Patterico's Pontifications

Ding.

Patterico (8b3905) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:16 pm

Secretary of State John Kerry.

Wow.

Dustin (73fead) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:22 pm

Michael Steele says this is because Meghan’s coward daddy is a vicious racist

the things you learn on the msnbc

happyfeet (eb91e4) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:27 pm

I blame global warming plus I question the timing.

daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:31 pm

Sure, she’ll blame the right, but keep in mind there are`a lot of Dems and people in the foreign service who don’t have much use for Rice, either.

elissa (78afd2) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:31 pm

Yes, that’s why were opposed to Condi, and blocked Powell’s nomination (in retrospect we should have)

narciso (ee31f1) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:31 pm

I’m sorry to hear this news, because this would have been an excellent opportunity to explore Benghazi, and more important, what’s wrong with the CIA.

You could say she withdrew because she would have lost, but that’s only part of the story. I think it;s more because all sorts of things would have come to public attention.

And then she would have lost.

Sammy Finkelman (903f14) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:33 pm

You expected you were ‘entitled, you can’t handle the truth’

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/12/13/state_dept_clinton_may_not_testify_on_benghazi_1

narciso (ee31f1) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:37 pm

Here is the second column that Bret Stephens wrote about Susan Rice in the Wall Street Journal. It appeared this Tuesday. There wasn’t enough space to contain it all last week. Last week was about Ethiopia (And I think the Congo and what Rwanda and Uganda did also) This week;s column was about Sierre Leone.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324024004578171323304441336.html

Now note somebody on Front Page Magazine thinks this is something Hillary Clinton is putting out and fooling people. Because all these things Susan Rice did in the 1990s – they really were the fault of President Bill Clinton. She’s just guilty of going along.

But maybe maybe not Hillary Clinton. Perhaps someone did want to kill her nomination to prevent an exploration of more recent things.

This could be a tactic. Persuade her to withdraw (even if Obama isn’t ready to do so) by bringing up things which can’t hurt anybody else in office right now but can make her look very, very bad.

Sammy Finkelman (903f14) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:43 pm

She likely “withdrew” because she didn’t need the s***, and Obama was certainly not worth it. Did the golf-playing gold-brick nominate her in the first place? Or was this just some stuff that was made up?

nk (875f57) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:44 pm

Sammy, I envy you. If I could only browse for an hour the sites you browse and then cut and paste.

nk (875f57) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:46 pm

Here is the column. I’ll put it her because it later might be behind a pay wall.

Look at her negotiating philosophy. It probably only had it’s full tryout in Africa. (But all this was caused by Bill Clinton)

The trouble with a newspaper column lies in the word limit. Last week, I wrote about some of Susan Rice’s diplomatic misadventures in Africa during her years in the Clinton administration: Rwanda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo. But there wasn’t enough space to get to them all.

And Sierra Leone deserves a column of its own.

On June 8, 1999, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ms. Rice, then the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, delivered testimony on a range of issues, and little Sierra Leone was high on the list. An elected civilian government led by a former British barrister named Ahmad Kabbah had been under siege for years by a rebel group known as the Revolutionary United Front, led by a Libyan-trained guerrilla named Foday Sankoh. Events were coming to a head.

Even by the standards of Africa in the 1990s, the RUF set a high bar for brutality. Its soldiers were mostly children, abducted from their parents, fed on a diet of cocaine and speed. Its funding came from blood diamonds. It was internationally famous for chopping off the limbs of its victims. Its military campaigns bore such names as “Operation No Living Thing.”

In January 1999, six months before Ms. Rice’s Senate testimony, the RUF laid siege to the capital city of Freetown. “The RUF burned down houses with their occupants still inside, hacked off limbs, gouged out eyes with knives, raped children, and gunned down scores of people in the street,” wrote Ryan Lizza in the New Republic. “In three weeks, the RUF killed some 6,000 people, mostly civilians.”

What to do with a group like this? The Clinton administration had an idea. Initiate a peace process.

It didn’t seem to matter that Sankoh was demonstrably evil and probably psychotic. It didn’t seem to matter, either, that he had violated previous agreements to end the war. “If you treat Sankoh like a statesman, he’ll be one,” was the operative theory at the State Department, according to one congressional staffer cited by Mr. Lizza. Instead of treating Sankoh as part of the problem, if not the problem itself, State would treat him as part of the solution. An RUF representative was invited to Washington for talks. Jesse Jackson was appointed to the position of President Clinton’s special envoy.

It would be tempting to blame Rev. Jackson for the debacle that would soon follow. But as Ms. Rice was keen to insist in her Senate testimony that June, it was the Africa hands at the State Department who were doing most of the heavy lifting.

“It’s been through active U.S. diplomacy behind the scenes,” she explained. “It hasn’t gotten a great deal of press coverage, that we and others saw the rebels and the government of Sierra Leone come to the negotiating table just a couple of weeks ago, in the context of a negotiated cease-fire, in which the United States played an important role.”

A month later, Ms. Rice got her wish with the signing of the Lomé Peace Accord. It was an extraordinary document. In the name of reconciliation, RUF fighters were given amnesty. Sankoh was made Sierra Leone’s vice president. To sweeten the deal, he was also put in charge of the commission overseeing the country’s diamond trade. All this was foisted on President Kabbah.

In September 1999, Ms. Rice praised the “hands-on efforts” of Rev. Jackson, U.S. Ambassador Joe Melrose “and many others” for helping bring about the Lomé agreement.

