Flacking for Gbagbo
I'm not in the Ivory Coast, and I'm hardly one to endorse the idea that something is true just because everyone in the world seems to think it is. But I do note that everyone in the world--except for Lanny Davis--seems to think Laurent Gbagbo is sending death squads to kill his political opponents. They also seem to think that the UN is considering using force to remove him, that thousands of refugees are fleeing to Guinea, that the country has been expelled from ECOWAS, that the EU is threatening sanctions, that the World Bank has frozen the country's funding, and that the US, Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands have strongly advised their citizens to leave immediately.
Our State Department spokesman seems to believe that Gbagbo's defeat in the election is “irrefutable” and that his militias are killing opponents and dumping their bodies, possibly in mass graves.
Gbagbo, the rest of the world seems to believe, is prepared to "fight to his last breath," or so warned "one well-placed observer, a regular visitor to Gbagbo's isolated court at the well-guarded presidential residence in the plush Abidjan suburb of Cocody.
Surrounded by the loyal and brutal troops of his 1,500-strong Republican Guard and 2,000-strong CECOS police special forces, Gbagbo has little to fear militarily from Ouattara's camp.
The shadow government is in a bunker of its own, a few kilometres away, in the lagoon-side Golf Hotel resort, protected by 800 United Nations peacekeepers that are themselves encircled by a cordon of Gbagbo loyalists.
The rest of the world also seems to think Gbagbo has cut off food and medical supplies to the UN Peacekeepers who are guarding the man who was actually elected.
So: Gbagbo is either unrequited scum, as the entire rest of the world believes, or an unjustly maligned man with a major PR problem on his hands, as Lanny Davis--who is advising Gbagbo--would seem to be suggesting:
I urge the international community to avoid a rush to judgment until all the facts regarding the November 28 election are fairly evaluated – a position that offers the best chance to avoid bloodshed and to achieve peace and stability, and one that I have taken in providing crisis management advice to clients all my professional career,” Davis said.
How could I say? I'm not there. Maybe the whole world is wrong; that happens sometimes.
But if Lanny were asking me for advice, I'd say, "You know, Lanny, that's a dirty job. And actually, no one has to do it."
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Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Flacking for Gbagbo
Claire, please, stop. Every minute we can keep Lanny Davis tied up in the Ivory Coast is a minute that he is not on some DC morning drive show reciting smarmy Dem talking points as if they were the Ten Commandments and Kantian imperatives rolled into one. He's a local proxy for the Dems the way that CAIR is a local proxy for Muslims.
I know, this is terrifically selfish of me. And tasteless. Mea culpa. I have no right to ask this of the people of the Ivory Coast in such a time. But by Ivory Coast standards Lanny must be almost bearable. I could send them a couple of bucks for their trouble, if that will make the difference.
Jul '10
Re: Flacking for Gbagbo
Never mind. I didn't know they were the leading source for cocoa. Political stability wins.
Nov '10
Re: Flacking for Gbagbo
Lanny Davis was a notorious lickspittle for the Clinton administration. If things go sour, and Lanny comes to a sticky end, it will not break my heart. Is Lanny actually in the Ivory Coast? I fervently hope so.
Lanny is obviously being paid a lot of money for this gig, but greed has not only overcome his principles (assuming he had any), but his prudence, as well. He has injected himself into a very hot spot, and he will be lucky to get out with his check.
Jun '10
Re: Flacking for Gbagbo
I know nothing about the Ivory Coast situation myself, but if international opinion is correct about it, then it looks like we may have the next Ramsey Clark.
Aug '10
Re: Flacking for Gbagbo
Claire, I think the only reason you wrote this post is because all your life you've been itching to type "Flacking for Gbagbo".
Also, I think it makes a great title for an existentialist play -- or musical.
Aug '10
Re: Flacking for Gbagbo
Africa is the garden of unclear thinking. Well, all the Third World is, but Africa's distinction is that people in it are just as nutty as those outside it. Usually Third-Worlders themselves are unilluded, and frank to a fault - Brazilians and Turks, at least, are anything but cheerleaders for their own countries. Africa, though, has got something else. And whatever it is, it's contagious: people who merely visit the place are as besotted and unrealistic as the residents. Foreigners go bonkers about Africa, then they make a pilgrimage and go more bonkers still. They just do.
Once - once - I caught an example of clear thinking in Africa. It was on a radio program in South Africa in 1995. One guy was saying that Australia was South Africa's natural trading partner: the two nations' extractive industries were complementary, and could do much together. The other guy was surprised. Australia is so far away; doesn't it make more sense to cultivate good economic relations with South Africa's immediate neighbors? The first guy was crisply dismissive: "They - can't - pay!"
Jul '10
Re: Flacking for Gbagbo
Chalk up Lanny Davis in the same category as the notorious Ramsey Clark, attorney general under LBJ and later legal advocate for such distinguished criminal figures as Nazi war criminals Karl Linnas and Jack Reimer; David Koresh; Liberian president Charles Taylor; Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, one of the prime instigators of genocide in Rwanda; the PLO leaders who killed Leon Klinghoffer aboard the Achille Lauro; Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic of Balkan genocide fame; and, not least, Saddam Hussein, whom Clark defended from charges of genocide by saying, "He had this huge war going on, and you have to act firmly when you have an assassination attempt."
All dirty jobs — all jobs that no one (or certainly not a former Attorney General of the United States) had to do.
May '10
Re: Flacking for Gbagbo
It certainly doesn't look very good for Mr. Gbagbo, but my contrarian impulses make me naturally want to side against the U.N. and the MSM. Lanny Davis' argument is basically, "Who are you to second guess the country's supreme court? Have you read their opinion?"
Apparently no one has. Not even the U.N. and certainly not the nice lady interviewing Davis on NPR.
How do we know Gbagbo should go? Because everyone is the media is telling us so.
I don't know nuthin' bout no death squads, but I do find myself wondering, "Why are we so ready to send in troops to Cote d'Ivoire and we were so unwilling to intervene in the similarly rigged and disputed Iranian election? Much less the multiple electoral travesties that have taken place in Pakistan and elsewhere.
How cowardly is that? Either it's none of our business and they should resolve it themselves and let us know when it's settled, or we should get similarly riled and militant every time there is a stolen/disputed election.
Dec '10
Re: Flacking for Gbagbo
And now we have another Clinton Administration re-tread, Mike Espy, flacking for Gbagbo:
Michael Espy, US agriculture secretary under President Bill Clinton, predicted that "renewed civil war is inevitable" if the crisis is not defused.
He is one of two Clinton-era Democratic veterans who are lobbying on behalf of the isolated regime, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leads US demands that Laurent Gbagbo accept defeat by Alassane Ouattara in last month's presidential run-off.
"President Gbagbo is very clear that he's not backing down," Mr Espy said after meeting the Ivorian leader and his senior advisers in Abidjan. "He is absolutely certain that this election was stolen by the rebel forces in the north. He is not going to abdicate."