Envoy: U.S. Showed 'Stupidity' in Iraq

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sat, Oct. 21, 2006
Envoy: U.S. showed 'stupidity' in Iraq
HAMZA HENDAWI
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A senior U.S. diplomat said the United States had shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq but was ready to talk with any group except Al-Qaida in Iraq to facilitate national reconciliation.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television aired late Saturday, Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department offered an unusually candid assessment of America's war in Iraq.

"We tried to do our best but I think there is much room for criticism because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq," he said.
(snip/)

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/world/15817282.htm

[Hav]

1. .

Lol, no shit!
Stupidity and arrogance actually describes the whole Bush presidency pretty well.

[saigon68]

20. Ass Clown Bremer and his Merry band of Mercenary Thugs

[jimshoes]

2. Methinks this guy's career is

kaput! I don't ever see chimpy admitting that he's stupid, even though everyone on Earth knows it.

[jazzjunkysue]

3. "Hurry! Get Alberto Fernandez in a van and stop the bleeding!"

"Get his stepford replacement online a.s.a.p.

We can't go around telling the truth! People will be confused!"

[RufusEarl]

4. This is what i would call a huge change by Bu$h & Co,

from stay the course BS. This sounds like Bu$h is giving up on Iraq to me, at least he's willing to talk to someone.

[Peace Patriot]

10. Yup, I think this guy is speaking by permission. We're looking at the

James Baker 'fix." But it's not clear yet what it is. Things are so bad in Iraq that we could conceivably be looking at an emergency evacuation of US forces in the not too distant future. Baker is possibly trying to forestall that, while he works out how to protect Bush Cartel assets (people, spies, death squads, money, property) and perhaps set up some spies and operatives for various contingencies. Funny, I was fantasizing the other day, thinking: why don't they just surround the oil fields with a high fence and protect them with nuclear warheads, and vacate all the parts of Iraq they don't give a fuck about, like where all the people are? It would save us a lot of soldiers and money, and save the Iraqis a lot of grief, if they would just concede the oil to the Bushites and eat sand for the rest of their lives. At least they would HAVE lives. Maybe they could go back to being nomads and raising camels (--and leave 5,000 years of civilization to the sand dunes).

However, I've always felt that the chaos in Iraq was deliberate. Remember, it was this same gang that traded arms to Iran, back in the day, and set up Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. So their opposition to Iran may just be hot air, and something else is going on. I mean, they've now eliminated Iran's worst enemy--Iraq. Iran wins. Fundamentalist Islam wins. The Bushites have always been closer to the Saudi sultans and princes than anyone else, who are also fundamentalists (much more severe than the Iranians). And this whole thing about selling our ports to the UAE is just freaky beyond belief. Could it be that a separate oil corporation agreement is in progress with Iran, to somehow control the spigot vis a vis China, in exchange for the Bushites having removed the Iraq threat from Iran's border, and part of the deal is the fundi imams get to rule over all the women in Persia and Babylonia?

They are real dirty dealers, the Bushites. Put nothing past them. And what I mean by an oil corp/Iran deal is something NOT in the interest of the American people. Iran opened an oil bourse in March. I think their biggest buyer is China. China holds a big chunk of US debt paper (debt skyrocketed by the Iraq war and multiple tax cuts for the super-rich). China could nosedive the US dollar tomorrow, if it wanted to. How to profit from this, if profit is your only only goal? You'd take your money--all the riches you'd looted from the American people--and put them into other, healthier currencies--such as the euros that Iran is trading in (--I'm not sure about the yen; but other possibilities are the new economies in So. America, rebounding after popular uprisings against the Corporate Rulers--the throwing off of World Bank/IMF debt and policies, and the election of leftist governments. I know this is farfetched, but apparently the Bushites have just bought a big chunk of Paraguay, on the Bolivian border--two of the many So. American countries that now have leftist governments. Are they planning on overseeing their new real estate speculations in So. America--which should go up in value as these economies rebound under good leftist governments--from their perch in Paraguay?)

Well, I don't know enough about all this--currency trading, etc.--to really guess at what they might be up to. But it does kind of look like they are trying to escape with the family jewels--leaving both the American people and the Iraqi people to spend their rage in vain on the murderous thieves who have vanished in the night.

[Marrak]

13. James Baker's Double Life: A Special Investigation

A case can certainly be made that James Baker and Madeleine Albright have had more direct influence over Iraq's debts and reparations payments than any politicians outside Iraq, with the possible exception of the forty-first and forty-third Presidents of the United States.
<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041101/klein>


:shrug:

[SOS]

5. Arrogant and stupid

He's almost certainly referring to Bremer and Rumsfailed.

It's the State Dept. vs. Pentagon smackdown.

[geek tragedy]

12. And Feith and Wolfowitz and Cheney and

just about everyone involved.

[AlamoDemoc]

6. Mr. Fernandez speaks fluent Arabic

I think his comments will be played over and over again on every Middle East TV station.

