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by William Bigelow 15 Nov 2012 271post a comment
Today, five Democratic Congresswomen attacked Republican criticism of U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, who is reputedly Barack Obama’s pick to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. They actually called her an "American treasure.” This was after Barack Obama called Republican criticism of Rice “outrageous.”
Reps. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), Karen Bass (D-Calif.), Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) released a statement which read:
Over the last several days, Senators McCain, Graham, and [Kelly] Ayotte (R-N.H.) have gone to extraordinary lengths to level unfair attacks against a stalwart American whose public service spans two administrations. We call on Senators McCain, Graham, and Ayotte to immediately retract their troubling remarks and shift focus to the important and critical security concerns of our diplomats abroad.The five Congresswomen have scheduled a press conference for Friday morning.
Susan Rice an American treasure? These women must be nuts. Let’s take a look at this “American Treasure.” We’ll save the most damning facts for last.
1. Rice has a notorious anti-Israel bias; in February of last year, Rice raised her hand to oppose the resolution condemning Israel building settlements, but then raged, “We reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity,” and declared that such activity was basically the cause for “corroded hopes” in the Middle East. She condemned “the folly and legitimacy” of Israel building settlements. Just recently she listened intently to Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad belittle the United States at the UN, yet left the UN when Benjamin Netanyahu spoke.
When Rice was John Kerry’s chief foreign policy adviser during his presidential campaign, Kerry suggested appointing Israel-haters James Baker and Jimmy Carter as negotiators between the Israelis and Palestinians. When there was a furious reaction, Kerry blamed his staff – which was effectively Susan Rice.
2. After the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the UN Security Council voted to expand troops there to protect the citizenry. She was absent from the Security Council vote, never showed up and didn’t initiate anything.
3. By this time, everyone knows she was sent by the White House to lie on Sunday talk shows about the cause of the Benghazi attacks. She stated we had “substantial security presence” at the consulate; the attacks were spontaneous, not a pre-planned terrorist assault, and were the result of “a small handful of heavily armed mobsters”; and the attack was “a direct result of a heinous and offensive video that was widely disseminated.” She had the nerve to insist, “We do not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned.”
4. The most damning evidence against Rice is this: we could have seized Osama Bin Laden years before 9/11 if she hadn’t forestalled it. Bill Clinton troubleshooter Mansoor Ijaz said in 2002:
The FBI, in 1996 and 1997, had their efforts to look at terrorism data and deal with the bin Laden issue overruled every single time by the State Department, by Susan Rice and her cronies, who were hell-bent on destroying the Sudan.Richard Miniter, author of the book Losing bin Laden, said that Rice played a primary role in scuttling the deal where Sudan could have turned over Bin Laden to the U.S. As a member of Clinton’s National Security Council, he wrote, she doubted Sudan’s credibility:
The FBI, in 1996 and 1997, had their efforts to look at terrorism data and deal with the bin Laden issue overruled every single time by the State Department, by Susan Rice and her cronies, who were hell-bent on destroying the Sudan … Rice [cited] the suffering of Christians [in Sudan] as one reason that she doubted the integrity of the Sudanese offers. But her analysis largely overlooked the view of U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Tim Carney, who argued for calling Khartoum's bluff.Carney coauthored a Washington post op-ed with Ijaz in 2002 where he detailed how Rice had frustrated attempts to get bin Laden, as Sudan had agreed to cooperate in 1997 to aid in rooting out terrorists without the US dropping sanctions against it:
Sudan's policy shift sparked a debate at the State Department, where foreign service officers believed the United States should reengage Khartoum. By the end of summer 1997, [those officers] persuaded incoming Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to let at least some diplomatic staff return to Sudan to press for a resolution of the civil war and pursue offers to cooperate on terrorism. Two individuals, however, disagreed. NSC terrorism specialist Richard Clarke and NSC Africa specialist Susan Rice, who was about to become assistant secretary of State for African affairs.In the op-ed, Carney and Ijaz wrote that Rice and Clarke persuaded Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger to overrule Albright on the Sudanese terrorism overtures. And when Sudan tried again to share intelligence on Bin Laden, and sent a February 1998 letter addressed directly to Middle East and North Africa special agent-in-charge David Williams, the op-ed stated:
But the White House and Susan Rice objected. On June 24, 1998, Williams wrote to Mahdi, saying he was 'not in a position to accept your kind offer.'Whether it’s sliming America’s ally Israel, ignoring the suffering of Haitians, covering up for four Americans killed in Benghazi or stifling a chance to catch the man later responsible for 3,000 Americans murdered on 9/11, Susan Rice is anything but a national treasure.
