Condi Rice Is Paris Hilton of State Department

Condi Rice is supposed to be a foreign policy professional, but things have gone to hell in hand basket on her watch as Secretary of State. Arguably things have not gone as badly 0n her watch as they did on Colin Powell's. We haven't gotten into any new wars. We've reached an agreement with North Korea on nuclear issues, rather than breaching one. But Condi was in the White House fighting against Colin Powell on these issues during Bush's first term.

Condi has turned out to be a light weight when it comes to foreign policy. She basically lets herself be pushed around by whomever she's with. At the White House, it was the war mongering neo-cons, and she backed them. Now, at State, she to her credit is taking a more statesman-like position, but due to the people around her, not to any good sense of her own.

She dresses nicely and is telegenic, but like Paris Hilton, there's not much "there" there, unlike Robert Gates who appears to be personally moving the Defense Department in a more reasonable direction.

Military Service Unimportant in Election

Reuters reports that few of the candidates for President have served in the military, and says that is no problem, because the general populace also has avoided serving and doesn't care about military service. All people care about today is money, not service. That's reflected in the makeup of the candidates, most of whom are millionaires, or billionaires, if you include Bloomberg.

This country has changed a lot. I think it's sad, but maybe when history looks back on it, it won't be so bad. Who it is bad for are the troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. This report shows more clearly that average Americans won't fight for their country. They let somebody else, probably somebody poorer who needs the money, do it. Families of New Yorkers in particular got millions from the government if they were killed in 9/11; now they party and profit from the stock market, while their poorer fellow citizens from southern and western states that New Yorkers spit on, die in Iraq and Afghanistan. Families of soldiers who die in combat, and families of victims killed in the Oklahoma City bombing, have gotten nothing close to the millions that New Yorkers got for 9/11.

US Not Serious about Iraq

The Washington Post article about the unwillingness of the government to staff the embassy in Baghdad adequately is to me the nail in the coffin for the future of Iraq. The US just does not care enough to try hard to win the war in Iraq. They send Crocker to be Ambassador and then they don't support him. Instead, when he gives his best judgment of what the embassy needs, he gets characterized as a panicky crybaby. What he is asking for is does not sound ideal for the State Department; it sounds like every Arabist and Arab speaker would be in Iraq, putting a hardship on other posts in the Middle East, but hey, is this a war we want to win or not? Not, apparently.

It convinces me that America got the government it deserved, a bunch of cowardly, inept, greedy SOBs. The best and the brightest declined to serve in Vietnam, as George Bush, Bill Clinton, and Dick Cheney did. Al Gore went to Vietnam, and had the election stolen from him as a reward. Now the best and the brightest refuse to go to Iraq. Hey, they can stay here and make billions in the hedge fund or private equity business. Look at Mitt Romney; he didn't serve in the military (apparently his Mormon missionary service exempted him), and when he made his millions in private equity, he avoided a large share of his taxes by taking much of his income as capital gains rather than salary, unlike the families of the ordinary people who died in his place in Vietnam, and now in Iraq.

This is a government that knows how to make OTHER people sacrifice, and like it. However, whatever they have been doing is now working in Iraq. It's a huge mess, but they will just walk away from it. The Republicans who are so concerned about saving babies from abortion are responsible for the deaths of many more thousands of babies in Iraq. They don't care, as long as they get their money.

Wall Street Despises Troops

I am increasingly upset that Wall Street's bull rally continues to set new records, while US military deaths in Iraq continue to set new records. Does Wall Street know we are fighting a war and losing? Do stocks keep going up because the war is irrelevant? Because they are confident that we will soon be leaving Iraq? Because they think we are going to win? I don't get it. Losing a war is bad for a country, but apparently not bad for Wall Street.

The odd thing is that according to George Bush, the boys and girls in Iraq are fighting for them. Bush says this war is in response to Saddam Hussein's attacking the World Trade Center in the New York City financial district. These soldiers are dying to get revenge for the deaths of New Yorkers, and New Yorkers don't give a damn. Of course, neither does Bush, the US Congress, or the American people in general. The soldiers and their families care, but in general the soldiers need the money and don't have other options, or they would probably be out of there, too.

Maybe those rich Wall Streeters could do something about providing jobs for soldiers leaving the military. They they wouldn't have to keep fighting in Iraq until they die.