[Harper_is_Bush]

7. 10 to 1 he'll be losing his job shortly. n/t

[krispos42]

15. He didn't fail, so no Medal of Freedom for him

Honest and competent, with a firm grasp of reality and actually speaks the language and understands the culture he's dealing with? There's no room for him in BushCo's administration.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

8. U.S. showed stupidity in America, too.

Nothing but horseshit.

[rodeodance]

9. I would add 'greed'

[oblivious]

11. "We tried to do our best" = We tried to rape the country.

[krispos42]

14. I'd call him Capt. Obvious, except...

He's saying it on the record. ANYTIME BushCo admits they're wrong is a major story!

[teryang]

16. A former envoy to N.Korea recommended direct talks....

...this was a few days ago, on tape on CSPAN today. His name was Pritchard. He worked for the Asst. Secretary Hill and was basically saying the President needed a direct representative to go to Kim to try to move him off his intransigent position. The weird thing was that he was completely flattering to the administration and not sympathetic at all to the N.Korean perspective. In an acknowledgement of the repudiation of the agreed framework by the US, he said this administration is not going to building any light water reactors for N.Korea. Also, that the republicans did not have a statesman with the stature of Jimmy Carter to go to N.Korea and break the deadlock there.

I also heard another expert on CNN War of the Week or whatever it is, say flat out that the N.Korean developement of nuclear weapons was, in part, a direct response to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Such candor wasn't exactly appreciated.

[Eugene]

17. The U.S. has shown arrogance and stupidity just about everywhere.

BushCo foreign policy is "America über alles! Screw you if you're not with us."
The Bushies have screwed up in Iraq (and the whole Middle East in general),
Afghanistan, Asia, Latin America, Africa, and even Europe. And now they're
about to do it again with Iran and North Korea.

I'm afraid that Mr. Fernandez's admission was meant mainly for Arab consumption
as a timely bit of candor to gain Arab trust and make the U.S. message more credible.

[struggle4progress]

19. The usual mishmash:

Bush holds strategy session on Iraq
JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Saturday reviewed Iraq strategy with top war commanders and national security advisers ... "I wouldn't read into this somehow that there is a full-scale push for a major re-evaluation," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said ... Alberto Fernandez, director of public diplomacy in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, said in an interview aired Saturday on al-Jazeera television that the United States had shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq but was now willing to talk to any group ... State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, in Moscow with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said that Fernandez disputes the description of his comments ...

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/15818073.htm

The prezdint's holdin a strategery session but we ain't need to rethink what we're doin, and if yew is an A-rab, we's sayin one thing but if yew isn't then we ain't sayin that at all, and Baker's examinin it but by the time he reports we'll have us anudda terra alert or sumthin ...

[Amonester]

18. Squandering half a trillion on stupidity is what the Republicans do

with the taxpayers's national debt when they succeed at robbing elections...

PASS THE WORD

K&R

[Jamastiene]

21. Yahoo worded this same headline in a way that makes me

feel like they are saying the U.S. is stupid. Great. Now, because Little Lord Pissy Pants is stupid, we all are. :banghead:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061022/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_us_insurgents;_ylt=A9G_RwKDKTtF_WsBzTN34T0D;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--


...
But it is true. The way Chimpy has handled the whole deal with Iraq has been nothing but pure stupidity and arrogance from day one. Now, even though even some of his supporters are breaking ranks from him, he is still going full steam ahead with the wrong way to go about doing things. What an idiot.

[Amonester]

22. Bumper-stickers to "counter-attack" using the Truth needed:

Arrogant and Stupid? Vote Republican!

(Would that 'backfire'? I hope not.)

[Jamastiene]

23. The way I read it, it should say exactly what it means.

If a person is arrogant and stupid, they should vote republican. I can assure you, they do that by default though. :P

[Sydnie]

24. Diplomat cites U.S. 'stupidity' in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A senior U.S. diplomat said the United States had shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq but was now ready to talk with any group except Al-Qaida in Iraq to facilitate national reconciliation.

"We tried to do our best but I think there is much room for criticism because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq," he said.

"We are open to dialogue because we all know that, at the end of the day, the solution to the hell and the killings in Iraq is linked to an effective Iraqi national reconciliation," he said, speaking in Arabic from Washington. "The Iraqi government is convinced of this."

The question of negotiations between the United States and insurgency factions has repeatedly surfaced over the past two years, but details have been sketchy. One issue that was often raised in connection with such negotiations was the extent of amnesty the United States and its Iraqi allies were willing to offer to the insurgents if they disarmed and joined the political process.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061022/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_us_insurgents

So much more at the link that should not go unnoticed too!

[stepnw1f]

25. Greed Made their Stupidity and Arrogance Possible.... (nt)

[sabra]

26. Administration casts doubts on reported comments on 'arrogance,' 'stupidit

http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=5572554&nav=2CSf

Administration casts doubts on reported comments on 'arrogance,' 'stupidity'

WASHINGTON The Bush administration is raising more questions about comments made by a senior State Department official about the war in Iraq.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera, the U-S diplomat was quoted as saying the U-S has shown "arrogance" and "stupidity" in Iraq.

