EDITORIAL

Condoleezza Rice, the Woman Who Wants War

March 20, 2014   ·   0 Comments

Above: Condoleezza Rice and Arseniy Yatsenyuk meeting September 2007. Yatsenyuk is currently the interim Prime Minister of Ukraine. Crimeans in Simferopol voted Sunday March 16, 2014 to break from Ukraine and join Russia. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

By NYT eXaminer:

In his March 17 New York Times front page article, “Global Crises Put Obama’s Strategy of Caution to the Test,” David Sanger provided a platform for Condoleezza Rice to recycle recurring Times’ criticism that Obama is weak on U.S. foreign policy.

Sanger set his frame for Times’ readers as Obama being stuck between adversaries pressing the U.S. on the one hand and, on the other hand, how difficult it is for him to leverage power over “countries that defy American will or the international order.”

While Sanger dedicated just a single line to considering what he described as “domestic pressure” to keep Obama from waging war, he gave Condoleezza five straight inches of column space to voice her contempt for what the Times reported is Obama's weakness.

Sanger described Condoleezza's position as “the most stinging critique.”

The "pendulum has swung too far in the direction of nonintervention,” he wrote.

Sanger noted that Condoleezza was Bush's secretary of state. But he failed to mention her years as national security adviser.

He gave Condoleezza ample space to voice contempt for what she called "America's withdrawal."

Sanger let Condoleezza repeat the same arguments that she already made in her March 7 Washington Post op-ed, where she bewailed Obama's lack of aggression in Syria.

Analyst Jane Franklin pointed out to NYT eXaminer in an email that Condoleezza "longs to take out Assad as Bush's war took out Hussein."

Even though the U.S. and Russia both agreed to diplomatic solutions, welcomed by the UN Secretary-General, on how to handle Syria's alleged chemical weapons, Sanger provided his paper to Condoleezza to argue that Obama should have struck Syria.

The New York Times and Washington Post are not the only outlets which gave Condoleezza a stage.

Franklin pointed out that Condoleezza's March 9 cover photo and story in Parade "humanized her for the nation's living-rooms." Rutgers-New Brunswick's decision to select her as commencement speaker promoted her as a woman of great "achievements" worthy of an honorary Doctor of Laws, a fit role model for our college graduates.

Image-wise, The Washington Post identified her only as secretary of state from 2005 to 2009, without referring to her role as the national security adviser who deliberately lied to a national and international audience on CNN about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, warning of a "mushroom cloud."

Why this sudden chorus of coverage on Condoleezza Rice? Is she being groomed for returning to Washington? Is she vice-presidential -- even presidential -- material?

At her confirmation hearing as secretary of state in 2005, she was not questioned about her monumental lies in 2002 when the Bush administration was preparing to invade Iraq – lies that the New York Times and other media were complicit in -- or her approval that same year of waterboarding for those detained in the War on Terror. She was already being remodeled.

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