Sam Stein Discusses Cheney 2012, Condoleeza Rice's Afghanistan Comments On Rachel Maddow Show (VIDEO)
Huffington Post political reporter Sam Stein weighs in on Condoleeza Rice's comments on Afghanistan during an appearance Tuesday evening on The Rachel Maddow Show.
In a new interview with Fortune Magazine, Condoleeza Rice, the former State Department secretary under former President George W. Bush, sharply criticizes the notion of a withdrawal from Afghanistan and even suggests that a withdrawal would lead to a terrorist attack on American soil.
Stein is confused as to why Condoleeza Rice is speaking out now and thinks that Rice's statements fit the same mold as those previously made by former Vice President Dick Cheney. Comments by both Cheney and Rice reflect "political opportunism."
Stein says some key Republicans see Cheney running for president in 2012 on the platform of "I told you so," should a terrorist attack occur on American soil during Obama's tenure.
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Rachel, You seem to be suggesting that the August 6, 2001 PDB contained information that could have prevented the attacks on 9/11? Could someone using the language contained in that PDB, please explain to me how that would have been possible?
The Bush II team is basically done. Occasionally one of them may creep from under the more or less comfortable rock that received him/her. But they are DONE. To many kiss-and-tell books that confirmed in detailed what many of us suspected for nearly 8 years. They let bin Laden escape when he was under thumb in Tora Bora. They sent young men and women to their deaths in Baghdad, Tikrit, Mosul with no strategy and woefully inadequate resources. They fed private contractors, not only in Iraq but around the world, until the contractors got so fat and sassy that they swaggered around as if they OWNED the Federal government and, indeed, the world. Bush-Cheney is done and Satan is proudly awaiting the return of his minions.
If Cheney runs look for groundwork laid by his private army, Xi to provide the impetus to "go back to the darkside." Although Americans do love tough guys: Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, Marcos, the Shah, Bin Laden and John Bolton, I don't think they will be able to withstand more torture from the modern Torquemada even in 2012 despite the machinations being planned by the cruel right wing.
If Chaney have the nerve to run for office in 2012 And the American People choose him for the Commander in Chief then America will get what they deserve, I guess 8 years of helping Bush ruin our country was not quite enough for some of us.
I SUGGEST THAT VERY ONE GET A COPY OF "THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES BY RICHARD BEN VENISTE . HE FINALLY BRINGS US INTO THE 9/11 CAUSE AND EFFECT. RICE AND CHENEY REPRESENT THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX PRESIDENT EISENHOWER WARNED US ABOUT. AND THEY WILL NEVER STOP TRYING TO .HAVE US LEAVE 100,000 TROOPS IN THE MIDDLE EAST TO SAFEGUARD THE SAUDIS. CAN YOU IMAGINE 50,000 OF OUR BEST STAYING IN AFGHANISTAN FOR TEN YEARS AND US, WHO CANNOT AFFORD TO GIVE HEALTH CARE TO OUR PEOPLE GIVING BILLIONS MORE TO CONVERT THE DESERT
TRIBAL CHIEFS TO LEADERS OF A DEMOCRACY WHICH WOULD BE COUNTER TO THEIR CULTURE..
If the danger came from Afghanistan and Al Qaeda, then why did Bush and his administration invade Iraqi?
Where is Al Qaeda?
Where is Al Qaeda ??? Check Dick Cheney's basement.
Ask John McCain. He knows where they are and how to get them. LOL!
See Anthony Anderson's Profile
Why Iraq? Cheap energy to keep their machines of destruction running. I am scared that they will do ANOTHER false flag attach and then run on a national security "i told you so" platform. We all need to start talking to each other about 9-11 not making any scientific sense, and start creating lifestyles and communities less indentured to these rich warmongers.
Al Qaeda is the SCARY threat created by the people who need them the most...the USGov.
I recommend taking up a collection for all expenses paid trip for the lot of them to Madrid. Think we could raise the money quickly?
Why Madrid? How about The Hague?
I'm a little confused by my fellow liberals sometimes. In the wake of 9/11 we spent a lot of time attributing the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda to our support and subsequent abandonment of the Mujahedeen in the 1980's as part of the cold war. This "blowback," as the CIA calls it, is the centerpiece of many liberals' critique of the US's historic heavy handed foreign policy. People on the right, like Bill O'Reilly, liked to simplistically say it was just liberals hating and blaming America. But it's a valid view and I always thought it was a lesson we could learn from 9/11. So we invaded Afghanistan to try to rid the country of the Taliban and al Qaeda. That was US policy, like it or not. Now we have to be careful not to pull out, leave a void, and let Muslim extremists set up yet another stronghold in the exact same spot. Isn't it possible that was all Condoleeza Rice was trying to say? She has deep faults and has done terrible damage to the US in many, many ways. But let's not be hypocrites and demonize every word she speaks, especially when her caution may be based on the same theories we once espoused to criticize the right.