For months thereafter, Ms. Rice cheered the accords at every opportunity. Rev. Jackson, she said, had “played a particularly valuable role,” as had Howard Jeter, her deputy at State. In a Feb. 16, 2000, Q&A session with African journalists, she defended Sankoh’s participation in the government, noting that “there are many instances where peace agreements around the world have contemplated rebel movements converting themselves into political parties.”

What was more, the U.S. was even prepared to lend Sankoh a helping hand, provided he behaved himself. “Among the institutions of government that we are prepared to assist,” she said, “is of coursethe Commission on Resources which Mr. Sankoh heads.”

Of course.

Three months later, the RUF took 500 U.N. peacekeepers as hostages and was again threatening Freetown. Lomé had become a dead letter. The State Department sought to send Rev. Jackson again to the region, but he was so detested that his trip had to be canceled. The U.N.’s Kofi Annan begged for Britain’s help. Tony Blair obliged him.

“Over a number of weeks,” Mr. Blair recalls in his memoirs, British troops “did indeed sort out the RUF. . . . The RUF leader Foday Sankoh was arrested, and during the following months there was a buildup of the international presence, a collapse of the rebels and over time a program of comprehensive disarmament. . . . The country’s democracy was saved.”

Today Mr. Blair is a national hero in Sierra Leone. As for Ms. Rice and the administration she represented, history will deliver its own verdict.

Write to bstephens@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared December 11, 2012, on page A17 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Other Susan Rice File.

Sammy Finkelman (903f14) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:47 pm

In other news, since the beginning of this year, Al Qaeda has carved out an empire in Africa.

Sammy Finkelman (903f14) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:48 pm

A lot of it is hard copy newspapers, and then finding it online. Sometimes searching for the article turns up other article.

Also, sometimes it takes a few days to get around to pasting.

I also get the 5 “best” columns from the Atlantic, but don’t use it much.

Sammy Finkelman (903f14) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:53 pm

Sammy, I love you (in a platonic way, I’m a monogamist). You are invariably kind and polite, in the face of boojums. Keep on doing what’s your doing.

nk (875f57) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:57 pm

Secretary of State John Kerry.

Wait. I thought that Democrats despised aloof rich guys who can’t connect with the common man.

Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:03 pm

Anyway, I’m sorry she dropped it before we got to discovery.

Kevin M (bf8ad7) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:04 pm

I don’t know. A guy who says American soldiers make necklaces out of enemy ears and otherwise behave like Genghis Khan might be a good SOS these days. Better than cankles, anyway.

nk (875f57) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:21 pm

“Susan Rice Withdraws”

Good. She’s never given a hoot about America, and she’s a bungling incompetent in the bargain.

Of course, whoever they do pick will probably be even worse (like a pro-commie traitor from Massachusetts, for example).

Dave Surls (46b08c) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:21 pm

Well yes, someone who was for Mubarak and Assad, before he was against them,

narciso (ee31f1) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:24 pm

Susan Rice and Sierra Leone…..
I would like to know her involvement (if any) with Executive Outcomes.
EO was engaged by IIRC the diamond mine owners to combat the RUF in the early 90’s. They went in with about 120-150 guys, and routed the RUF wherever they engaged them, returning the country to its elected government. Then, the bed-wetters at the UN moved Heaven and Earth to push EO out, and replace them with OAS “Peace Keepers”, who promptly did what all UN PeaceKeepers do, let the bad guys run rampant, and the RUF was back in control and pocketing the million$ from the mines.
What was Susan Rice’s involvement?
How many arms in Sierra Leone were hacked off because of her mal/mis/non feasance?
It’s not just the million+ dead in Rwanda that she has to answer for, nor the two East-Africa Embassy bombings.
Everywhere this woman lays her hand, there is blood!

askeptic (2bb434) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:28 pm

I think what did her in was her investment in the keystone deal. Food Stamp threw her under the bus for that.

It’s like in that one Xmen movie where gandalf blows off John Stamos’s ex-wife after he sees she’s not a kickass evil mutant anymore.

happyfeet (eb91e4) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:30 pm

No, pikachu he hired the top keystone lobbyist, Johnson as a top bundler, that wasn’t it,

narciso (ee31f1) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:41 pm

but johnson didn’t have to go through a high-profile confirmation hearing

happyfeet (eb91e4) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:44 pm

No way was she going to be nominated. No chance they would let her be under oath about Benghazi.

Andrea Mitchell is a drooling imbecile.

JD (9adec8) — 12/13/2012 @ 7:06 pm

John Kerry…well, at least he has a lot of experience dealing with third world dictators. Unfortunately, he has been on their side.

Patricia (be0117) — 12/13/2012 @ 7:18 pm

Andrea Mitchell is a drooling imbecile.

Comment by JD (9adec8) — 12/13/2012 @ 7:06 pm

Sort of stating the obvious, aren’t you?
(lol)

peedoffamerican (ee1de0) — 12/13/2012 @ 7:24 pm

OK, so Susan Rice is out and perhaps John Kerry is a bad choice because it might cost the Democrats a Senate seat. The choice is now obvious.

Somebody has to say it.

Sandy Berger for Secretary of State.

JVW (4826a9) — 12/13/2012 @ 7:30 pm

Wonder if Rice was premeditatedly trotted out as a talking head to proffer excuses, stories, explanations, what have you for the Benghazi debacle just to see if she would survive. This as a test to see if she would be credible runner for Sec of State. Maybe Rice agreed to wear a target on her back saying, “Kick me if you can.” I can’t believe she would be so naive as to not know her role and the implications before she stepped in front of a camera after Benghazi. What will the payoff be for her being a loyal Obama soldier? Has to be something better than continuing as Ambassador tot he UN. Keep watching.

