who's that girl?
Yet another Great Moment in Executive Branch Bullshit to add to the scrapbook:
I am always interested in finding out who the people are that are chosen to sit with in the "good seats" at the State of The Union. Especially after last year, when Chalabi was sitting in the seat. You often wonder who these people are. So as I'm watching the woman hold up a shaky "peace" sign, finger stained in purple, you are wonder. "Did they fly her in? Wow, that's some crazy symbolism.". . .
Here's what Bush said. "Eleven years ago, Safia's father was assassinated by Saddam's intelligence service. Three days ago in Baghdad, Safia was finally able to vote for the leaders of her country -- and we are honored that she is with us tonight." Her name is Safia Taleb Al Souhail. She works for the "International Alliance For Justice," which no longer has a website that is functioning - www.i-a-j.org. I tried to do a Google search for the site and found a cached version of another one, www.a-i-j.org, which is down now as well and looks like it's been taken over by a defunct porn website. As for www.i-a-j.org, it's now a rather generic "anti-spyware" website. . .
I did a search and found that she published an article in December of 2003 for the group "Foundation For the Defence of Democracies." They seem pretty reasonable when you look at their mission statement on the website. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is a non-partisan, non- profit policy . . . Board of Directors?
Steve Forbes. Jack Kemp. Jeanne Kirkpatrick. . .
Distinguished Advisors?
Newt Gingrich. R. James Woolsey. . .
Board of Advisors?
Gary Bauer. Charles Karuthammer, Bill Kristol. Zell Miller. Richard Perle. . .
OK and then finally we see who represents the other side on that board:
Donna Brazille. Frank Lautenberg. Chuck Schumer. . .
(snippety snip)
But what struck me again was that she left the country in 1968. She returned to the country at some point recently. I found an article about her return to Iraq. to hold a Iraqi women's conference in Baghdad in July "facilitated by the coalition provisional authority." . . .
Her father was killed in 94. But although Bush said in the SOTU her father "was killed by Sadaam's Intelligence service," it's not quite the way you think it is. Her father was the leader of a tribe, but was killed in his exile home in Lebanon. How long was he in Lebanon? Doesn't say, but the rest of the family was living in Jordan for nearly 30 years. It is not clear where Safia lived. . .
(via Sam Smith's Progressive Review via Daily Kos)
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