Rude but true...

I actually meant to comment on this on Sunday but there was far too much snow shoveling to do to sit down and write it out...and by delaying....The Rude Pundit beat me to the thought......quite rudely.....

The thought?

Well, again, it involved a tidbit (almsot a sidebar) from Sy Hersch's article in The New Yorker Magazine where he outlined the Bush Administration's "Rube Goldberg Strategy for the Middle East.

In case you've forgotten, the Shiite based government we support in Iraq, is too friendly with Iran, so in order to counter them, we're supporting their opponents (in a clandestine manner through their terrorist groups) the Sunni, who, in case you've forgotten are the Sect that Osama Bin Laden bleongs to AND are supported by Al Quada in Lebanon, so that they can fight the Shiia who are protecting us from the Sunni insurgents in Iraq....got it?

If you understand that...email me.....or pour me one of whatever you're drinking....

But that's not the "sidebar"...

No....

The sidebar is that the one person who refuses out of principle to have anything to do with this is...wait for it...

JOHN NEGROPONTE

or, as the Rude one put it:

"...that the depraved (deleted) who turned a blind eye to (and ensured funding for) Honduran death squads that plagued Central America back in the Reagan era (known these days to liberals as "Jesus, who'd've thought it could get worse?"), who was at the center of Iran-Contra, would sound, in the screwed up context of the players in Hersh's article, like the good guy? It's not unlike saying that Charle Manson is the most likeable serial killer because at least he surrounded himself with buddies."

Yep, that about explains it....Negroponte stepped down from Director of National Intelligence to take a lower-level job in the State Department because:

Leaving Congress out of the loop on how the Bush adminstration is funneling money through intermediaries in order to divide the Middle East on along Sunni-Shiite lines has the Bush administration dancing to Dexy's Midnight Runners. But, unlike, you know, Cheney, Elliot Abrams, and others, Negroponte seems to be feeling the cold breath of final judgment on his neck. Says Hersh, A "former senior intelligence official also told me that Negroponte did not want a repeat of his experience in the Reagan Administration, when he served as Ambassador to Honduras. 'Negroponte said, "No way. I’m not going down that road again, with the N.S.C. running operations off the books, with no finding."' (In the case of covert C.I.A. operations, the President must issue a written finding and inform Congress.) Negroponte stayed on as Deputy Secretary of State, he added, because 'he believes he can influence the government in a positive way.'

In the land of Left Blogsylvania, Negroponte's name is not to be mentioned in polite company. He's been branded as a terrorist, a killer, an enabler and, most recently, he has been blamed for starting up "death squads" in Iraq to try to quell the Sunni insurgency there.

The Rude one is right....for somebody with Negorponte's past to come off as a "good guy" in this mess must mean the whole thing is pretty messed up......pretty BADLY messed up..

Okay rude one...you beat me to it.....and did it better than I could...although I don't think I can be that rude....