Related, I’m still waiting for the investigation and difficult questions about the decision process to withhold military intervention while the attack on the consulate was taking place and being observed by US strategic elements in the Med.

LTMG (9138df) — 12/13/2012 @ 7:50 pm

I don’t think for a moment that Obama was actually willing to allow Susan Rice to be grilled about Benghazi, and asked to reveal “who” gave her the talking points.
The Democrats have the numbers in the Senate to confirm her as Secretary of State if Obama realllly wanted to go thru with the confirmation hearing.

Obama was just looking for a way out, and blaming Republicans for being racist or something was probably his best angle.
I don’t know why the GOP leadership doesn’t call Obama’s bluff on all these things. I suppose they fear the iron fist of the mainstream media, but instead of the GOP publicly threatening to take Rice to the mat, they ought to have been saying with the understated confidence of an assassin, “We look forward to the confirmation hearing of Ambassador Rice so we can finally get to the bottom of what happened at Benghazi.”

Elephant Stone (65d289) — 12/13/2012 @ 7:50 pm

JVW,

I bet nobody has ever questioned that Sandy Berger wears the pants in his family.

Elephant Stone (65d289) — 12/13/2012 @ 7:52 pm

Well he did the same with Van Jones, when the left wing connections, started to pile up,

narciso (ee31f1) — 12/13/2012 @ 7:54 pm

Wonder if Rice was premeditatedly trotted out as a talking head to proffer excuses, stories, explanations, what have you for the Benghazi debacle just to see if she would survive. This as a test to see if she would be credible runner for Sec of State. . . .

Interesting conjecture. I guess it comes down to whether you believe the Obama folks are really smart and conniving political operatives (beyond electioneering, which, obviously, they are very talented at) or just garden-variety bunglers who continually overestimate their own appeal. I tend towards the latter explanation, though I would not wholly discount the former. I think this was just a case where Obama arrogantly thought he could force Susan Rice through the process by playing the race card and coasting on his reelection margin. When the remaining Republican moderates like Susan Collins started to balk and when some skittish Democrats started shying away from Rice (so the rumors went), it became clear that Obama had vastly overplayed his hand and he had to retreat. Not that he will be held accountable for this fiasco by his media acolytes, though.

JVW (4826a9) — 12/13/2012 @ 8:32 pm

Michael Steele says this is because Meghan’s coward daddy is a vicious racist
the things you learn on the msnbc
Comment by happyfeet (eb91e4) — 12/13/2012 @ 5:27 pm

— For instance, you just learned that Michael Steele is to the left of John McCain.

Icy (cf28d4) — 12/13/2012 @ 9:37 pm

Sandy Berger for Secretary of State.

Huma.

Milhouse (15b6fd) — 12/13/2012 @ 9:40 pm

I bet nobody has ever questioned that Sandy Berger wears the pants in his family.

And he fills them so well.

Milhouse (15b6fd) — 12/13/2012 @ 9:41 pm

JVW writes: ” I guess it comes down to whether you believe the Obama folks are really smart and conniving political operatives (beyond electioneering, which, obviously, they are very talented at) or just garden-variety bunglers who continually overestimate their own appeal. I tend towards the latter explanation, though I would not wholly discount the former. I think this was just a case where Obama arrogantly thought he could force Susan Rice through the process by playing the race card and coasting on his reelection margin.”

I can’t figure out what is going on in the White House. I bounce back and forth between incompetent advice and Obama not listening to anyone.

SPQR (768505) — 12/13/2012 @ 10:00 pm

I think the WH thought they could get away with it. Then Hillary refused to take the hit, so Rice was called in and promised the job.

I truly think they are shocked that the Congress would actually subpoena her.

I hope they still do. BWAHAHAHA. She’s probably pretty mad by now.

Patricia (be0117) — 12/13/2012 @ 10:34 pm

How weird, though.

A big brouhaha over someone “withdrawing” from something she hadn’t even been officially nominated for.

What’s that about?

MayBee (085e06) — 12/14/2012 @ 1:01 am

Team playa.

gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 12/14/2012 @ 4:22 am

Isn’t this entire story a bit presumptuous?

She withdrew from what?

Amphipolis (d3e04f) — 12/14/2012 @ 5:27 am

“If you treat Sankoh like a statesman, he’ll be one,” was the operative theory at the State Department, according to one congressional staffer

Actually that’s always State’s operative theory. Not because it ever works; it’s just easier. Actually acknowledging what must happen to really make peace, i.e. the utter destruction of groups like RUF or Hamas or the NORK regime, leads to all sorts of really unpleasant options. Working backward from the reality that it’s much more pleasant for an administration to imagine it can negotiate itself out of a situation then State can come up with an operative theory to support that inclination. No matter how unrealistic and unworkable it is.

It’s sort of like not looking for your car keys in the dark alley where you dropped them, but rather on the sidewalk under the street light simply because the light is better.

The Obama corollary to “If you treat Sankoh like a statesman, he’ll be one” is “treat a lady like a whore and a whore like a lady.”

You can see that most clearly in his treatment of Israel and the terrorists.

Steve57 (25fb74) — 12/14/2012 @ 6:54 am

25. No way was she going to be nominated. No chance they would let her be under oath about Benghazi.

Andrea Mitchell is a drooling imbecile.

Comment by JD (9adec8) — 12/13/2012 @ 7:06 pm

Concur on all points. It looks like Obama was using Rice as a Judas goat. Rice always had too much baggage to be SecState even without Benghazi. But the prospect of nominating Rice could have been, and indeed was, used to lead people away from focusing on Benghazi and instead focusing on the racism of the GOP. Since of course racism could be the only reason anyone could oppose the nomination of such a “well-qualified” dictator-lovin’ Rhodes scholar.

