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Condi Rice Explains the Real Reason for Invasion of Iraq
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Six Degrees of Condi Rice
ONE:
Condi wrote a book (mostly) about the Iraq War.I wrote a book (mostly) about the Iraq War.
TWO:
Condi is using the media to sell her book. She was on the Daily Show the other night.I am using the media to sell my book. I was on a small NPR station the other night.
THREE:
Condi says that she was right about the war, and that she is proud she pushed the State Department into the field for Iraq’s reconstruction.I say she was a lying scab about the war, and that she helped destroy the State Department by sinking too many of her limited staff into the sucking pit of the World’s Largest Embassy (c) in Baghdad and neglecting America’s foreign relations with the rest of the planet.
FOUR:
Condi is always welcome at the State Department.I am banned from entering the State Department building.
FIVE:
Condi helped start a war that has, so far, killed 4479 Americans, over 100,000 Iraqis and cost America trillions of dollars. She sits on the board of Chevron and has an appointment at Stanford.I have never started a war and never killed anyone. The State Department is trying to fire me.
SIX:
Let’s break the pattern here:Please don’t read Condi’s book.
Please read my book.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Washington Post Suggests Condi Read “We Meant Well”
In an extended review of Condi’s new book, the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler suggests Condi might read “We Meant Well”:Rice is much more open detailing the administration’s struggle to deal with Iraq’s descent into violence during Bush’s second term. She congratulates herself on forcing more State Department officials into the field, but she might want to read “We Meant Well”— a hilarious and often depressing account by a foreign service officer of what really happened on the ground.
It is altogether too easy for officials like Rice to make casual decisions, such as hand over the reconstruction of Iraq to State and repurpose diplomats and visa officers as development experts, and then walk away from the consequences of that decision. I do include Condi in my book’s acknowledgements, thanking her and Colin Powell for “leading an organization I once cared deeply for into a swamp and abandoning us there.”
Rice will no doubt outsell my book hundreds to one, and will no doubt have a warm seat and hot coffee waiting for her on the Sunday news shows so she can explain how she was right all along, make faux (Fox?) apologies for her work hubby George W. and otherwise smooth off the rough corners of her history.
Thanks, then, to the Washington Post for at least trying to call Condi’s attention to the results of her decisions.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Why They Hate Us: We have the watch, but they have the time…
Many good intentions floundered as military and State Department personnel departed Iraq. Most people stayed no longer than twelve months, and they usually believed history began when they first stepped onto Iraqi soil. Our memory barely extended back beyond a few months. The child rape-murder atrocity committed by American soldiers and chronicled in Jim Frederick’s book Black Hearts: One Platoon’s Descent into Madness in Iraq’s Triangle of Death
took place in Peter’s area of responsibility just a little before his time, yet no one in all his preparatory briefings at State ever mentioned it. They might not have known about it themselves but I’m pretty sure the Iraqis he worked with remembered. The Iraqis were here for the last group and here for this one. We have the watch, but they have the time, says an old joke.
Recent news pieces exposed another such atrocity that few in America ever even heard about, but which many Iraqis cannot forget. A letter said to be written by Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions to the US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice states:
I would like to draw the attention of your Government to information I have received regarding a raid conducted by the Multinational Forces (MNF) on 15 March 2006 in the house of Faiz Harrat Al-Majma’ee, a farmer living in the outskirts of Al-Iss Haqi District in Balad (Salah-El-Din Governorate).
I have received various reports indicating that at least 10 persons, namely Mr. Faiz Hratt Khalaf, (aged 28), his wife Sumay’ya Abdul Razzaq Khuther (aged 24), their three children Hawra’a (aged 5) Aisha ( aged 3) and Husam (5 months old), Faiz’s mother Ms. Turkiya Majeed Ali (aged 74), Faiz’s sister (name unknown), Faiz’s nieces Asma’a Yousif Ma’arouf (aged 5 years old), and Usama Yousif Ma’arouf (aged 3 years), and a visiting relative Ms. Iqtisad Hameed Mehdi (aged 23) were killed during the raid.
According to the information received, American troops approached Mr. Faiz’s home in the early hours of 15 March 2006. It would appear that when the MNF approached the house, shots were fired from it and a confrontation ensued for some 25 minutes. The MNF troops entered the house, handcuffed all residents and executed all of them. After the initial MNF intervention, a US air raid ensued that destroyed the house.
Iraqi TV stations broadcast from the scene and showed bodies of the victims (i.e. five children and four women) in the morgue of Tikrit. Autopsies carries out at the Tikrit Hospital’s morgue revealed that all corpses were shot in the head and handcuffed.
The Iraqi government has called for an investigation, albeit five years after the sad fact. Prime Minister Malaki, of course, knew of the incident, which was widely publicized on Iraqi TV. Like so much nastiness connected with the Occupation, he was able to ignore this because there was no international pressure on him. The now-public Letter, above, changes that, and puts pressure on Malaki to at least go through the motions of pretending to bite the American hand that feeds him.
Meanwhile, here at home it’s Labor Day weekend, and the NFL season starts next week. We forget, they remember.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Qaddafi Kept Photo Album of Condi
We’ve documented Qaddafi’s weird relationship with the US government in other posts, though now it appears he desired an even weirder relationship with none other than Bush Work Wife and former Secretary of State Condi Rice.Qaddafi apparently was smitten, which is creepy given that Condi is, um, an avowed “bachelorette.” Nonetheless, the man kept a scrapbook-photo album of America’s iron lady in his Bond super-villain lair.
Indeed, it was Qaddafi that once said “I support my darling black African woman. I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders. … Leezza, Leezza, Leezza. … I love her very much.” Eeeeeeew, what’s next? Mubarak kept an album of Hillary Clinton shots? Obama has up skirts of Angela Merkel on his cell?
The mind just spins on this one. Maybe the US could use Condi as bait, to lure Qaddafi out of hiding? She could send him a few texts, maybe a cellphone snap of her so-sexy gap-toothed smile with a suggestive comment, and ask him to meet her at some Tripoli Starbucks. Qaddafi shows up with flowers and bang! Seal Team Six “consummates” the date. Condi, do it, for America!!!!!!!!
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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