked on...

Before Iraq's first election in January 2005, the Bush administration debated whether to support any particular candidate. The Central Intelligence Agency wanted to funnel $20 million to its longtime favorite Ayad Allawi, who was then serving as prime minister in a U.S.-appointed government. But Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's top foreign policy adviser, argued that the U.S. should create a level playing-field and let the chips fall where they may. Ms. Rice won the day. And so did the United Iraqi Alliance, an alliance of Shiite parties led first by Ibrahim Jaafari and, after subsequent elections that year, by Nouri al-Maliki,...

US secretary of state says her country focusing on trying to change Iranian behavior, not planning anything other than sanctions US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her country has no plan for military action against Iran over its nuclear program, in a television interview broadcast on Wednesday. "Obviously, we don't want Iran to become a nuclear weapons power, but we are not planning anything other than going for sanctions," she told al-Arabiya television.

JUDGES should interpret the Constitution according to other nations' legal "norms." Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts. The United States constitutes an "axis of disobedience" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq. Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government's top lawyers: Harold Koh. President Obama has nominated Koh -- until last week the dean of Yale Law School -- to be the State Department's legal adviser. Koh. He's a fan of "transnational legal process," arguing that the distinctions between US and international law should vanish. If Canada, the...

Christopher Hill: Deep Kimchee for Iraq Of the many things that will be written about North Korea this week, the least likely of these is, “Now there’s the kind of diplomacy we need more of.” Consider just the events of the last few days: the missile test itself, which may have hit closer to home than originally thought; the failure of the United Nations to enforce two of its violated resolutions; the broader failure of deterrence and counter-proliferation; and North Korea’s final repudiation of a February 2007 agreement in which it had agreed to verifiably dismantle all of its nuclear...

On October 31st 1999 EgyptAir Flight 990 struck the ocean with the loss of all on board. The end of the NTSB's final summary reads thusly "The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the EgyptAir flight 990 accident is the airplane's departure from normal cruise flight and subsequent impact with the Atlantic Ocean as a result of the relief first officer's flight control inputs. The reason for the relief first officer's actions was not determined."

Bush Owes His Successor A Tough Finish on Foreign Policy By JOHN R. BOLTON September 6, 2008; Page A11 As the Bush administration enters its last months, its pursuit of a "legacy," especially in foreign policy, becomes ever more frenetic. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's travel schedule is packed. State Department "signing ceremonies" are blossoming, even for agreements that would not have attracted high-level attention just last year. Editorial writers are being quietly encouraged to laud administration successes. While neither unique nor unexpected, the legacy frenzy masks what should be our real concern until Jan. 20, 2009: the risk of...

Salvaging Our North Korea Policy.... By JOHN R. BOLTON There are signs, albeit small ones, that the Bush administration may be reaching the end of its patience with the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program. These signs could prove illusory. But as it nears its end, the administration has a serious responsibility: It must not leave its successor with an ongoing, failed policy. At a minimum, President Bush should not bequeath to the next president only the burned-out hulk of the Six-Party Talks, and countless failed and violated North Korean commitments. Since they were conceived in spring 2003,...

A Republican Party activist and former top GOP congressional aide who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is harshly criticizing the U.S. diplomatic effort in Iraq, accusing American diplomats of gross and potentially criminal negligence and incompetence.

The U.S. State Department of North Korea In the Six-Party Talks with North Korea, it gets ever more difficult to tell which side of this erstwhile hexagon Condi Rice’s State Department is negotiating for. On Feb. 6, the U.S. special envoy to these talks, Chris Hill, gave the Senate Foreign Relations Committee an update on the North Korea denuclearization agreement reached almost a year ago, which keeps running into snags such as North Korea’s insistence on first receiving a refund of some $25 million in allegedly crime-tainted funds frozen in Macau (which Hill arranged for Kim Jong Il to receive...

    Shadow Warriors   By David ForsmarkFrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, February 04, 2008 Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of SurrenderBy Kenneth TimmermanCrown Forum, $25.95, 404 pp. At long last, the CIA and the State Department have targeted a government they have identified as an aggressive threat to world peace and largely countered its foreign policy through psy-ops, propaganda, selective leaks of intelligence and covert operations.And who was the target of this covert campaign? Are these operations aimed at the Islamofascists in Iran? How about Vladimir Putin and his increasingly fascist government in Russia?...

Foggy Bottom Apostate January 25, 2008 Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush's special envoy for human rights in North Korea, has recently pointed out that our current approach to Pyongyang is failing. Lord help a diplomat who tells the truth. Mr. Lefkowitz, growled Condoleezza Rice at a Tuesday press conference in Europe, "doesn't work on the six-party talks [on North Korea], he doesn't know what's going on in the six-party talks and he certainly has no say in what American policy will be in the six-party talks." For good measure, the Secretary added that she "would doubt very seriously that [the Chinese...

(Adds North Korean media report) SEOUL, Jan 4 (Reuters) - North Korea said on Friday it would boost its war deterrent, a day after the United States said it was sending its nuclear envoy back to Asia to discuss an atomic disarmament deal on which Pyongyang has missed a deadline.North Korea failed to fully account for its nuclear weapons programme or answer U.S. suspicions that it has secretly tried to enrich uranium for weapons. It was supposed to have made the declaration by the end of 2007. "(We) will further strengthen our war deterrent capabilities in response to U.S....

Optimism about North Korea is sadly misguidedBy Richard Halloran Sunday, Dec 16, 2007, Page 9 Once again, rosy optimism is billowing out of the Korean Peninsula. And once again, the rest of the world might remember that atop the regime in Pyongyang sit world-class thugs who have repeatedly refused to abide by their agreements. US President George W. Bush started off the latest surge of hope two weeks ago with a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, urging him in polite but firm terms to keep his pledge to abandon his nuclear weapons. Six years ago, Bush made...

Sri Lanka Sank 6 N. Korean Ships Carrying Weapons between this Feb. and Oct. 12/14/2007 Sohn Ji-heun /begin my summary Six N. Korean ships were sunk by Sri Lankan Navy between Feb. 28 and late October of this year. They were shipping weapons for Tamil Tigers, which were designated as a terrorist organization by U.S. State Dept. Both N. Korean crews and Tamil terrorists were aboard the ships. They were all presumed to be killed. Sri Lankan Navy was able to sink them with the help of U.S., which passed on intelligence on the location of (N. Korean) ships in...