Condi really is an idiot

WIIIAI links to Condiliar's interview with the NY Times editorial board. Miss "No one could possibly have forseen" is at it again. WIIAI:

On why the invasion of Iraq did not create terrorists: "They attacked us on September 11th before anybody had even thought of overthrowing Saddam Hussein." Before anybody had even though...? Ever heard of the first Gulf War, Condi? Ever heard of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, Condi? Ever heard of the Project for the New American Century, Condi?

But there's much, much more, enough to make me think that W likes Condi so much because she's even stupider than he is.

The first point that I would make is that it should be no surprise to anyone that as you choose to confront terrorists in a pretty aggressive and offensive way, that they will do everything that they can to fight back...

Hey, she said the "war on terror" is offensive, not me.

You need to know that of course, al-Qaida makes no distinction between the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq in their recruiting.

See? They're just like us!

Here's the broader context, if you can call it that, for the quote WIIIAI referred to:

So there are plenty of excuses and plenty of arguments as to why people ought to go and fight these so-called Western forces. They didn't need Iraq to do that. They attacked us on September 11th before anybody had even thought of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. And they have attacked in places where the countries were involved in Afghanistan, they've attacked in places where the countries aren't involved anywhere. They've attacked without regard to what your policies happen to be.

I'm not sure what attacks she might be referring to in that last sentence. Bali, maybe? Indonesia hasn't sent troops to Afghanistan or Iraq, but the big Bali attack in 2002 targeted foreign tourists, mostly Australian, and included a bombing of the American consulate. It wasn't Indonesia's policies that were targeted.

Condi continues to show contempt for the reality-based community:

[Zarqawi's] second plan was to create tension, indeed, conflict between Sunnis and Shia and to, in effect, unleash sectarian violence. So to a certain extent, he had some success with both of those strategies. But the first of those, that is, trying to bring Iraq into the al-Qaida struggle and make it a central focal point, because after all, Iraq is a great center of civilization and therefore, symbolic as well as an actual haven--would be symbolic as well as an actual haven from his point of view; it's produced a backlash. It's produced a serious backlash among Sunnis, among Sunni tribes.

That's one reason we've been able to fight effectively in places like Fallujah. Zarqawi didn't walk in one day and give himself up. People helped us get him, which was part of this backlash. And so to the degree that there was an effort to make Iraq a central part of this, I think it has produced a backlash.

Condi apparently didn't see this report.

They are having some success in Baghdad with the Baghdad security program. There's no doubt about that.

Just depends on how you define success, I guess.

Condi on Lebanon:

I'll tell you something. Lebanon had come to a standstill politically well before the Hezbollah attack. I think you could make an argument that after the war, things had begun to move, some of them sideways, some of them forward, but they have begun to move.

I'll assume that Condi isn't aware, since she apparently isn't aware of anything, that the use of violence to effect political change is commonly called "terrorism." Of course, Condi doesn't do definitions:

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, six months of cutting off support to the Palestinian Governments seems to have had an impact on Hamas. Looked somewhat hopeful there for a while that Abu Mazen and Hania could form some sort of a government that would perhaps say the right thing and even more important, do the right thing. Now they seem to be in a stalemate.

There are a lot of people who say you need to get on a plane and you need to try to back Abu Mazen up and try to get over this hump, because this is a moment that you pushed for, a moment of weakness for Hamas. And it looks like it has a possibility of just leeching away.

SECRETARY RICE: I don't think that it is yet--what did you use, leeching?

QUESTION: Yeah.

SECRETARY RICE: Leeching. Leeching away -- they didn't teach me that word at Denver. What is leeching? Kind of --

QUESTION: Geologic erosion.

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, geologic erosion, all right. It's because I was a music major; I understand, okay.

Given that this was a verbal interview, Condi wouldn't have known whether the interviewer meant "leaching," which is "extracting a substance from a solid by dissolving it in a liquid," and is apparently what the interviewer meant, although incorrectly transcribed, or "leeching," which basically means "bloodsucking." But I guess it didn't matter--Dr. Rice, music major, was unfamiliar with both definitions (either of which was reasonably appropriate in the context used by the Times interviewer--the moment of opportunity may just wash away or may get sucked away).

There's a whole lot more, if you dare. This is our Secretary of State, people.