Some words for Dr. Rice

[Jack Rabbit]

Inspired by this thread in LBN.

Secretary of State Rice compared the Iraq war with the American Civil War, telling a magazine that slavery might have lasted longer in this country if the North had decided to end the fight early.

That's funny, Condi. I like compare slavery to imperialism. Both are socio-economic systems that presume that some people are superior to others and that the superior ones have a right to take what belongs to the inferiors. The difference is that in slavery the superiors think they have the right to collect the wages paid on the inferiors' labor and in imperialism the superiors think they have the right to take the bounty of the inferiors' land.

What you are defending when you defend the US position in Iraq is imperialism. That makes you more akin to a Southern plantation owner than to your ancestors.

We've heard all the excuses. Iraq is about weapons of mass destruction and part of the war on terrorism. It is about spreading democracy to the Middle East.

Those were lies that you and the others in the Bush regime, including Mr. Bush himself, and including you, told to the American people and the people of the world in 2002 and 2003. When you were telling us that you "knew" that Saddam possessed a vast biochemical arsenal, you really knew that the intelligence was ambiguous and contradictory. That is why Doug Feith in the Pentagon was editing the ambiguity out of intelligence reports and Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby were down in Langley strongarming analysts into writing what they wanted Congress and the public to read. That is why all of your statements, and those of other regime spokespersons, including Mr. Bush, were carefully crafted to give the impression that Saddam had something to do with the September 11 attacks without actually saying so.

You couldn't have been more than mildly surprised when not so much as a small can of weapons-grade chemicals was found in Iraq after the invasion, could you?

Besides the existence of biochemical weapons, the other thing you and the neoconservatives clearly knew nothing about was social dynamics and ethnic tensions in Iraq. If you want to talk about a civil war more relevant to the subject at hand, let's talk the one in Iraq right now. Of course, we know you say there is no civil war in Iraq -- just armed factions with different ideas of how their nation should be governed killing each other in daily violence. Why use two simple words when you can use the whole definition? It's so much more descriptive, isn't it?

This war is not about weapons of mass destruction. If it were, Mr. Bush would have allowed the UN inspectors to finish their job, even if that meant calling off the invasion when they gave Iraq a clean bill of health. Mr. Bush could then have claimed that before we didn't know for certain that Iraq had disarmed, but because of his saber-rattling we know now that they had. Who could have argued with that? Mr. Bush could have come out smelling like a rose without firing a shot. This isn't about keeping us Americans in particular and the west in general safe from terrorists. You knew that terrorists had difficulty setting off firecrackers in Saddam's Iraq. He had no use for jihadists. With his womanizing, champagne drinking and cigar smoking, Saddam would have made one heck of an Islamic fundamentalist. He would just as soon kill them as they would him. There were very few good things to say about Saddam's regime, but the ability to keep jihadist terrorists out of his country could be one of them. So, you can't very well claim that invading Iraq has made Americans safer from terrorists when there was no significant terrorist threat in or from Iraq in the Spring of 2003. And if winning the war on terrorism was the idea, then it didn't work too well, did it? There was no significant terrorism under Saddam, but it is rampant under US occupation. And your friends want to repeat this kind of success in Iran? Another such Bush regime success and western civilization will collapse.

Finally, this war is not about spreading democracy to the Middle East. How many longshoremen in Basra or cab drivers in Baghdad were consulted about Iraq's future? What? Your administration doesn't bother with those kinds of people? They aren't leaders? What's the matter, Condi, don't people who work hard for their money and make an honest living count? Are they low life scum? Is that why you Bushies asked high class scum like like a convicted embezzler for his views instead?

No. this war is not about biochemical weapons, terrorism and certainly not democracy. It isn't about helping the Iraq people at all. The fact that US troops went into Baghdad and secured the oil ministry building while they left hospitals to be looted in a war zone speaks volumes about how much our policymakers, including you, care about the Iraqi people and what you really care about instead.

This is imperialism. The idea is to go into a foreign country and take control of that country's wealth, giving the people of that country nothing to say about it. There was even an imperialist style regime set up for Iraq, with Paul Bremer, an American, lording it over the natives in the colony. And he ruled by decree. He decreed that Iraq's resources would be open to foreign investors. What's that you say, Condi? Iraq is a sovereign country now and has been since June 2003? Can Iraq's parliament repeal Bremer's decrees? No? What kind of sovereignty is it when a nation's putative lawmakers can't repeal the decrees imposed on them by a foreign dictator?

So while slaves in the American South were beaten and branded, the natives of the US colony in Iraq have the dogs set on them and are made to stand naked with burlap hoods or ladies' lingerie over their heads. While the slaves in the American South had no food other than the scrap provided, the native in the US colony of Iraq wait in line to buy gasoline, although the country has the third largest petroleum reserve in the world. While slaves in the American South did not have the right to collect wages on their labor, the natives of the US colony in Iraq have no jobs.

You've come a long ways. Baby. Your ancestors were the oppressed and you are the oppressor. Does that make you proud?

[marmar]

1. Condi has jumped two or three sharks at this point...

but maybe Massa Geowg asked her to say that...That's what she should say anyway. Goodness knows she should have been too embarassed to let those words escape her mouth.
Brotha to sista: Condi, STFU....Now.

[Joe for Clark]

2. That is a good post Jack Rabbit.

Well thought out.

Joe

[peacetalksforall]

3. Great post. k&r

[pretzel4gore]

4. dr rice? more like table dancer rice

she does in public things which would shame a crack whore; and she thinks it's ok....(?)

[Generic Other]

5. Harry Belafonte already made the slavery analogy Condi

"In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and there were those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master ... exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him...The idea that you work in the house of the master is almost in itself its own opportunity to do some mischief and make a difference, but when you are in that place and you help perpetuate the master's policy that perpetuates oppression and pain for many others, then something has to be said about it," Belafonte said. "And the master in this instance, of course, was the president of the United States."

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/10/15/belafonte.powell/

[Jack Rabbit]

6. Belafonte's analogy was a little different from Rice's (or mine)

Belafonte is comparing Dr. Rice's position in an administration that is hostile to poor people (and Afro-Americans are still disproportionately poor) to that slaves who were privileged to serve in the house rather than the field. The analogy is directed at Dr. Rice personally.

Dr. Rice is comparing the civil war to the invasion of Iraq as an act of liberating the oppressed. The analogy is between Black slaves and the Iraqi people under Saddam. While I obviously disagree about the invasion of Iraq being a liberation, I will at least say there is some justice to this analogy in that both groups were indeed oppressed, although not in precisely the way.

I am simply comparing two institutions, slavery and imperialism, as being fundamentally inegalitarian.

[Generic Other]

7. Your analogy is much stronger than Condi's

but Belafonte's carries some bite IMO.

Next thing you know Condi will be comparing herself to Bush's wife.

[txb]

8. Kicked & Rec'd

very well said!

i hope george doesn't break her lil heart.

[Jack Rabbit]

9. Her WHAT?

Oh, come now.