She is completely unqualified but she is a Bush crony. She is the tall Texan, a fellow alum of SMU, who speaks no Arabic and has no experience as a diplomat. Nevertheless, Bush has appointed her as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. Karen Hughes is out traveling the globe explaining America to the Islamic world. So far she has promised drivers ed to Saudi women and garbled her facts about Saddam to Indonesian audiences. Everywhere she goes, people seem to be shaking their heads. Let's just hope she doesn't start any wars by accident.
Karen Hughes, Stay Home! What on earth is she doing in the Middle East? Quote:
|
Could someone please explain to me what Karen Hughes is doing. Her maiden voyage to the Middle East has turned into a fiasco. She assures a room of Saudi women that they, too, will someday drive cars; they tell her they're actually happy right now, thank you. She meets with a group of Turkish women—hand-picked by an outfit that supports women running for political office—who brusquely tell her she has no credibility as long as U.S. troops occupy Iraq.
|
Turks Challenge Hughes On Iraq Quote:
A group of Turkish women's rights activists confronted Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes on Wednesday with emotional and heated complaints about the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, turning a session designed to highlight the empowering of women into a raw display of the anger at U.S. policy in the region.
"This war is really, really bringing your positive efforts to the level of zero," said Hidayet Sefkatli Tuksal, an activist with the Capital City Women's Forum. She said it was difficult to talk about cooperation between women in the United States and Turkey as long as Iraq was under occupation.
|
U.S. envoy: Saddam gassed hundreds of thousands Quote:
U.S. envoy Karen Hughes on Friday defended Washington's decision to go to war against Iraq in front of a skeptical audience, saying Saddam Hussein had gassed to death "hundreds of thousands" of his own people. A State Department official later said she misspoke about the number.
Although at least 300,000 Iraqis are said to have been killed during Saddam's decades-long rule — only about 5,000 are believed to have been gassed to death in a 1988 attack in the Kurdish north.
|
Is Karen Hughes just another example of cronyism over competence, or is the Bush administration that tone deaf that they think any old flack could serve as a diplomat to the Middle East?