NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, 16 April 2004 — An old American song goes, “Don’t know much about history.... Don’t know much about the rise and fall. Don’t know much about nothing at all.”

Sounds like the song sung by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice before the 9/11 Commission.

The scary part? If Bush wins a second term, rumor is he will reward Rice’s performance with promotion to secretary of state or defense.

That’s pretty crazy, considering that most of what Rice said was simply wrong.

Rice blames 9/11 not on the Bush administration’s or her own negligence, but on America’s “old ways of thinking and acting.”

But it’s hard for Rice to come up with new ideas when she doesn’t know much about history and the Middle East, which she claims, in ludicrous overstatement, is “the world’s most dangerous region.”

That may be true if you’re driving there. It has a very high rate of fatal traffic accidents. But if Rice means possessing weapons of mass destruction, North Korea is plenty more dangerous. And for terrorism, it’s hard to beat Colombia, which the US State Department describes as the most dangerous place on earth.

But maybe this is all in some memo that a powerful man hasn’t yet handed to Rice.

Also needing tweaking is Rice’s notion that the US “removed from power two of the world’s most brutal regimes, sources of violence and fear and instability.” Decades previously, America considered Iraq, both before and during Saddam Hussein, to be a bulwark of Western-style, secular stability against volatile, religiously-roiling Iran.

And while the US “removed” Saddam “from power,” the same can hardly be said of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, who remains very much in place. And far from living in “fear and violence,” impoverished North Africans flock to Libya for jobs, education, and its overall “quality of life” which is high, compared to other nearby places.

Rice’s ridiculous and often laughable remarks seek to justify policies she claims are “bold and comprehensive changes.”

“(W)e cannot wait while dangers gather,” Rice insists. But this, the “Bush doctrine” of pre-emption, is nothing less than eternal war. A doctrine contemptuously rejected by America’s Founding Fathers. A doctrine that inspired Europe to start two world wars in modern times alone.

Rice doesn’t even know her own country’s history. In her 9/11 Commission testimony, she incongruously referred to her African-American heritage with the line, “When our Founding Fathers said, ‘We the people,’ they didn’t mean me.”

Well, of course “they” didn’t “mean” Rice, who wasn’t even born yet. But in fact the Founding Fathers were distressed about slavery, anticipated that slaves would someday be citizens, and their Constitution’s Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 did include both persons of color and even slaves, as well as white indentured servants.

Rice plays her race card, word for word, to garner admiration. In fact, she has trotted it out before Muslim-American audiences to justify US intervention in Iraq.

Unless she now claims to be an American Indian, Rice’s statement’s just wrong, and she should stop saying it.

But ignorance aside, does Rice really “welcome new ideas and fresh thinking?”

Not likely, if it interferes with Bush’s Cold War-style mongering. But here are a few she should chew on.

First, either stop the democracy charade or make it a reality, then live with it. If Iraqis could vote tomorrow, they would vote the US out of town. And India, where Muslims vote all the time, is voting to resist America’s agenda.

The alternative? Deal with states that choose religious or quasi-religious governance forms. Ask: Is the US really better off for having no relations with Muslim-run states like Iran?

But the real “fresh thinking” Rice claims to prize will focus on Israel. Showing compassion for Palestinians, restoring their stolen lands, restoring their national identity, and fairly criticizing and sanctioning their tormenters, would do much to reduce the global terrorist threat.

And if Rice insists upon a truly democratic process, imagine this, if you dare: Imagine a Middle East in which all persons of that tiny, troubled and oh-so troubling state have equal rights and vote in the same elections.

Imagine a one-state solution.

If the United States showed compassion and championed those aspects of the Palestinian cause that cry out most for immediate justice, there is not a nation in the world that would not bend a knee, or extend a hand, in friendship, thanks, and profound admiration.

And admiration leads to imitation, which would lead to a true and lasting peace. And perhaps even to the global democracy that Rice purports to crave.

Are Bush and Rice up to the task? Not if they can’t even recognize it. They need to learn some history. Some geography. Learn about the rise and fall.

But clearly, they’re more comfortable learning about nothing at all.

— Sarah Whalen is an expert in Islamic law and teaches law at Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans, Louisiana.