Condoleezza's Legacy

There's a great article here by John Taylor that highlights just what a disaster Condaleeza Rice has been and how harshly history will remember her time in office.

The person who could have been expected to question the administration's rush to war against Iraq actually became no more than a mouthpiece justifying the invasion.

Condi Rice was an uncritical advocate of the Iraq war. As national security adviser she had the power and responsibility to investigate weak and contradictory intelligence that alleged Saddam's regime was seeking weapons of mass destruction and had an operational relationship with al-Qaeda. She did not do so. Her dealings with Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and George Tenet show she valued consensus over truth. A determinedly uncurious Rice was a willing participant in the administration's pro-war rhetoric. She used her intellect not to sort truth from falsehood, but to terrify the American people with cute and clever phrasing: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

She has sought at all times to defend the administration, even when her defence has been simply absurd and unbelievable.

Not only had Rice been in the forefront of Bush administration officials making the bogus case for invading Iraq, but she refused to acknowledge her share of responsibility for failure to stop the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. In testimony before the 9/11 Commission, Rice stated she could not recall an "emergency" meeting with CIA Director George Tenet in July 2001 in which he highlighted the al-Qaeda threat. She also claimed, in an assertion that appears absurd on its face, that the president's daily brief of Aug. 6, 2001, entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States," contained no meaningful warnings. Conveniently enough, that brief still remains classified.

Taylor reminds us of how Rice applauded the immoral Israeli attack on Lebanon by stating that what we were witnessing were "the birth pangs of a new Middle East". And, as she called for the Palestinian elections which resulted in the election of Hamas and the subsequent starving of the Palestinian people for making the wrong electoral choice, he reminds us that the real message the US is sending to the Middle East is: I'm a strong advocate of democracy; just make sure you elect people acceptable to Israel and the United States, if you want to eat.

But the best example of Condi's absurd logic comes from the fact that she routinely condemns Syria and praises the "progress" which she is witnessing in Iraq.

Since the start of the troop surge in February the number of internally displaced Iraqis has jumped from half a million to 1.5 million, while the number of Iraqis who have fled to surrounding countries, primarily Syria, has reached 2.5 million. Rice routinely denounces Syria as a "police state" on the "wrong side of history," a "barrier to change in the Middle East." Does she find it ironic that a million-plus Iraqis prefer to live under a socialist dictatorship in Syria instead of the liberal democracy she helped create in Iraq? No, Rice doesn't do irony; she can't and maintain a debased State Department as an integral part of the administration's spin machine.

One wonders just how many Syrians and other Arabs are anxious for the United States to bring freedom and democracy to them. Most people are not keen to pack a suitcase, leave everything else behind, and run for their lives. Four million displaced Iraqis represent 15 percent of the country's prewar population of 27 million. The equivalent figure for the United States would be 45 million displaced. The number of Iraqis who have fled their homes reveals, better than any other fact or statistic, the scope of the disaster that has befallen Iraq since the American invasion. This immense human suffering will be Condi Rice's legacy.

Rice has never had an independent thought in her life. She has gained her positions through her willingness to spout, literally, whatever crap needed to be said on any particular day.

The fact that she could shamelessly claim that a report entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" was not a serious warning that bin Laden intended to attack within the United States, should have made her a national laughing stock.

But, in partisan Bush Washington circles, her shamelessness was actually judged to be a badge of honour in the same way as Gonzales humiliating himself in front of a Congressional hearing was thought to be a fine example of an employee willing to take a bullet for the boss.

It is this Mafioso like mentality which has ensured the success of people like Gonzales and Condi.

Loyalty to Bush - and a willingness to state that black is white in the face of public ridicule - have become badges of honour amongst this weak and deeply dishonourable regime.

History will judge Condi harshly, but not nearly so harshly as it will judge her bosses.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Condaleeza Rice, Iran, Iraq war, Israel-Lebanon war, 9-11