Posted on 07/27/2006 5:46:22 PM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner
Conservative national security allies of President Bush are in revolt against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying that she is incompetent and has reversed the administration’s national security and foreign policy agenda.
The conservatives, who include Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle and leading current and former members of the Pentagon and National Security Council, have urged the president to transfer Miss Rice out of the State Department and to an advisory role. They said Miss Rice, stemming from her lack of understanding of the Middle East, has misled the president on Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
(Excerpt) Read more at insightmag.com ...
Its not a mistake to attack the policy, I disagree with the policy. The mistake is to imagine that Rice is free-lancing. She isn't. Its the same policy as it was before she went to State. Its the same policy the Israelis are pushing.
Quoting Bolton from another thread:
"...Bolton... said he "unequivocally" thought the United States should pay its full U.N. dues. He said there should "absolutely" be a "viable, contiguous Palestinian state." And, after aides distributed his prepared testimony to reporters, they returned with a revised copy that excised a sentence defending the Israeli military action in Lebanon."
Bolton, like Rice, represents the president. So even a Bolton must get on board with the so-called "two-state" solution. I'm against it. But Bolton's a good man. I don't know what its going to take to dump the "independent" palestine nonsense, but its not Rice's policy, its Bush's policy.
Gingrich and Perle want a more aggressive policy. Me too. Probably Bush does too, but the difference is he (and Rice, and Bolton) has to figure out how to execute it, man it, pay for it, keep all the allies and almost allies and secret enemies on board while you do it. They don't. I don't. We have the best job; we get to analyze what they are doing wrong. They have to make deals with people that make my skin crawl, in order to get anything done at all.
Does Gingrich want to go to war with North Korea? NK is China's sock puppet. Does he really want to get into it there while we are busy, really, pretty busy in Iraq? Me and Gingrich don't have to worry about "how". Bush and Rice and Cheney and Rumsfeld do.
Condi is Bush's mouthpiece. She can't do ANYTHING without him so think about that all you guys who think he should dump her.
21 seconds difference.
Am I reading your mind or are you reading mine?
Spooky! LOL
:yawn:
The power of truth!
I don't see Newt's new-found conservatism as a lasting virtue.
.....LOL.....well said....
Some People Disagree on Mideast policy
Miss Rice served as Mr. Bush's national security adviser in his first term. During his second term, Miss Rice replaced Mr. Powell.
"Condoleezza Rice has moved from the White House to Foggy Bottom, a mere mile or so away," Mr. Perle wrote in a June 25 Op-Ed article in the Washington Post. "What matters is not that she is further removed from the Oval Office; Rice's influence on the president is undiminished. It is, rather, that she is now in the midst of—and increasingly represents—a diplomatic establishment that is driven to accommodate its allies even when (or, it seems, especially when) such allies counsel the appeasement of our adversaries."
"Rice attempted to increase pressure on Israel to stand down and to demonstrate restraint," said Stephen Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation.
Yep - nice find, too by the way
This follows a pattern of hits on people associated with the Iraq Group [also remember the hits on Feith, etc of the "Office of Special Plans" at the Pentagon?]that we've seen all throughout the post-Rockefeller memo and Niger/Plasme Leak timelines...
Excuse me, I wasn't disagreeing with you. You did an excellent dissection of the piece.
I meant to ping my remarks back to the original poster, but forgot, so they were directed to you.
I notice how some of these threads go; the original article is a hit piece with very little policy substance. At least half the posts in the thread are ad hominems either against Rice or other posters.
As you usually do, you cut right through to the marrow.
Newtie has far too much baggage and far too many problem, for him to be taken seriously. He so misses being in the limelight, that now he's everywhere, spouting off some silly stuff and some "okay" stuff; none of which is going to help him any, should he really enter the 2008 presidential primary. And no, his newly refound "conservatism" isn't going to last.......it never has done.
Oh well.
Now, since Rice didn't tell Israel to stand down, we may as well remove that last quote, too:
Some People Say ThingsThis of course leaves us with little- only a statement from Perle saying that Condi heads a bureaucracy full of appeasers. But we already know the State Dept is full of appeasers. Big deal.Miss Rice served as Mr. Bush's national security adviser in his first term. During his second term, Miss Rice replaced Mr. Powell. [Duh!]
"Condoleezza Rice has moved from the White House to Foggy Bottom, a mere mile or so away," [duh!] Mr. Perle wrote in a June 25 Op-Ed article in the Washington Post. "What matters is not that she is further removed from the Oval Office; Rice's influence on the president is undiminished. It is, rather, that she is now in the midst of—and increasingly represents—a diplomatic establishment that is driven to accommodate its allies even when (or, it seems, especially when) such allies counsel the appeasement of our adversaries."
Wasn't Insight the magazine that claimed Atta met with Cuban intelligence officers at a hotel in Miami?
Thanks for the info on Bolton BTW- I hadn't seen that
Of course you do understand that Condoleezza Rice doesn't say or do anything that President Bush doesn't approve of. That's the job of the Sec. State.
I don't know that. W is not a micromanager and has a ton of trust in Condi. Plus, she is a human being who is under a ton of pressure to come up with something. In the mean time, every time we say land for peace it becomes the expected thing that Israel MUST do. If she doesn't do it, she is being uncooperative and isn't interested in peace. If she does it, well, we have what we've had the past nearly 60 years. NO NEGOTIATIONS WITH TERRORISTS. IF YOU ARE NOT WITH US YOU ARE AGAINST US. The Lebanese voted Hezbollah into power. Hezbollah's reputation as a terrorist group is not new. They knowingly voted for people devoted to killing other people. I feel no compulsion to try to go way out of my way to save Lebanon. They are with them - which means that they are with the terrorists. Condi shouldn't be offering them squat - unless it is a bunker-busting-bomb on the head!
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