Friday, July 4, 2008
Rice 'proud' of Decision to go to War With Iraq
In a statement dripping with absurdity and arrogance, Condoleezza Rice told Bloomberg’s Judy Woodruff that she was “proud” of the Bush administration’s decision to go to war with Iraq.
She’s proud. Proud like a mother of her daughter’s perfect report card or a father of his son’s first little league homerun. Proud as a lion or peacock. Proud of 4113 American deaths and over 655,000 Iraqi civilian deaths.
Sit on that number for a moment: 655,000. If the Iraqi dead were a US city it would be the seventeenth most populous city in the country. There are roughly the same number of people in Memphis and Ft. Worth, and significantly more than Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston and Portland.
Considering those numbers perhaps Ms. Rice could have chosen her words a bit more wisely. I wouldn’t dream of speaking for her, but maybe saying that she “defends” the decision to go to war with Iraq would have been a bit more fitting. A “wind-up” to a statement even suggesting pride should be prefaced with heavy doses of contrition and sorrow. But such a cold and calculated statement is par for the Bush administration course. Anyone who even remotely expresses doubt or regret over the cost of the war; whether financially, diplomatically or in loss of life is shown the door to “spend more time with their family.”
The appropriate and seemingly inevitable answer to this statement may be Rice’s predecessor, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barrack Obama in the coming days. Powell left the administration soon after realizing that President Bush had used his international credibility to add punch to the case for war with Iraq. Instead of taking public issue with his being used, Powell opted to quietly leave the administration.
She’s proud. Proud like a mother of her daughter’s perfect report card or a father of his son’s first little league homerun. Proud as a lion or peacock. Proud of 4113 American deaths and over 655,000 Iraqi civilian deaths.
Sit on that number for a moment: 655,000. If the Iraqi dead were a US city it would be the seventeenth most populous city in the country. There are roughly the same number of people in Memphis and Ft. Worth, and significantly more than Milwaukee, Seattle, Boston and Portland.
Considering those numbers perhaps Ms. Rice could have chosen her words a bit more wisely. I wouldn’t dream of speaking for her, but maybe saying that she “defends” the decision to go to war with Iraq would have been a bit more fitting. A “wind-up” to a statement even suggesting pride should be prefaced with heavy doses of contrition and sorrow. But such a cold and calculated statement is par for the Bush administration course. Anyone who even remotely expresses doubt or regret over the cost of the war; whether financially, diplomatically or in loss of life is shown the door to “spend more time with their family.”
The appropriate and seemingly inevitable answer to this statement may be Rice’s predecessor, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barrack Obama in the coming days. Powell left the administration soon after realizing that President Bush had used his international credibility to add punch to the case for war with Iraq. Instead of taking public issue with his being used, Powell opted to quietly leave the administration.
Conversely, Rice took the office with a respected reputation as a smart and loyal advisor in the run up to the war. Since then she has meticulously and sometimes humorously cashed in that reputation in exchange for a badge of just another neo-con war hawk defending the biggest blunder in modern history.
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