That’s right. Another feather in the cap of a woman under whose watch the despots of the world have grown stronger and even more arrogant. Why? Because of weak foreign policy skills and pandering comments like this.
Rice ripped for avoiding terrorist label on Hamas
In speaking to reporters in Berlin Jan. 18, Rice, discussing the situation of Palestinians prior to 2000, said, “You had Hamas, of course, sitting out as a resistance movement, not at all, by the way, involved in the politics at all.”
Rice’s comments went largely unreported by the American media.
Hamas, responsible for scores of suicide bombings, shooting attacks and rocket firings, is classified by the State Department as a terror organization. The group’s official charter calls for the murder of Jews and quotes widely from the anti-Semitic creed, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Since winning Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006, Hamas has refused to recognize Israel or denounce terrorism.
A State Department spokesman claimed Rice “forgot” to use the word terrorist when describing Hamas [priceless–ed.] during her Berlin press briefing. The spokesman confirmed the State Department has not changed its policy of classifying Hamas as a terror organization.
Last time I checked, it was impossible to “forget” the truth of a matter. We tend to forget things that run contrary to what we know, or things that are so nuanced and complicated we need to be ‘taught’ about them. Or, of course, we forget where we parked our car. But I never thought our Secretary of State would “forget” that one of the world’s most vicious and depraved terror groups was a, well, terror group.
Unfortunately for us, now the question is, at what point will Rice and the Bush State Department “forget” al-Qaida into the “resistance movement” category?
Now, now, Tammy. Ease up on Condi a little. She’s SoS, of course, so likely tries to avoid “incendiary” terms at times. I suspect a similar speech w/n the U.S. may have included the “T” word.
2 more years of this administration and their work will be complete! The Republican party will spend years trying to recover and “Herself” will waltz into the White House! Good grief! Hillary as POTUS with Pelosi in charge of congress…Heaven help us!
The Bush Admin has turned hard left the last 2.2 years. If you had told me how liberal this Administrtion would be in 04 I would have called you bad names. but they are very liberal and like liberals the like terrorists! Oy!
Well, thank God at least that we don’t hear anymore of that Condi for President crap. Remember Dick Morris telling us that ONLY Condi could save us from Hillary of Borg.
Remember that.
Remember ALL of that endless talk about how BRILLIANT” she was! Remember that.
Most of us knew that if she was all that, we would heard of her long ago, and she wouldn’t have been holding her cards so close to her vest during the first term.
She was sent over to State and she’s floundered.
I am sick to my stomach. Here I have been, supporting this Administration since 9-11 in what I thought was a tough line on terror..and know have once again feel as if I have been suckered punched. I can only come to the conclusion ( as hard as this is to say) that I have been duped to believe that this Administration was and is serious about destroying the enemy. Tammy, we have to keep up the fight my friend, I know believe that the American People are the only ones who are the last line of defense..I reluctantly have lost faith in Bush. Unless he awakens once again, I fear it is up to us to save ourselves. Then again, I wonder if it always has been..
What is it about D.C. that turns warriors all mushy? Is it something in the water supply?
Newt was right. It’s time we put term limits into The Constitution. (And yes,I know cabinet officers are appointed. The point is that public officials need to be members of the public, not a special class.)
TRINITY,youre dead-on: it is up to us to save ourselves. As is often the case, “The Man Tammy Has Always Needed” said it brilliantly in his latest book (pp 183-185):
You can understand why the Dems miss the Nineties. There was nary a word about war. Okay, you’d get the odd million-man genocide in Rwanda, but you tended to hear about it afterwards, usually as a late-breaking item in the Clinton teary-apology act. Instead, it was an era of micro-politics, a regulation here, an entitlement there, a recycling program everywhere you looked. …When you’re at an event for the “anti-war” movement, you realize it’s no such thing: It’s an I-don’t-want-to-have-to-hear-about-this-war movement.
So they mock Bush, Cheney, Rummy & Co. as the real terrorists — the ones determined to maintain America in a state of “terror.” Oddly enough, this was how the Left chose to live during the Cold War, when the no-nukes crowd expected Armageddon any minute… they’ve got to get over the bike-path micro-politics and back on the unlovely central thruway of geopolitical reality… Conservatives, on the other hand, embrace big government at their peril.
The silliest thing Dick Cheney has ever said was a couple of weeks after 9/11: “One of the things that’s changed so much since September 11 is the extent to which people do trust the government — big shift — and value it, and have high expectations for what we can do.” Really? I’d say 9/11 vindicated perfectly a decentralized, federalist, conservative view of the state: what worked that day was municipal government, small government, core government — the firemen, the NYPD cops, rescue workers. What flopped — big-time, as the vice president would say — was the federal government, the FBI, CIA, INS, FAA, and all the other hotshot, money-no-object, fancypants acronyms.” …But on the fourth plane, they didn’t follow the seventies hijack rituals. On Flight 93, they used their cell phones, discovered that FAA regulations weren’t going to save them, and then acted as free men, rising up against the terrorists and, at the cost of their own lives, preventing that flight carrying on to its target in Washington. On a morning when big government failed, the only good news came from private individuals. The first three planes were effectively an airborne European Union, where the rights of the citizens had been appropriated by the FAA’s flying nanny state. Up there where the air is rarified, all your liberties have been regulated away: there’s no smoking, there’s 100 percent gun control, you’re obliged by law to do everything the cabin crew tell you … For thirty years, passengers surrendered their more and more rights for the illusion of security, and, as a result, thousands died. On the fourth plane, Todd Beamer and others reclaimed those rights, and demonstrated that they could exercise them more efficiently than government.
Now what do you suppose Steyn really meant by “Conservatives …embrace big government at their peril.”? I submit that he’s saying they’ll see a continuance of the rejection they received last November; GOPers/conservatives either staying home or — Heaven forfend — voting for their challengers out of frustration with their “representatives” in DC.