Karen’s been to Indonesia where she got an “earful” from Indonesian women, writes Common Dreams.
“Hughes Misreports Iraqi History.” blares the WaPo headline. The subtitle: “Envoy Vastly Overstates Fact in Justifying War to Indonesian Students.”
State Department officials later acknowledged that Hughes, tapped by President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to set the record straight on U.S. policies in the Muslim world, had misreported history. […]
The students Friday repeatedly challenged her on all three fronts. But Iraq — and, in particular, unproven U.S. claims about Iraq stockpiling weapons of mass destruction — drew the most ire.
The NYT chimes in with “Bush’s Designated Hitter Strikes Out With Indonesian Students.”
The headline that may raise the most debate: “Hughes to replace Rove?” — from U.S. News & World Report.
You decide! Is America safer with Hughes inside, or outside, the White House bubble?
Meanwhile, her next stops are Aceh and then the predominantly Muslim nation, Malaysia. … more below:
“Karen Hughes, who has faced a rocky road since being named Washington’s public relations chief, answered tough questions Friday about the invasion of Iraq and wrongly stated that Saddam Hussein gassed to death “hundreds of thousands” of his people,” reports The Democratic Daily from an A.P. story, via the Daou Report.
Although the U.S. undersecretary for public diplomacy twice repeated the claim after being challenged by journalists, Gordon Johndroe, a State Department official traveling with Hughes, later called The Associated Press to say she misspoke. (AP)
“Hughes continually caught flack at a public debate in Jakarta over the Bush administration’s rationale for the war in Iraq — Saddam’s alleged weapons of mass destruction,,” continues Democratic Daily. “Attempting to respond to the criticism Hughes responded with standard neocon talking points and inflated numbers…”
And the Beat goes on, they Broght it up as to Others, sending Signal They were going to do it!!!!
Trouble with Huges, and the Un-Reality Crowd, is that the est of the World are not going through the Dumbing Down Process of a Country Destroying Itself from within!
Actually They’re All Getting More Intelligent!!!!!
***
No… I don’t think that they’re re-writing history. They might like to–but they’d need professional help to do so.
I think that they are profoundly ignorant of geography, history, and associated fields of knowledge. They believe that what they “think” they “know” is truth. And that the truth is on their side… no matter what (adjust as needed).
From Grecians to Hispanic-speaking people to hundreds of thousands gassed by Saddam… they’re not “revising” history. They’re just practicing what they always practice–they just make shit up. The lie de jour. On the campaign trail, in the press conference, in the swift-boat ad. Lie. Lie. Lie more. Lie big; no one will believe that it’s false if you lie big and lie aggressively.
They’ve learned at the foot of the last set of fascists….
Another WH incompetent punching above her weight.
Bush considers Hughes’s job the “most important” one in government.
Since we know that Bush does not read the news, and his aides are afraid to give him bad news, has anyone dared tell him how badly Karen has bombed?
Is she screeching or bellowing? Hard to tell. The body language and the look in her eyes could be read as fear, fight, or both. Definitely heightened adrenaline is surging thru her bloodstream. Stress is a killer, they say. She should be exposed to more of it instead of returning to the bubble comfort of the WH.
Since stress and adrenaline reduce access to memory and prevents complex analysis, she may not be able to deal with this as well as if she retreated to a safe bubble.
I say “Leave her hanging out in the wind.” Maybe God will save her by some miracle.
Ha! How many people get to take a world tour and bomb at nearly every stop? Sounds like she is getting justice.
Which reminds me of the old saying that we ask for mercy, not justice. I vote for justice for this crew.
Yes, love the square mouth.
Karen’s thoughts:
“Dammit, my sound bytes don’t work over here either. They worked so well in Washington for years. That’s my specialty, “sound bytes/talking points.” I told the press that from Day One. What is it with these foreign people, don’t they watch teevee?!”
caught.red.handed
So, what else has she been lying about? Don’t even answer that. I haven’t got all day. 🙂
…who caught flak last week in Indonesia:
US antiterrorism envoy challenged in Indonesia
More unilateralism from the Bush high command: We make the rules; you obey the rules.
We bloviate, you believe.
We decree, you obey.
One does come to understand the impulse to just line them all up against a wall…. But no; trials for all of them. Here, and abroad–I’m thinking The Hague. But Spain has some appeal, too….
