Bush Team: Again, Not Too Bright

[kentuck]

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0205-28.htm

<snip>
After Hamas' stunning victory last week in Palestinian elections, a flustered U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, tried to explain the Bush administration's latest Mideast fiasco.

"I've asked why nobody saw it coming," she offered plaintively.

Dear Miss Condi, many of us saw Hamas' victory coming. You didn't because you failed to face facts.

Your boss, George W. Bush, made similar lame excuses trying to explain his embarrassing failure to find WMD in Iraq by claiming all western intelligence services believed Iraq had them -- which was untrue.

For a nation that spends $40 billion annually on intelligence to be so wrong about so much is utterly inexcusable. Condi, go stand in the corner with Colin Powell.

<snip>
Hamas won because of Washington's total failure to push Israel into any meaningful concessions under its dead-ended "Road Map to Peace," fatally undermining Bush's favourite, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party.

Palestinians were fed up with corrupt Fatah leadership which appeared too cozy with the U.S. and Israel. The more Washington bribed or arm-twisted Fatah leaders to comply with its wishes, the more Palestinians backed hardline Hamas. The feuding ninnies and crooks running Fatah stood in sharp contrast to Hamas' disciplined, efficient, uncorrupt cadres.

When it became clear Israel's leadership would continue PM Ariel Sharon's plans to colonize the West Bank and confine Arabs in three isolated tribal reservations, Palestinians voted for Hamas.

Why didn't Rice see this obvious fact? Because, like the rest of the administration and U.S. media, her view of the Mideast is warped by ignorance, inexperience, and intense pressure from neoconservatives and religious groups pressing for a crusade against the Muslim world.

...more

[kentuck]

1. Another snip>

<snip>

America's shocked reaction to Hamas' win shows how misinformed and misled it is about the Mideast.

The propaganda term "terrorism" has so fuddled the minds of Americans that any rational analysis of Mideast events has become as impossible, as it was during the 1950s and '60s to rationally analyze enormous developments within the communist world, like the Sino-Soviet split.

Hamas' victory provoked hysteria in New York City last week. Local papers trumpeted, "Terror Nation," and "Terror Wins," absurdly claiming Hamas threatens the very existence of Israel.

Hamas is responsible for many criminal bombings of Israeli civilians. It refuses to recognize the existence of the Jewish state. Israel and the U.S. brand Hamas as "terrorists," but to Palestinians, Hamas are reformers and resisters of occupation."

[Skidmore]

2. Seems to me that this bunch couldn't see a freight train coming

if they were standing in the middle of the track facing the sucker. We've heard that before several times. 9/11, looting after the Iraqi invasion, insurgency in Iraq, Katrina, the Palestinian elections, and now this. Not small stuff, folks. Totally out of touch with the real world and obstinately and willfully ignorant when confronted with facts. Dems need to jump all over this.

[Cosmocat]

3. Can you even begin ...

to imagine how the press would be ALL OVER a democratic admin that even ONCE said it "didn't see it coming ..."

[unblock]

4. add THAT to the list of things "no one" could see coming

"no one" could see bin laden striking inside the united states. certainly not anyone who read the presidential daily briefing entitled "bin laden determined to strike inside the united states."

"no one" could have forseen that saddam would have destroy all the wmds. i mean, who could tell what was going on in the most heavily monitored country in the world, what with all the weapons inspectors going around destroying wmds and all.

"no one" could have forseen hamas victory. certainly not anyone who saw iran elect hardliners. who would have thought that hardline policies against arabs and muslims would lead to them electing their own hardliners?

and people STILL think the banana republican party is "better" at foreign policy.

:eyes:

[hootinholler]

5. Didn't hamas provide help to the needy too?

I seem to recall reading that.

-Hoot