Does Condoleeza Rice Actually Believe Her Own Deceitful Rhetoric?

The Bush Administration is once again on the offensive regarding its self-justification for invading and colonizing Iraq. Condoleeza Rice, the National Security Advisor gave another speech today, and repeated more of the disinformation that thinking persons discredited when first presented months and months ago. Once again, Rice emphasized weapons of mass destruction programs and the "rightness" of removing Saddam Hussein from power.

Once again Condoleeza Rice, former member of the Board of Directors of Chevron, never mentioned the word "oil". Once again, Condoleeza Rice never mentioned U.S. support of Saddam Hussein during the years of his greatest atrocities. Once again Condoleeza Rice failed to mention the complicity of U.S. administrations in arming Saddam Hussein, in providing raw ingredients and technical support for the programs that were belatedly determined to be disqualifying for Saddam’s further hold on power. Once again Condoleeza Rice failed to explain the illegality of unilateral regime change under international law. And once again Condoleeza Rice failed to explain how Saddam Hussein’s former weapons of mass destruction program threatened world security, since Hussein’s only use of those weapons was against insurgents in his own country, or against his country’s mortal enemy, Iran during a war that was secretly orchestrated by the U.S. and managed in secret for some time by none other than George H.W. Bush, father of the current president.

Clearly, the facts are not supportive of the policies embarked upon by the Rice/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice/Powell/Wolfowitz band of international terrorists. Clearly, in the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. is on the wrong side of history and world opinion.

So, one must wonder: Is Condoleeza Rice stupid? Is she a victim of self-deceit? Is she confusing blind obedience to immoral, illegal government policies with patriotism? Does Condoleeza Rice understand right from wrong? Does she care what is right and what is wrong?

The degree of persistence of this Federal Administration to wrong, illegal, counterproductive, even disastrous policies is nothing short of astonishing. The U.S. military, already downsized by the end of the Cold War, is now hyper extended, and stretched so thin that its officers cannot publicly admit the manpower crisis, the fatigue crisis, the logistical crisis caused by using equipment in hospitable environments which wear out tank treads and helicopter parts much faster than in more benign environments. The reserve military forces that are traditionally called upon for service only during short-term emergencies are being deployed en mass and for sustained periods of dangerous service; a reality that bodes very poorly for retainment and recruitment of such forces for future wars and future crises. The Bush administration is wearing down and demoralizing the U.S. military far more so than Bill Clinton ever did. And the abusive civilian leadership of military command by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is without doubt traumatizing the best and the brightest career military officers of high command and rewarding personal loyalty to the Secretary over military excellence and expertise.

Bush is bogging down the nation in wars across the globe that cannot be won by application of the strengths of American military power. Bush is trashing the American environment. He is taxing the poor to give return big money to the wealthy. He is lying about everything, and he is alienating the traditional friends and allies of American administrations of the past.

Bush doesn’t learn, and he may never learn. His advisors, like Condoleeza Rice cannot bear to tell him the truth, and instead try to deceive the public. Does Rice believe that she can "buy time" until things get better in Iraq? Now that the U.S. government and its viceroy in Iraq are insisting on recruiting Turkish soldiers to bolster the American occupation, the U.S. government may very well have breached the trust it had with its own puppet government in Iraq, which under no circumstances wants Turkish soldiers stationed in Iraq for even a short period of time. Clearly, the Bush administration just does not "get it".

The remaining question is: when, if ever will the American public at large "get it". If and when that happens, the Bush administration will have lost its capacity to govern, which is not a surprise, due to the illegitimate nature of the Administration since its appointment by the Right Wing of the U.S. Supreme Court.