By and large I don’t believe the House and Senate GOP followed her into Obama’s slaughter but then with today’s MFM it doesn’t matter if it happened they’ll report it anyway if it fits the narrative.

Steve57 (25fb74) — 12/14/2012 @ 7:02 am

I agree with Steve and JD.

Now the Benghazi story is about the Republicans and their meanness to Ms Rice (Which is absurd).

Now, John Kerry is some kind of compromise candidate (which is absurd).

When you see actual racism, such as the political cartoons of Condi or the democrat party’s targeting of minority republicans (so as to create the meme of a white man’s party), the MSM doesn’t really seem to care.

Dustin (73fead) — 12/14/2012 @ 7:35 am

21. Comment by askeptic (2bb434) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:28 pm Susan Rice and Sierra Leone…..

I would like to know her involvement (if any) with Executive Outcomes.
EO was engaged by IIRC the diamond mine owners to combat the RUF in the early 90′s. They went in with about 120-150 guys, and routed the RUF wherever they engaged them, returning the country to its elected government. Then, the bed-wetters at the UN moved Heaven and Earth to push EO out, and replace them with OAS “Peace Keepers”, who promptly did what all UN PeaceKeepers do, let the bad guys run rampant, and the RUF was back in control and pocketing the million$ from the mines.
What was Susan Rice’s involvement?

All of this what Susan Rice did there was only a tiny part of a much bigger story, which I have only a hazy knowledge of, but I know that. RUF was formed by Charles Taylor of Liberia. So you have to look at his connections.

The Wikipedia article on Sierre Leone (Wikipedia articles are not just biaseed at times, but short of information also) doesn’t even mention
Executive Outcomes.

It says soemthing Bret Stephens does not have, which explains why Tony Blair is such a hero in Sierre Leone. The civil war ended when British troops exceeded their mandate, which was only to evacuate foreigners, and instead defeated the rebels. (This probably took Bill Clinton by surprise. I would guess)

This is covered in detail in another article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Palliser

It was mission creep, caused by the fact the RUF was holding British prisoners. It’s the same sort of way they got their empire actually in the 18th and 19th centuries. In a fit of absent-mindedness it’s been said.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 7:51 am

What was Susan Rice’s involvement?

Almost certainly she was following Bill Clinton’s instructions.

In the case of Ethiopia/Eritrea that also was probably true. Bill Clinton probably acted behind Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s back because Albright was both too decent and too knowledgeable to go along with whatever he wanted to do with Ethiopia/Eritrea. (That picture would make sense)

Here is a Front Page Mag article from Monday by Daniel Greenfield where he argues Hillary Clinton and her people did it.

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/did-hillary-put-one-over-obama-one-last-time/

Putting one over in the sense that all of this was Bill Clinton’s policy.

Remember, Susan Rice sided with and tutored Obama when he ran for President and probably expected to follow the career track of Condoleeza Rice.

But earlier she had been a Clinton loyalist.

So he says people loyal to Hillary Clinton really didn’t want her there, and Hillary had brought a lot of them in.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 8:03 am

Here is something that ties the whole thing to Qaddafi.

http://www.shout-africa.com/top-story/libya-indict-muammar-gaddafi-now-for-war-crimes-in-sierra-leone/

Muammar Gaddafi was the mastermind and key financier of the brutal war that left hundreds of thousands dead in Sierra Leone in West Africa in the 1990s. The war would not have happened in the first place had it not been for the desire of the Libyan leader to punish the government of Sierra Leone for what he regarded as its siding with the West in the 1980’s when Gaddafi was at loggerhead with particularly the United States and Britain. [I wouldn’t assume that was his motive – SF]

It was also part of Gaddafi’s broader agenda including his geopolitical ambition to destabilize much of West Africa and establish satellite states in the region to be headed by puppet regimes that will be doing his biddings.

The decade-long war ripped Sierra Leone apart. Thousands of its victims, whose arms and limbs were chopped off by rebels, were reduced to paupers, roaming the streets as beggars in Freetown and other cities. Children as young as a day old were also among those whose arms and limbs were hacked off by Gaddafi’s rebels. Pregnant women, too, were disemboweled with delight in their display of ghastly brutality.

As part of his criminal plans to set West Africa on the warpath, Gaddafi instituted a program of guerilla warfare in Libya for a group of disgruntled West Africans, including a group of Sierra Leoneans he had invited to Tripoli to undergo training. The men who led the war on Sierra Leone — former Liberian leader and warlord, Charles Taylor and Sierra Leone’s rebel leader, Foday Sankoh, and The Gambian Fugitive, Kukoi Samba Sanyang — were among those who trained in Libya.

The ring leaders of the Revolutionary United Front rebel group, which was fighting to overthrow the government of Sierra Leone, also received massive financial support from Libya through Gaddafi’s People’s Revolutionary Council.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 8:17 am

That particular web page was written on March 11, 2011.

Now how does this affect U.S. foreign policy?

I don’t know but Jesse Jackson shows up in the story.

Jesse Jackson had received financial suppoirt from Qaddafi in 1985 when nobody else was helping him. He may still have been getting money in some way though connections.

Jesse Jackson was a semi-important Democrat rather close to Bill Clinton. He had worked with Bill Clinton for many years and they both had received money from BCCI before it went out of business in 1991..