She gets her prepackaged news from the same sources as Bush – therefore she believed what she was saying. And that’s good enough for me. Time to promote her. And a medal, don’t forget the medal.
or not so stunning thing, is not their ignorance about history, not their lack of regard for facts, not the fact that someone like Hughes could be sent on such a mission: it is that these people expect to find ignorant, compliant, grateful people waiting to greet the generous representative willing to take the time to visit and explain how the heathens should re-interpret the world.
It is, sadly, the logical behavior of people who celebrate Columbus Day, extol the vision of the “founding fathers,” but can’t seem to remember slavery or genocide in our own American history, and don’t know where Selma is, what MOVE! was, who AIM is, where Bikini Atoll is. . .
ok, I’ll just shut up now.
Give her a job as a prison guard/goat-handler at the Presidential Cement Yard Goat Petting Correctional Facility.
I would prefer she be kept in the zoo as one of the pets that others might pet…like the zoo of a jail.
Keep her on the road. It just keeps proving how incredibly incompetent this administration is. Perhaps it will wake up the voters.
A girls can dream, can’t she?
“Saddam Hussein had gassed hundreds of thousands of his own people.”
Referring to the 5,000 Kurds killed by poison gas in Halabja, March 16, 17, 1988. Juan Cole on History News Network
There were further gas attacks in May 1988 in the Valley of the Lesser Zab during which 10,000 Kurds ‘disappeared.’ Human Rights Watch
The Kurds were not “his own people” and even as large and catastrophic as these crimes were, “hundreds of thousands” is a lie.
This “gassed his own people” is one of Hughes’ talking points to justify the invasion of Iraq. It has been repeated by Repbulicans thousands of times. It is a gross hypocrisy. At the time that it happened, the Kurds could not get the attention of officials in the Bush Sr. government. There was no Republican outrage. Human Rights Watch details the unsuccessful attempts of Kurdish envoys to meet with Bush Sr. officials, in the immediate aftermath of the poison gas attacks. The Iraqis often went beyond their own borders to poison areas in Iran, possibly this was pleasing to the Bush Sr. Whitehouse.
Isn’t it ridiculous that these envoys could not do a little fact checking themselves before attempting to revise history and lie their way around the world? They are stupid but worse they think we are stupid too.
Correction,
1988 Reagan/Bush administration
1989 Bush/Quayle administration
Therefore, replace “Bush sr.” in my comment with Reagan/Bush.
Thanks.
Juan Cole is a fink: This is what Coles says on the website linked by Sybil. He stands by those words today:
“My own knowledge of the horrors Saddam has perpetrated makes it impossible for me to stand against the coming war, however worried I am about its aftermath. World order is not served by unilateral military action, to which I do object. But world order, human rights and international law are likewise not served by allowing a genocidal monster to remain in power.”
Sadaam in all likely hood did not gas his own people. I don’t care what Cole says. There was a war in Halabja at the time between Iraqi and Iranian forces. Pelletier may very well have stated that the Gas was used by Iran to kill the Kurds there because if he were to say it was Iraqi gas he would have to admiit the gas was supplied by American.
So, If the Kurds in Halbaja were killed by Iraqi Gas they were killed by Sadaam and America working together agaisnt Iran.
And Sadaam did not bury 400,000 people in mass graves.
These are all Bush lies to get the US into the war. It’s part of the conspiracy that, it appears, Patrick Fitzgerald is NOT uncovering.
and I agree that he was a hawk in the pre-invasion days, that does not alter the history of Halabja. I just used his article because it was on History News Network and it gave the accurate details of the Halabja atrocity. For the rest, yes he was a hawk. He soon changed his mind though.
Pelletier was wrong according to eye-witnesses to the poison gas bombings who saw Iraqi markings on the airplanes and helicopters. His contention that Iran was responsible don’t match the facts on the ground but his article got a lot of attention and acceptance in the days preceeding the invasion of Iraq. The Iraqis strayed over the Iran border and killed Iranians at the same time as they were attacking the Kurds.
As a matter of fact you are right about the source of Iraqi chemicals. The US along with Germany supplied Saddam with chemicals as weapons. That’s where the expression, ‘we [the USA] know Saddam had WMD because we have the receipts.’ came from.
Fitzgerald will uncover the “Saddam has the capacity for a nuclear weapon” lies. How much further he can go into the WMD propaganda remains to be seen.
But Juan Cole has not Changed. He has not backed down from his comment that he was not opposed to the war. And he in fact opposes US withdrawal today. You have to read him carefully. He’s a snake.
I don’t like him. You are either on one side or the other goddamn side and he is always acting like he’s against the war when in fact he is saying the US should stay. He is saying that today.
All I can say about Halabja is that witnesses on the ground as you say….what is that…..reports from Chalabi?