He spoke in Arabic, and the comments were translated. But were they translated correctly?

A senior Bush administration official says they might not have been. The official says, "Those comments obviously don't reflect our position."

And a State Department spokesman says the diplomat, Alberto Fernandez, doesn't think the reports of his comments are an "accurate reflection of what he said."

[Drum]

27. 86% of us agree with that State Dept. official...

check/vote in poll, toward bottom & right side of page:
www.cnn.com

[Preening Fop]

28. BBC World News: "Mr. Fernandez Did Indeed Use The Words"

BBC Arabic Language Experts say,

Mr. Fernandez did use the words: Arrogant and Stupid.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6074182.stm

[dapper]

29. ...and they are showing it again!

"Administration casts doubts on reported comments on 'arrogance,' 'stupidity'."

isn't that by definition showing their arrogance and stupidity again :-)

Dap

[havocmom]

30. Admin suggests comments not translated correctly?!?!

If they weren't so arrogant and stupid, they would have more Arabic speaking people on their staffs and they would KNOW whether or not the translations were correct! If they weren't so arrogant as to assume everyone else is stupid, they would realize MILLIONS can understand it in the original context and not buy into their version of what was said!

If they weren't so arrogant and stupid to encourage witch hunts against gays in the military (the ones not touting their party lines and easily blackmailed into acquiescence) they would have more Arabic AND Farsi translators in the military! How much better could things be going in the ME if we had more personnel who actually understood some of the languages? Their arrogance and stupidity (and need to hide behind Straw Men) put party loyalty and sexual orientation above actual skill and knowledge for appointees and hired personnel.

They would rather appear 'Politically Correct' to the bigoted whims of their ever shrinking arrogant and stupid far-right-fundy-xian-tools than to have competent help with national security!

Their arrogance and stupidity, their WILLFUL IGNORANCE and their encouragement of others to remain WILLFULLY IGNORANT is driving this nation behind a new Iron Curtain where decisions based on actual knowledge are impossible.

And calling it arrogance and stupidity is being kind. If it isn't that double threat, it is outright insanity. Either way, the keys to the kingdom must be wrested from them and the nation returned to its place as an honorable and just world neighbor.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

31. Here's what the actual quote was

"I think there is great room for strong criticism, because without doubt, there was arrogance and stupidity by the United States in Iraq."

Yes, the original translation has been verified and this is what he really said. Frankly, I agree with Mr. Fernandez on his assessment.

[VegasWolf]

32. Arrogance and stupidity perfectly define Bush. nt

[stepnw1f]

33. Arrogant and Stupid... Describes the Whole Republican Party Today (nt)

[Tempest]

34. Isn't this interesting, and hypocritical

The administration believes the speeches by Iranian president Ahmadinejad are translated correctly, but complain when one of their own is translated and he has criticized the U.S.

[BrokenBeyondRepair]

35. arrogant and criminal would be more accurate..

i don't buy the whole stupidity, incompetent theory; their objective was to split iraq in 3 and they have succeeded..

[rodeodance]

36. Iraq Invasion to Be Termed a US Failure

past time US papers started calling a rose a rose!


http://www.plenglish.com/Article.asp?ID=%7B270465EA-82BB-4070-8223-531DFCCDD5B0%7D&language=EN

Iraq Invasion to Be Termed a US Failure

Qatar, Oct 22 (PRENSA LATINA) US policy in Iraq founds a growing consensus about it´s possible failure, judging by an opinion of a senior State Department official in an interview with al Jazeera TV.

Washington is now willing to to talk to any insurgent group apart from al-Qaeda in Iraq, to reduce sectarian bloodshed, said Alberto Fernandez, an Arabic speaker who is director of public diplomacy in the state department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

The New York Times reported that the Bush administration was preparing a timetable for the government role. to meet objectives, including disarming sectarian militias, that would stabilise the country and allow US troops to take a reduced role.

.........

[yourout]

37. Hasn't been a failure for Haliburton.

[rodeodance]

38. BBC" US 'arrogant and stupid' in Iraq

US 'arrogant and stupid' in Iraq
Soldier in Iraq
Mr Fernandez said failure in Iraq would be a regional disaster
A senior US state department official has said that the US has shown "arrogance and stupidity" in Iraq.

Alberto Fernandez made the remarks during an interview with Arabic television station al-Jazeera.

The state department says Mr Fernandez was quoted incorrectly - but BBC Arabic language experts say Mr Fernandez did indeed use the words.

........

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6074182.stm

[WCGreen]

39. Not US Arrogance... The Neo Con and Bush's ....

[DoYouEverWonder]

40. It's been a huge success for BushCo and their Oil Pals

It's the rest of us you are left to clean up the mess.

[Unvanguard]

41. In other news, grass is green.

Honestly... did it really take them over three years to recognize this obvious fact?