Jesse Jackson was actually crucial in making Bill Clinton president. In this way:

In 1988 he ran an campaign for President. This was to soak up the black vote and deny it to any of the real contenders. Bill Clinton, who had created Super Tuesday, intended to run for president using the same strategy as Jimmy Carter – favorite son of the entire south.

His only problem was he wasn’t the only southern candidate. In the end he couldn’t get Al Gore to withdraw at the beginning of July 1987. He claimed it was because he wanted to be close to hsi daughter – more recently the story has been he wasn’t prepared to handle bimbo eruptions. If so, what changed by 1992? I think the real reason is he did polling and it just wouldn’t work. He couldn’t get enough votes so that he’d be the front runner after Super Tuesday 1988. Al Gore would probably get more votes. That meant
Jesse Jackson could not put him over the top the way George Wallace had put Jimmy Carter over the top in 1976.

He made another plan. In fact several times in his political rise, Bill Clinton’s plans were smashed – when Sen Fulbright lost the Democratic primary in 1974, (there went his plans to succeed him in the Senate in 1980) the same year when Bill Clinton made plans to have the freshman class be very important only not to get elected himself, (there went his leadership role in the House) when he lost the race for re-election as Governor in 1980, (there it looked like his career in electiove office was over) and in 1987 when he had to call it quits in the 1988 presidential race because it just wouldn’t work and he calculated he’d get only one chance. (there went the open Presidential seat)

He made another plan.

First, he got behind the person most likely to lose the 1988 presidential general election: someone from Massachusetts. Mike Dukakis.

And then Jesse Jackson at the convention helped make Ron Brown Chairman of the DNC. Ron Brown tried to rig the rules in his favor.

In 1992, Bill Clinton had a different strategy.

It was to run in a weak field and be the one Democrat who had supported the Gulf War – except that that was a lie. He hadn’t. In this race Jesse Jackson didn’t run.

You remember how angry Bill Clinton got when he thought Jesse Jackson had endorsed Tom Harkin?

So there was a connection, maybe actually connections they both had in common.

But anyway all of this was Bill Clinton’s policy.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 8:36 am

Comment by askeptic (2bb434) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:28 pm

What was Susan Rice’s involvement?

She followed Bill Clinton’s instructions. In fact I think sometimes Bill Clinton bypassed his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, particularly in the case of Ethiopia/Eritrea.

How many arms in Sierra Leone were hacked off because of her mal/mis/non feasance?

You could probably make a good guess.

It’s not just the million+ dead in Rwanda that she has to answer for, nor the two East-Africa Embassy bombings.
Everywhere this woman lays her hand, there is blood!

That must be qualified. Everywhere where not many people are paying attention.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 8:52 am

There was also the Ethiopian Eritrea war. That was one of the subjects of Bret Stephens first Susan Rice column. (December 3) (He didn’t have room for Sierre Leone)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324355904578156980748123040.html

In May 1998, Ms. Rice had an opportunity to prove her diplomatic mettle when she was sent to mediate a peace plan between warring Ethiopia and Eritrea.

“What is publicly known,” notes Mr. Rosenblum, “is that Rice announced the terms of a plan agreed to by Ethiopia, suggesting that Eritrea would have to accept it, before Isaias had given his approval. He responded angrily, rejecting the plan and heaping abuse on Rice. Soon afterward, Ethiopia bombed the capital of Eritrea, and Eritrea dropped cluster bombs on Ethiopia. . . .

“Susan Rice was summoned back to Washington in early June after the negotiations collapsed. Insiders agree that the secretary of state [Madeleine Albright] was furious. According to one, Rice was essentially ‘put on probation,’ kept in Washington where the secretary could keep an eye on her. ‘Susan had misread the situation completely,’ according to one State Department insider who observed the conflict with Albright. ‘She came in like a scoutmaster, lecturing them on how to behave and having a public tantrum when they didn’t act the way she wanted.”

An estimated 100,000 people would perish in the war that Ms. Rice so ineptly failed to end. And the leaders in whom she invested her faith would all become typical African strongmen, with human-rights records to match. Yet that didn’t keep Ms. Rice from delivering a heartfelt eulogy for Meles at his funeral three months ago, in which she praised him as “uncommonly wise,” “a rare visionary,” and a “true friend to me.”

A 2011 State Department report offers a different perspective on Meles. It cites his “government’s arrest of more than 100 opposition political figures, activists, journalists and bloggers,” along with “torture, beating, abuse, and mistreatment of detainees by security forces.”

As I said, I think the explanation for what she did is that Bill Clinton was giving instructions to her behind his Secretary of State’s back.

Susan Rice’s African record was also the subject of an op-ed piece on Monday, December 10, 2012 in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/opinion/susan-rice-and-africas-despots.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121210&_r=2&

This brought a letter yesterday (Dec 13) from the ambassador of Ethiopia to the UN which said that sanctions had been imposed on Eritrea because it was aiding terrorism in Somalia. (the Monday article’s next to last paragraph had an assertion that the Security Council went too far in 2009 in imposing sanctions on Eritrea. The author was an Eritrean American.)

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 8:55 am

Comment by Dustin (73fead) — 12/14/2012 @ 7:35 am

Now, John Kerry is some kind of compromise candidate (which is absurd).

Because he is a Senator, and other Senators know him, and Senator McCain, who, if anyone, would be expected to have some kind of bitterness about him, is on good terms with him, he is expected to be an easy confirmation – a bonus for the Republicans is that they might get back a Senate seat.

They kind of ignore his record of lies, and that hhe has no particular qualifications. No signs of wisdom or anything.

Former Senator and renegade Republican Chuck Hagel is the frontrunner for defense. So they say.

