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Condoleezza, please stop smiling
By Lawrence Hagerty, January 30, 2002
Of all the Bushwacker spokespersons,
Condoleezza Rice is the one that irritates me the most. I
think it must be because of that know-it-all smile always
pasted on her face. Of course, it isn’t difficult to understand
why Condoleezza is always smiling. Anyone who has a résumé
like hers is bound to have a smug look on their face from
time to time. Just look at a few things she has accomplished:
I could go on, for Condoleezza’s list of influential
positions is quite long. However, there is something about
her résumé that bothers me. Her only major work experience
outside the halls of academia and government seems to be in
Big Oil. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with
that. It just seems to suggest a potential conflict of interest.
This is what I mean:
- In the summer of 2001, shortly before the events of September
11th, Taliban officials were in Houston, Texas
meeting
with Unocal oil company officials in an attempt
to negotiate a pipeline deal.
- When no agreement was reached, the Taliban officials were
allegedly told to accept our offer of “a carpet of gold
or you’ll get a carpet
of bombs.”
- When Vice President Dick Cheney
was running Halliburton, the oil field services
company, he won a multi-billion dollar contract with Chevron
to build a Caspian Sea pipeline for them to use in moving
oil out of the Tengiz field in Central Asia.
- The Taliban has now been bombed out of power and a pipeline
across Afghanistan is almost certainly in
the works.
Now, I’m not saying there is any connection
between these facts and Condoleezza Rice’s role as one of
the principal architects of the bombing and terror our country
has inflicted on the people of Afghanistan. But to the casual
observer, it sure seems like the masters of Big Oil are at
least pulling a few strings. Maybe I am reading more into
this than I should. Perhaps the thing that is really bothering
me it is the fact that Chevron prized Condoleezza’s services
so highly they even named an oil
tanker after her. Maybe I’m just jealous.
For the sake of argument, however, let
us say that there is absolutely no conflict of interest in
Condoleezza Rice’s orchestration of the war in Afghanistan.
Let’s say she honestly believes she is making her decisions
based solely on the best interests of our country, and that
it is only a coincidence her former Big Oil Masters are the
primary beneficiaries of her policies. Even then, if I were
her media advisor, I would advise her to get rid of that ever-present
smile. It is just not polite to gloat so much over one’s successes.
And this is particularly true when success is paid for by
sacrificing the lives of so many thousands of innocent children, women,
and men ― whose only offense was to live in a country
through which Big Oil coveted another pipeline.
(RIGHT
CLICK here to download a PDF version of this essay.)
FOOTNOTE:
On March
21, 2004, Richard Clarke told
the press that the Bush administration was inept in its
handling of their War of Terror. Clarke had been the top anti-terrorism
advisor to Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, and Reagan. Finally,
Condi stopped smiling. Here is a picture taken of her
as she tried to cover her tracks, claiming that Clarke got
it wrong.
Also
See: Dr.
Rice is Either Incompetent or a Liar
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