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Not the person (woman) for the job

The question confronting Obama is whether to appoint Susan Rice, present USA representative at the UN, to replace Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State.  

Glenn Greenwald, in his latest op-ed piece in The Guardian, reveals a side of Rice which would, he believes - as ought any right-thinking person - makes her totally unsuitable for for the role of America's Secretary of State.

"But what is remarkable is how so many Democrats are devoting so much energy to defending a possible Susan Rice nomination as Secretary of State without even pretending to care about her record and her beliefs. It's not even part of the discussion. And now that some writers have begun examining that record, it's not hard to see the reason for this omission.

Last week, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern extensively documented Rice's long record of cheering for US wars, including being an outspoken and aggressive advocate of the attack on Iraq, support that persisted for many years. In a New York Times Op-Ed yesterday, Eritrean-American journalist Salem Solomon condemned Rice's fondness for tyrants in Africa, while Black Agenda Report's Glen Ford argued - with ample documentation - that her supporters "care not a whit for Africa, whose rape and depopulation has been the focus of Rice's incredibly destructive career." A New York Times news article from Monday separately suggests that Rice's close ties to the ruling regime in Rwanda - that government "was her client when she worked at Intellibridge, a strategic analysis firm in Washington" - has led Washington to tacitly endorse its support for brutal rebels in the Congo.

Meanwhile, so-called "pro-Israel" groups have vocally supported her possible nomination due to her steadfast defense of Israel at the UN, hailing her as "an ardent defender of major Israeli positions in an unfriendly forum." It was recently discovered that Rice "holds significant investments in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would stand to benefit from expansion of the North American tar sands industry and construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline," and that "about a third of Rice's personal net worth is tied up in oil producers, pipeline operators, and related energy industries north of the 49th parallel -- including companies with poor environmental and safety records on both U.S. and Canadian soil."

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