Just during the time Rice has served in the Bush administration, we bombed, invaded and occupied Afghanistan; did the same to Iraq; repeatedly bombed Somalia, killing all sorts of civilians; fed bombs to Israel as they invaded and bombed Lebanon; top political officials (led by John McCain and Joe Lieberman) have repeatedly threatened, and advocated, that the same be done to a whole host of other countries, including Iran and Syria.
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The most enduring and predominant rule of American politics is that every national politician must demonstrate their willingness, even eagerness, to start wars.
Rice: Military power is “not the way to deal in the 21st century” – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com
I fear that one of the lasting legacies of the Bush administration will be the grudging acceptance that what world leaders say is largely irrelevant in judging true intent for a foreign policy position or military action. Besides the obvious and regrettable degrading of public trust; it leads to a national dialog where in the absence of honesty, you end up with debate by conspiracy theory and nazi analogy. Polemics to the left of me, cries of nazi appeaser to my right.
So when Secretary Rice says something so naive and clearly contradictory of recent history, I can’t help but wonder why she said it. She isn’t a fool. Why would he make a statement that almost begs a reply of *cough*Iraq*cough*?
Maybe that statement meant to be ironic? A way of saying the opposite to the Kremlin while still being on the public record as opposing Russia’s military action?
