Meetings go on frequently with people

Roger Noriega, Assistant Secretary of State for Saying Stupid Things about Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, Etc., whom I last mentioned earlier this month when he blamed Chavez for the uprising in Bolivia, offering no proof at all, has accused Jean-Bertrand Aristide, deposed president of Haiti, of orchestrating violence there, offering his usual standard of iron-clad evidence: “As a longtime observer of Haiti and a longtime consumer of information about Haiti, it is abundantly clear to me . . . that Aristide and his camp are singularly responsible for most of the violence and for the concerted nature of the violence.”

(No one picked up the Miami Herald story. Hat tip to You Will Anyway.)

The LA Times reports that rather than demolishing Abu Ghraib, which Bush once said would be “a fitting symbol of Iraq’s new beginning,” we are now doing the opposite: expanding it, and building a new prison. It remains a fitting symbol, but of complete failure.

As is Rumsfeld’s admission on Fox and Meet the Press that the US has been negotiating with Sunni insurgents, although not, he says, with “the people that are out chopping people’s heads off.” Well sure, ‘cause they’re out. Maybe when they get back. Rummy added, “I would not make a big deal out of it. Meetings go on frequently with people.” No kidding.


Rummy said the war might take 12 years to win. 12 years from when? Just so I can mark it on my calendar.

But he also says the insurgents “don’t have any vision” — Rumsfeld criticizing someone for lacking vision is like Rumsfeld criticizing someone for being squat and squinty — “There’s no Ho Chi Minh, there’s no Mao, there’s no nationalistic -- this is led by Zarqawi. He’s a Jordanian and he’s doing it not against a dictatorial government, he’s doing it against an elected Iraqi government.” Funny, I thought he was “doing it” against an American occupation.

Indeed, Rumsfeld sounds at several points like the Americans are mere spectators to events in Iraq now, only mildly interested because we bet only a couple of bucks. Those contacts, which were reported as being between American officials and Sunnis, he portrayed as contacts between Sunnis and the Iraqi regime, which can do what it wants because it’s all sovereign and everything; we were only “facilitating.” And we’re not even going to defeat the insurgents: “We’re going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency.” Whatever the fuck that means.

Elsewhere in the interview, Rumsfeld referred to “Michael Moore, or whatever his name is”.