Chestnuts from Our Archives: Osama bin Laden’s Favorite Czar

You may have seen Susan Rice on Sunday’s Meet the Press with David Gregory. If you didn’t, I’ve attached the clip for you. The clip clearly shows Rice’s confusion about the strategy regarding Afghanistan and terrorism. Why did she appear on the show if she can’t define the strategy? Her not answering the question only destroys America’s trust in her.

Susan Rice is the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, or the UN “czar,” a position elevated to the cabinet level by President Obama. The decision to make this a cabinet position is shocking. Does the current administration view the UN as equal to the U.S.?

Instead of reporting directly to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rice is her equal. Adding fuel to the fire, Rice used to be a staff member under President Bill Clinton, working with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In the heat of the Democratic primary battle, Rice flip-flopped from team Hillary over to team Obama. Picture the shouting match this must have created.

Prior to joining the Clinton team, Susan Rice was foreign-policy aide to Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. She was also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a foreign-policy advisor to Democratic candidate John Kerry.

On FrontPageMag.com, Joseph Klein writes that as a staff member on President Clinton’s National Security Council, Susan Rice “helped persuade Clinton to rebuff Sudan’s offer in 1996 to turn Osama bin Laden over to us while he was living in Sudan. The reason that Rice did not want any dealings with Sudan whatsoever, even to obtain custody of the terrorist mastermind or to receive intelligence information on terrorists from Sudanese authorities, was her consternation over Sudan’s human rights record. Instead we allowed bin Laden to move his terrorist operations to Afghanistan and spread mass killings all over the world, thanks in no small measure to Rice’s mindless advice.”

Rice incorrectly believes that poverty creates terrorism. She has attempted to prove that poverty and terrorism are related, and feels that U.S. taxpayers should fund $100 billion per year of new development-aid programs under the UN’s Millennium Development Project to fight terrorism in places like Africa. U.S. military intervention would be directed to the Darfur region of the Sudan and held accountable to the UN. If poverty creates terrorism, then who’s buying the weapons? Does she not understand that money is what makes terrorism tick?

According to the U.S. News and World Report, on Sep 11, 2009, Rice said, “We don’t believe the al Qaeda leadership is elsewhere in the world, we believe them to be [in Afghanistan].” Then, on Sunday, October 4, she flip-flopped and said we need to prevent al Qaeda from attacking us whether “from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Southeast Asia or any of the other places where we have been active and on the offensive against al Qaeda.”

General McChrystal is begging for a strategy and told 60 Minutes, “I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC

.”

“You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?” Mr. Martin followed up.

“That is correct,” the general replied. After McChrystal’s cry for help, Obama found time to meet with him while on his failed Olympics sales-trip. And still I ask, what is the strategy in Afghanistan and on terrorism? Please answer the question, Madam Secretary. Americans and their General want to know.

E.J. Smith is Managing Director of Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. an investment advisory firm managing portfolios for investors with over $1,000,000 in investable assets.