Actually the key factor in getting Osama to target us was because we put infidels in Saudi Arabia. It was blowback from Desert Shield and the subsequent posting of US troops in "Holy Land". The Saudi princes (princi?) rejected Bin Ladens offer to push Iraq out of Kuwait and instead brought in the "Infidels".
There is no hypocrisy in asking these people to simply go away.
If you're reading into her Rice's arguments, or listening to Cheney's sudden diarrhea of the mouth, you're buying into their behavior, which is unacceptable regardless of whether they're 'right or wrong'.
I've never seen an administration leave office and immediately start talking sh*t about their successors - until now.
Someone please let the Republican party know that they lost. Their turn is over. Did they not play board games as children or what? It's a simple concept.
Republicans like fighting guerrilla wars.
Exactly! and THEY LIE!
Why is it that people can call BS on our president and they are automatically labeled a hate filled person with rac.est tendencies, but we can call BS on Rice and it's OK. I dont really like the lady either, but it seems like a double standard by many liberals.
Can we just accept the fact that certain people regrdeless of color have no business leading our country.
Because people call BS on Obama no matter what he says, even when he's being up front and honest. If you can't see the difference between that and Rice's doom-saying, you're part of the problem.
Calling out stupid, dangerous or hypocritical people isn't a double standard. There just happen to be a lot of stupid, dangerous and hypocritical people in the ranks of the Republican party.
Aren't "Politics" and "Opportunism" synonymous?
At times honest and perhaps naive people thought "politics" and "public service" were synonymous. Go figure.
I am amazed that she came out into the public eye to express her opinion about anything, however salient her point might be.
She was involved in the enhanced interrogation misinformation. Perhaps you remember, it was after her mushroom cloud misinformation, and after she neglected warnings about an attack by Osama bin Laden on American soil in the summer of 2001.
I think that an international court will eventually seek a more appropriate justice for all of those involved in torture.
Actions by Holder, "misinformed" higher ups in the torture totem pole, and the individuals that supplied their requested misinformation all fuel the fires of international curiosity about how our justice system works. It brings the core values of our country as a whole into scrutiny of a larger community.
Perhaps this curiosity will also fuel awareness of the need of international justice and help motivate to us speak louder about the value of shared truth.
Countries illustrate shared values through ratified treaties. The past leadership of our country violated one of the most important ratified treaties ever facilitated and continues to lie about it.
And they perceive it as an honor to have done so.
She was one of the leaders of many prevarications and has sanctioned many things that have affected the life span and quality of life of thousands of people.
And she wants to come out and speak.
Perhaps she could speak to the history she helped create
I agree.
She should be sitting in judgement for her reckless destruction of international law and conventions.
Who is she to judge?
Most likely some form of "cya" on her part.
It is surely not motivated by anything other than protecting or promoting herself.
Why is it that THEY don't want to go away? Who or whom are making THEM feel that they are still relevant in this moment of OUR life.
PLEASE, please, please GO AWAY. Get it! you are not wanted, move to another country where you can go into hiding as you like to live your lives. Because the rest of US, like very much the life we have with NO FEAR!!!
THEY are not going away. Republicans from the Reagan and Bush 1 &2 administrations are embedded in America's power structure through corporate and religious welfare like jobs and funding. Like cavemen THEY are living on life support in think tanks producing counter-democratic ideas for speeches, articles, sermons, books, videos and movies.
THEY will not fade away until all of THEM die.
Rice was part of an administration that was wrong for 8 years and she is wrong now. We need to GET OUT of Afghanistan. Have we learned nothing from Viet Nam and Iraq? We cannot continue to fight wars "over there" and expect to win anything except crippling debt and the tragic needless deaths of brave American soldiers.
Andrew Sullivan pegged Cheney correctly in The Atlantic: "When it comes to Cheney, one of the most incompetent vice-presidents in the country's history, with a record of two grotesquely botched wars, war crimes and a crippling debt....." 8-30-09
They had 7 years to get Afghanistan right and they screwed it up. Now Obama has to clean up the mess the best he can. If the former Bush Administration had something positive to contribute they had 7 years to do it. Since they left the mess in Obama's hands they should just be quiet.
Here,Here !
YEA!
She is great at asking the existential shame based questions to get at the truth.
The truth is a wonderful rock, and pillow.
I wonder how those that do not observe the truth as a personal value slept last night.
Unfortunately the truth is an unknowable quantity. Only death is certain.
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