Condi grinned and flirted her way through this softball interview with Jim Lehrer, whose Southern Charm cannot account for (all of) the bizarre, ghoulishly oblivious fun Secretary Rice was having. The linked transcript has photos that make her look dignifed-- may have been the same photo used repeatedly, because there was hardly a moment in the interview when she wasn't working her dimples.
Interesting the performance they do for the American people they think buy the act. Either Condi is a hammy actress or she was on the same happy drugs Dubya used in his Baba Wawa intewview.
“SACRIFICED LIVES AND TREASURE”?
‘Well, we're going to stand for the principles that we're standing for around the world, and most especially in Iraq, where America has sacrificed and -- sacrificed lives and treasure.’
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discusses developments in Iraq, negotiations with North Korea and the effect recent attacks in London and Egypt are having on the U.S. (including Bolton nomination)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/july-dec05/rice_7-28.htmlIraqi constitution and global terrorism
JIM LEHRER: On the violence, the insurgency, you, the president and many, many others have said, once the political process got underway, the violence and the insurgency would diminish. It has not. What happened?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, let me say that what I think we have said is that the insurgency will lose its political -- any political basis. Now, the fact of the matter is, it is -- it doesn't take that many people, unfortunately, to have a suicide bomb and to blow up innocent children, standing next to American soldiers, getting candy. That's something that can actually be done fairly easily by a few violent and evil people.
And so the pictures that people see on television every day, which are very dramatic of the bombings, are the work of not the majority of Iraqis, probably not even a substantial minority of Iraqis.
The political process, which is underway, is harder to see, but the Iraqi people are clearly tiring of the evil few who are determined to continue the violence in Iraq. And so the ability to get better intelligence, the ability of the Iraqi security forces, who are ultimately going to be very much better at fighting an insurgency than coalition forces will be, as their capacity improves they will also make headway.
But I don't want to give the impression that the violence or the use of suicide bombs, that there's going to be a direct correlation between improvement in the political process and the end of that kind of violence.
And, Jim, just one other thing, which is that the neighbors can help with this, too. And so the Iraqis are working very hard, we are working very hard, because on some of these borders the willingness of neighbors to cut off supply to the insurgents, and indeed the supply of people coming across the border to carry out these acts, is also very important.
<nip>
‘WHEN ARE WE GOING TO STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR THE TERRORISTS AND
JIM LEHRER: What about the additional element here that, increasingly, terrorism experts and Muslim experts are saying that the combination of Iraq and other foreign policy decisions by the United States are actually creating more terrorists every day than they are eliminating them.
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: When we are going to stop making excuses for the terrorists? The terrorists on Sept. 11 attacked the United States. We weren't in Iraq. We weren't even in Afghanistan on Sept. 11.
They have attacked in places that had no forces in either place. They've attacked all over the world. They've attacked in Morocco and in Bali and in Egypt and in London and in Madrid.
When are we going to stop making excuses for the terrorists and saying that somebody is making them do it? No, these are simply evil people who want to kill. And they want to kill in the name of a perverted ideology that really is not Islam, but they somehow want to claim that mantle to say that this is about some kind of grievance. This isn't about some kind of grievance. This is an effort to destroy, rather than to build.
And until everybody in the world calls it by name -- the evil that it is -- stops making excuses for them, then I think we're going to have a problem. And I hope that after the bombings of innocent people in London, innocent people at Sharm el-Sheikh, innocent children in Iraq, that people will call this by name and stop making excuses for these people.
No one is making them do it. They're doing it because they want to create chaos and to undermine our way to life.
<nip>
“WELL, IT’S BEEN A REAL PLEASURE. IT REALLY HAS.”
JIM LEHRER: Finally, you're talking about what you're up to. This week marks six months for you to be Secretary of State of the United States of America. Looking back on it, does it meet your expectations in terms of the trade-offs between frustrations and dissatisfactions and satisfactions and pleasures?
CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, it's been a real pleasure. It really has. Of course, there are days that are not so pleasurable. We're in a terribly challenging time. We have a lot of difficult issues. But you don't have the chance to change history, you don't have the historic times, unless it comes with challenge and difficulty.
And so I've been very privileged and I am so grateful to the president for his confidence in me. I am grateful to the Senate for the confirmation. I'm grateful to the team of men and women here at the State Department that get up every day and press and pull in the direction of a more prosperous and freer world.
And I'm enjoying it because I think we are in a time of consequence. We have a president who doesn't just see the world as it is, but the world as it can be. And when that's your mandate every day, it's pretty exciting.
:bounce:
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