I’m not sure Obama is really so eager to do this, but he may want to announce nominations next week, especially for Secretary of State since Hillary Clinton it is reported doesn’t want to stay an extra day past January 21.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:01 am

The ironic part is that Dr Rice would probably have made the best Secretary of State out of any of the people President Obama has considered. Now, that’s not saying much: whoever becomes the next Secretary of State is still going to be laboring under Obama Administration foreign policy, which fluffs along the median between obviously bad to just ineffectively pathetic. But at least Dr Rice actually has some experience in the field, where someone like John Kerry just plays at it.

The President is going to blame those awful Republicans, but it was the Obama Administration which threw her under the bus. She told the truth, as she was told was the truth . . . when, in fact, she was lied to. The appropriate line comes from John Belushi in Animal House:

You f(ouled) up; you trusted us!

The realistic Dana (3e4784) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:14 am

Comment by happyfeet (eb91e4) — 12/13/2012 @ 6:30 pm

I think what did her in was her investment in the keystone deal.

I didn’t know about this, although it seems to have been reported as far back as late November.

It seems like she has $300,000 to $600,000 invested in the company that would operate the pipeline and some more in other Canadian companies that need State Department approval for a pipeline.

This is probably just her habit of investing in things that will pay off if her predictions are correct.

I would suppose it works like this: She has an investment adviser – the investment adviser picks her brains about various things – what she thinks will happen, and maybe what she thinks people don’t realize will happen. Maybe most of what she says is fairly obvious and may not even rely on inside information.

Then he makes plays based on what she thinks is going to happen.

This has apparently been going on for years.

A really devious investing tactic would be to throw up apparent obstacles to some company’s profits and then have it fade away. Some Dems in Congress were suspected of doing that with legislation that would create problems for pahraamceutical companies)

But as far as Keystone is concerned this was out of her line of responsibility, although she would have been in a better position than most people to make a guess as to how it would all eventually turn out – and clearly she was betting on pipeline approval, although maybe her investment adviser made the actual decision to place a bet.

It would be in her line of responsibility if she became Secretary of State, so she would ahve had to either sell her stock or recuse herself.

She apparently came into office in 2009 rich. So the real question is where did she get her money before? Did her previous stint help her?

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:15 am

52. I think President Obama also thought it was the truth. This thing fell apart well before the election – in fact it was falling apart that week, as the CIA was getting stronger in its analysis.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:17 am

Food Stamp threw her under the bus for that.

More likely really he didn’t want to. She knows what’s a problem much more than he does. She has problems that Barack Obama is probably not aware of.

In the meantime she keeps her job at the United Nations, and at some point in the future, he may make her National Security Adviser (a position that doesn’t require Senate confirmation)

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:17 am

Comment by Amphipolis (d3e04f) — 12/14/2012 @ 5:27 am

She withdrew from what?

Consideration. It’s probably a telltale sign Obama was going to nominate her.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:18 am

Seth Mandel of Commentary Magazine on what ended Susan Rice’s possible nomination:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/12/13/the-left-vs-susan-rice/

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/12/14/how-washington-rejected-susan-rice/

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:23 am

Atlantic Wire says it was John MCCain who forced her out:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/12/john-mccain-susan-rice-secretary-of-state/599
76/

This says McCain is for John Kerry.

Other possible candidates:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/12/secretary-of-state-candidates/59977/

Basically it’s John Kerry or Howard Burns, the current deputy Secretary of State.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:26 am

Both John McCain and Lindsey Graham still want to pursue Benghazi.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:26 am

You know, this may have been insensitive of me, but before Rice’s critics were accused of racism … I didn’t realize she’s black. I’d seen plenty of pictures of her, and she just looked — and to me still looks — white. I don’t mean to suggest anything untoward about her, I’m just relaying my misperception.

Jim S. (6b20e0) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:27 am

Susan Rice leaving now (in the middle of the fiscal cliff negotiartions) is clearly either to stop the negative news stories about her or because the nomination was imminent or both.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:28 am

Yesterday on Special Report, Susan Rice was being touted to replace Tom Donilon as National Security Advisor – probably only because she could be lateraled to that position without Senate Confirmation.
Dollar to a Donut that Donilon is the source of the faulty intell that Rice spouted on the five shows. He is the one who most likely changed the CIA assessment of the situation, and who left the Benghazi facility virtually disarmed and unprotected.
Unfortunately, he can’t be called to The Hill since his position is protected by Executive Privilege.

Newt is calling on Obama to appoint Colin Powell as Hillary’s replacement.

askeptic (b8ab92) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:40 am

SF, you might find this interesting re EO/Sierra Leone:

“...In March 1995, the company contained an insurrection of guerrillas known as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone, regained control of the diamond fields, and forced a negotiated peace.[2] In both these instances they are credited with rescuing the legitimate government in both countries from destabilizing forces. In the case of Angola this led to a cease fire and the Lusaka Protocol, which ended the Angolan civil war — albeit only for a few years.[4] In Sierra Leone, however, the government capitulated to international pressure to have EO withdraw in favor of an ineffective peacekeeping force, allowing the RUF to rebuild and sack the capital in Operation No Living Thing.[5]…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Outcomes

askeptic (b8ab92) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:43 am

Speaking of Susan Rice and Ben Ghazi:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/12/12/Chaffetz-Benghazi-State-Dept

I wondered what happened to all of the survivors of the Ben Ghazi attack. Don’t you think it would make a very nice story for a financially struggling media outlet like the NYT?

