What Happened Condi?
Ok Ok, so this graphic may be a little distasteful, its still funny and true. I just finished reading Bob Woodwards book, "State of Denial" the 3rd in his Bush at war series. Of course the villians of the book are Cheney and the neocons and especially Rummy, but the person who stands out in the book for her incompetence is Condi. Even Bush 41 is quoted as saying that Rice is in over her head, and has quote "been a disappointment." She was one of the inner cabal that kept W insulated from bad news and from experts that didn't share the opinions of the neocons. Colin Powell also comes off rather badly in the book, he was at the height of his influence and power as Secretary of State, and while he had many valid reservations about the war, he went along with it, breaking with his own Powell doctrine. His now infamous UN speech will haunt him for the rest of his life. Almost all of the people Woodward interviews and quotes in the book, from Jay Garner to weapons inspector David Kay, all remark about the absolute lack of intellectual curiosity on behalf of the Chief Executive, and the absolute bunker mentality in the Oval Office which allowed only rosy and inaccurate assessments of the Iraq war to be presented. This war was an absolute horrible, ill guided, preemptive mistake which was poorly planned and executed and a lot of US troops and Iraqis have paid the cost for the sheer incompetence of the planners of this adventure in post-colonialism. They wanted to fight a war on the cheap, they never planned on a long occupation, they never forsaw a protracted insurgency, and they never had a plan to rebuild Iraq, Powell hit it on the head with his "you break it you own it" quote. I have an undergraduate degree in Political Science with a History minor, with no military experiance and I knew that this war would be a debacle. Any armchair strategist could have told you what would happen when you disband the Iraqi army, chaos and a brutal insurgency. The US has never before Iraq waged a preemptive war, and Al Gore is right when he said today that this is the worst foreign policy disaster in US history. I couldn't agree more. Apparently so does the Baker Commission.
posted by Elvez73 at 7:47 PM
2 Comments:
That IS quite a good book, IMO. I couldn't put it down! It was like a situation comedy, except that it wasn't funny. What was that old song Olivia Newton-John sang, was it from "Grease", something like "Hopelessly Devoted to You"? It's like Rice is hopelessly devoted to Bush or obsessed with him or something. How else could she be so incompetent in the face of such harsh reality? Probably because she doesn't recognize reality when it is hitting her in the face. And people think of her as a presidential candidate? God help us all should that happen.
Absolutely, I had to limit myself to only reading a chapter or two of Woodwards book as I found myself fuming about the incompetence of the Bushies. God help us indeed Snave.
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