There is nothing but lies about Sadaam. People in the US should not focus on Sadaam but on the hundreds of thousands that Bush and his soldiers and the American people have killed in Iraq for no reason, the torture, the rape, the pillaging…..all the things Bush accused Sadaam of, Bush has done more of.
Put Bush on trial before Sadaam. Tell it to Fitzgerald who everyone believes is Daddy coming home to make things right.
He can be weasel-like.
Witnesses on the ground in Halabja, these are Halabjis interviewed by Human Rights Watch after Saddam bombed them with poison gas. Don’t be unfair to them by calling them liars. They were there, survivors of an atrocity.
I do not know where Chalabi was at the time, likely safe and cozy in the USA spending the money he swindled from a Jordanian bank.
Your one of the few people on the blogosphere or whatever it is that knows that Juan Cole….and I read his website all the time and it’s got really good information….is someone to be at least a little wary of.
You know there is controversy about the gassing of the people. I remember now reading about this report. It’s vague though. There was a war in Halabja between occupying Iranian forces who had taken over the town and Iraqi forces. The gassing was not meant in any case, so far as I am aware to kill villagers.
This needs context, not to protect Sadaam but simply to understand. This was one of Bush’s main points in the lead up to the war. It ought to be throughly understood for that reason alone.
which gives play by play of the attack by different sources in their archives.
Saddam Hussein strategy (afaik) was genocide of the Kurds, women and children included for demoralization of the Kurdish population. There were greater gassings in the Valley of the Zab where 10,000 Kurds ‘disappeared.’
Yes, you are right, why was this “he gassed his own people” NOT given the importance it deserved. Why didn’t journalists study a little history and put the ‘talking point’ into a context.
One reason was that anyone who would do such a thing in pre-Iraq-invasion USA would be called a Saddam appeaser or apologist during a time when journalists and pundits were scared to death of having their patriotism questioned by the right wing.
Hughes exemplifies the failure of the Bush regime’s propaganda strategists to understand a fundamental element of the dynamics of deception and coercion as it applies to the international arena.
Hughes and her masters understand that very often lies are more believable than truth, but they don’t realize the extent to which societal ignorance needs to be first created and then weaponized in order for their lies to work on a “foreign” population.
The reason the Hughes sound bite propaganda style has worked so well at home in the US is because the Bush government is the single biggest weaponizer of societal ignorance in the world. While it’s clear that there’s plenty of ignorance inherent in other societies around the world, no other national government comes close to investing as much energy and resources into creating new levels of ignorance in their populations as does the US.
BushCo, along with their predecessors in the Reagan and Bush 41 regimes have been creating the controlled climate in which people are willing to believe their crap for decades. And it is this long term thought reform, propaganda effort that created the conditions within which people here at home would believe the absurd statements of lying creatures like Hughes and her ilk. Lies built upon other lies; people tricked into believing one thing, and then led from that to believe all the other falsehoods.
Hughes and her bosses simply missed the basic fact that the populations in other nations have not been properly conditioned to be vulnerable to their particular brand of deception and coercion. I suspect they got so giddy with their successes in brainwashingthe public here at home that they became delusional; assuming their plan was so good that they were infallible.
A common mistake among megalomaniacs, cult leaders and con-men of all stripes, and a mistake which always leads to their downfall.
Karen Hughes is a pock faced drunken bar maid in a shit hole Klan biker bar
That’ is exactly what she is .
She has no idea. She has no idea.
They are cunning but not intelligent, and that is their downfall. Shielded by their own arrogance and surrounded by power, they are vaguely aware of the multitude in the world who surpass them in intelligence, dismissing them as “elites.”
GWB was not even smart enough to know that he could never handle the job even for one day. He thought he could surround himself with smart people but was not astute enough to judge who was smart and who was not.
Almost half of the electorate was fooled into believing in Bush, many just voted for him to their own advantage (tax cuts, military contracts and other federal contracts).
Cunning gives them too much credit. I think they are just liars who lie badly and use their prestigous positions as a backdrop for credibility.
But I am so glad you said they are not intelligent and that you made a distinction between intelligence. Intelligence is simply behavior that is beneficial to an organism, government, individual. What they do is self destructive, that’s a definition for stupidity, epecially when the opportunity to act intelligently is abudantly available to them.
I am convinced that these people are really disturbed psychologically and they share a kind of paranoia of “outsiders”.
The Neo Cons were called the crazies by Powell and Bush sr. That’s is all too accurate. Too bad Powell and Bush sr. are weak.