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:47 am

The problem is that all the survivors are still government employees, and the whole thing is still classified information and part of an active criminal investigation by the FBI (Peter King doesn’t like this being treated as criminalk investigation)

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:50 am

63. Comment by askeptic (b8ab92) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:43 am

SF, you might find this interesting re EO/Sierra Leone:

Yes I did. It also would give me other tewrms to search out in other places. I didn’t know there was a Wikipedia article.

The other place was Angola.

The problem was that the people in Executuive Outcomes were (boo!) mercenaries, which are supposed to be a very bad thing, so they got replaced by troops belonging to countries.

Another way international law or the United Nations is all wrong.

The surprising thing about this story is how very few soldiers (first Executive Outcomes later British troops) were needed to completely defeat the RUF.

These were small not that well trained outfits that were killing so many people in Africa.

“…In March 1995, the company contained an insurrection of guerrillas known as the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone, regained control of the diamond fields, and forced a negotiated peace.[2] In both these instances they are credited with rescuing the legitimate government in both countries from destabilizing forces. In the case of Angola this led to a cease fire and the Lusaka Protocol, which ended the Angolan civil war — albeit only for a few years.[4] In Sierra Leone, however, the government capitulated to international pressure to have EO withdraw in favor of an ineffective peacekeeping force, allowing the RUF to rebuild and sack the capital in Operation No Living Thing.[5]…”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Outcomes

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:54 am

62. Comment by askeptic (b8ab92) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:40 am

Yesterday on Special Report, Susan Rice was being touted to replace Tom Donilon as National Security Advisor – probably only because she could be lateraled to that position without Senate Confirmation.

That’s right, but what’s wrong with that is they say Tom Donilon is going anywhere now. (unless Obama nominates him for something)

Dollar to a Donut that Donilon is the source of the faulty intell that Rice spouted on the five shows. He is the one who most likely changed the CIA assessment of the situation,

No, no no. The big change – from a terrorist attack to a spontaneous attack prompoted by the Cairo assault – happened within the CIA itself, and even the elimination of the words Al Qaeda or terrorists was the CIA’s own doing.

There is something very very wrong at the CIA.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:03 am

How many people truly capable for the position fit these 2 criteria:
1) would be nominated by Obama
2) would be willing to work under Obama

MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:04 am

A new thing that came out was that the woman who was most responsible for figuring out where bin Laden was did not get a promotion but only a bonus.

She evidentaly accidentaly replied to all within the CIA complaining about all the other people who had attemotinmg to frustrate what she did and that little detail has leaked.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:04 am

Everything fits with my theory of foreign intelligence moles in the CIA.

Probably mainly for Qatar or Saudi Arabia, but in either case the more risky things would be done through Qatar.

Qatar has now carved out an empire in Africa because after all, who else now is al Qaeda??

It’s not bin Laden. It’s not Zawahiri or Pakistan – they’re too far away.

It’s probably not the Moslem Brotherhood and the Moslem Brotherhood is probably anyway a tool of somebody else.

Qatar sent the weapons to Libya that were later used to conquer most of Mali and parts of several other countries. Qatar sent weapons to all the wrong people in Syria.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:05 am

68. Comment by MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:04 am

How many people truly capable for the position fit these 2 criteria:
1) would be nominated by Obama
2) would be willing to work under Obama

There might be a number of obscure State Departmemt people aged 35-45.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:07 am

Chris Stevens would have been good.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:08 am

Susan Rice’s op-ed piece explainming herself:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/susan-rice-my-withdrawal-from-secretary-of-state-consideration-was-right-call/2012/12/13/ad69b3fc-4578-11e2-9648-a2c323a991d6_story.html?hpid=z1

Why I made the right call…

…On Sept. 16, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was unavailable after a grueling week, the White House asked me to appear on five Sunday talk shows to discuss a range of foreign policy issues: the protests against our diplomatic facilities around the world; the attack in Benghazi, Libya; and Iran’s nuclear program.

When discussing Benghazi, I relied on fully cleared, unclassified points provided by the intelligence community, which encapsulated their best current assessment. These unclassified points were consistent with the classified assessments I received as a senior policymaker. It would have been irresponsible for me to substitute any personal judgment for our government’s and wrong to reveal classified material. I made clear in each interview that the information I was providing was preliminary and that ongoing investigations would give us definitive answers. I have tremendous appreciation for our intelligence professionals, who work hard to provide their best assessments based on the information available. Long experience shows that our first accounts of terrorist attacks and other tragedies often evolve over time. The intelligence community did its job in good faith. And so did I…..

…Even before I was nominated for any new position, a steady drip of manufactured charges painted a wholly false picture of me….

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:12 am

Susan Rice is not criticizing the CIA, or anyone who came up with these talking points. This is ridiculous.

What I would have liked to hear in the Presidential debates was something like this:

If I am elected president and get the President’s Daily intelligence brief and it says something as obviously wrong as that there was a protest before the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, I will tell you what I will do. I will throw it in the garbage!

Instead, I will rely on some trusted aides, I’ll have maybe five of them, all empowered to gather any information in the possession of any part of the U.S. government, and I will have them work independently, not looking at each other’s work o consulting each other until their work is done for the day, and I will have each one of them produce an assessment of important national security news, including also in there information that comes from generally reliable news outlets like CBS and the New York Times.

And I will carefully check these five or so different reports for signs of plagiarism. I don’t want them to be the same, and I want them to be full of opinion and guesses. Time will tell whose judgment is better. And I won’t tolerate it if everyone says the same thing. That’s the least kind of trustworthy thing of all.

And then I will get to work on the CIA. I will start an entire investigation of what went wrong there, and I will appoint a former senator or two, probably people from different parties, to supervise this investigation and make both a classified and unclassified report.

And I will get some other people to walk back the cat and see what else is wrong because there has got to be something terribly wrong here.

I will not say that because something came from the CIA, it is not preposterous and blatantly wrong. I don’t understand what is the matter with the president and his people that they take this thing so calmly.

We didn’t hear anything like that, did we?

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:20 am

Susan Rice did not explain what charges were manufactured.

Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:20 am

Video or Transcript of “Democracy Now” show Dec 12 about Susan Rice “Beyond Benghazi”

Excerpt:

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about Ambassador Rice as potential secretary of state, we go to Raleigh, North Carolina, where we’re joined by Ray McGovern, former senior CIA analyst whose duties included preparing the President’s Daily Brief and chairing National Intelligence Estimates for President George H. W. Bush.

His most recent piece for Consortiumnews.com is called “Why to Say No to Susan Rice.” He’s on the steering group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

Ray McGovern, welcome to Democracy Now! Do you think the Benghazi issue is the key issue here for whether or not Susan Rice is qualified to be secretary of state?

RAY McGOVERN: It’s not at all the key issue. It’s really a smoke screen. She should be judged on her merits, on things that she—that are on the record about her behavior with respect to diplomacy.

She was assistant secretary of state for African affairs and also the Africa reference in Bill Clinton’s White House when the genocide, the genocide in Rwanda, happened. She was unwilling to call it “genocide,” because her boss told her not to call it “genocide,” because—

AMY GOODMAN: Her boss being?

RAY McGOVERN: —there’d be consequences there.

AMY GOODMAN: Her boss being?

RAY McGOVERN: Bill Clinton.

She worked for Clinton in the National Security Council of the White House at that time, and then she became later, a couple years later, assistant secretary for African affairs.

Now, more recently, you know, we talked about 800,000 people being killed in Rwanda. Well, how about three million people being killed in the Congo over the last decade? And she’s been very reluctant to criticize the major supporter of the terrorists there, Kagame of Rwanda. And it turns out, just recently, that he happens to have been one of her major clients when she did a tour as a consultant between her tenures in office. So, you know, there are conflicts of interest here. There is a record of really a disregard for the, ironically enough, the people in Africa.

Sammy Finkelman (f1bb90) — 12/14/2012 @ 11:16 am

At this point, the only thing I could possibly believe that comes from the mouth of Susan Rice would be Grand Jury testimony – and even then, I would demand corroborating evidence.

SF, you should do a background check on Tom Donilon, and then tell us how qualified he is for his current position.
He’s a flak and not someone who would be considered an exceptional authority on NS issues.

askeptic (b8ab92) — 12/14/2012 @ 11:29 am

54. 52. I think President Obama also thought it was the truth. This thing fell apart well before the election – in fact it was falling apart that week, as the CIA was getting stronger in its analysis.

Comment by Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 9:17 am

67. There is something very very wrong at the CIA.

Comment by Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:03 am

70. Everything fits with my theory of foreign intelligence moles in the CIA.

Probably mainly for Qatar or Saudi Arabia, but in either case the more risky things would be done through Qatar.

Qatar has now carved out an empire in Africa because after all, who else now is al Qaeda??

It’s not bin Laden. It’s not Zawahiri or Pakistan – they’re too far away.

It’s probably not the Moslem Brotherhood and the Moslem Brotherhood is probably anyway a tool of somebody else.

Qatar sent the weapons to Libya that were later used to conquer most of Mali and parts of several other countries. Qatar sent weapons to all the wrong people in Syria.

Comment by Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 12/14/2012 @ 10:05 am

Sammy, nothing supports your theory of foreign moles in the CIA. Either you’re incapable of doing analysis or you’re deliberately misdirecting attention from the central figure in every single incident you describe:

1. Susan Rice sent out to lie about Benghazi.
2. Qatar arming the Libyan rebels.
3. Qatar arming the Syrian rebels.

That central figure in all this is Barack Obama. These are all the results of his deliberate decisions. It is patently ridiculous to think Qatar could have done any of what you imagine it did on its own.

Qatar, a tiny country with the population of Toronto and a heavy US military presence carved out an empire in Africa? Really? Right under the nose of a forward CENTCOM HQ, USAF Central, an RAF HQ, and an Air Force expeditionary wing, CJTF HOA in Djibouti, and the USN in the Med. Wow. They got those weapons all the way to Libya and we were none the wiser.

And then Syria. Not only did they get those weapons past us but also the Israelis and the Turks to put them in all the wrong hands.

Sorry Sammy. You apparently never heard of link analysis. You have to believe some pretty irrational things and toss out the most obvious explanation to support your theory.

Which, when you think of it, is exactly the process Obama went through to come up with his Cairo/Benghazi/video lies. No wonder you think he believes it; you believe your theory and you have to be able to think the same way to arrive at either.

Sammy, President Plausible Deniability was behind all of it. I don’t know what your deal is, Sammy, but I don’t see why I’m obligated to ignore the same evidence you’re ignoring in order to fall for it.

Steve57 (25fb74) — 12/14/2012 @ 8:53 pm

I probably should have been clearer. Sammy, I read that whitewash in the NYT, too, that tried to paint the Obama admin completely off-guard when it realized to its “horror” that the rebels it had “reluctantly” given permission to arm were the wrong kind of people.

It was all BS. They knew exactly who we were arming in Libya. Qatar doesn’t lift a finger without our permission, and indeed at our request. They were acting as our proxy, so we can’t blame them for doing the Obama administration’s bidding.

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12/13/2012

Susan Rice Withdraws

81 Responses to “Susan Rice Withdraws”

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