Hillary Clinton seems to have found a way to get people from moving beyond her disastrous “dead broke” claims, but not in a way that is likely to please those voters tired of wars and military interventions. Clinton used an interview this week to criticize the “failure” of President Obama’s policies in Syria and to insist that she wanted a more interventionist military approach. President Obama was quoted responding to such criticism by calling it “horseshit.” It seemed a return to the 2008 election where Clinton campaigned on her hawk credentials in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — a mistake for many Democratic and independent voters. Recently, she changed her mind and said that the Iraq War was a mistake despite her refusal to listen to a chorus of critics of the war at the time when it was a popular political move. Despite that change, Clinton is suggesting that she would have armed the Syrian rebels and acted more aggressively to stop the Islamic State.
In the interview with prominent foreign affairs writer Jeffrey Goldberg, Clinton attacked Obama’s decision not to quickly and strongly support the Syrian rebels and said that the West Wing’s foreign policy mantra — “Don’t do stupid stuff”— is “not an organizing principle.” She seemed to brush over the fact that that the same course that led us into repeated costly military campaigns or that many of the rebels at the time were found to be committing atrocities like the regime. Then there is the fact that many of our weapons have already ended up in the hands of the Islamic State in places like Iraq — as we saw in Afghanistan with Al Qaeda.
The statements were a replay of Clinton’s much maligned campaign against Obama in 2008 that she was the one who could handle the “3 a.m. phone call.” As someone who supported both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, many insisted that they did not want any more such calls.
The change in strategy and message may not be coincidental. A major poll this month by NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing Obama’s approval rating at an “all-time low.” The interview was widely viewed as designed to separate Clinton from the declining fortunes of both Obama and the Democratic Congress.
Putting aside the timing, Clinton has repeatedly shown herself to be closer to George W. Bush than Obama on military interventions. She used the interview to reaffirm her absolute support for Israel and her credentials in committing U.S. military resources in foreign conflicts.
Nevertheless, while criticizing Clinton on the attack against Obama and interventionist drumbeat, liberal writers like Joan Walsh at Salon.com are still cited in the article below as still expecting to support Clinton for the next president. It is part of a continuing rift on the left of our political spectrum. It is not clear what are the dominant values of the Democratic Party going into this election. Civil liberties and war issues used to be a rallying point for liberals. However, those issues have been seriously undermined by the Obama Administration and the Clinton campaigns in 2008 and 2014. Clearly, some agree with Clinton’s hawkish views and others are drawn to the chance of electing a female, even one with opposing views. However, there remains a remarkably fluidity in the defining values for the party going into the election beyond the dominant blue state/red state rhetoric that the Republicans are simply worse. That narrative is clearly not working but seems to be the only theme upon which the party is advancing consistently. There is the immigration issue but that has proven extremely risky and does not appear to have paid off politically. Indeed, some black leaders and voters have publicly opposed the effort by Democratic members to push for legalizing the status of millions of undocumented individuals. We are, as the Chinese curse says, living in interesting times.
Source: Politico
Her recent position (or misunderstanding) on Edward Snowden and whistleblowers may come back to bite her.
Prior to 9/11 much of this whistleblowing was perfectly legal, the exploitation and abuse of the Espionage Act of 1917 is an issue that must be dealt with by both parties.
Just this week a group of Pulitzer Prize winning journalists (best of the best) slammed the DOJ for trying to prosecute Risen for his reporting in 2005.
This issue is not going away! Clinton must address it.
Wondering were freedom went?
“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established.” – James Madison
Proud now?
Dredd,
And we all know…
… “It’s never a war crime when (insert personal political party) does it.”
I’m inclined to move past the War Party and start calling them for what they are… THE WAR CRIMINAL PARTY. And look, they come in TWO COLORS.
Jill: “ginning up war against both nations”
Setting aside the merits for OEF, you’re incorrect on OIF.
Excerpt from http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html :
Q: Did Iraq failing its compliance test justify the regime change?
A: Yes.
One, the “clear and present danger” (Clinton) of Saddam was imputed from Iraq’s noncompliance, not Iraq’s demonstrated possession of WMD stocks. With the broad spectrum of mandates and proven success of Saddam’s “denial and deception operations” (Duelfer Report), which included hidden stocks, Iraq’s compliance with the UNSC resolutions was determined by necessity with measures other than demonstrated possession.
Once Saddam pulled the trigger by failing his “final opportunity” (UNSCR 1441) to prove compliance, President Bush had to make his decision while weighing Iraq’s unaccounted for weapons and other violations, the intelligence at hand, and Saddam’s track record with the heightened threat consideration induced by 9/11.
Two, Bush’s decision either way was final. After Operation Desert Fox, the credible threat of regime change was the last remaining leverage to compel Saddam’s cooperation. The threat of regime change would no longer have been credible if it had been a dud when triggered by Saddam. President Clinton’s justification for ODF applied to OIF:
Calling off the regime change when Saddam pulled the trigger would have meant either a return to ‘containment’ or ending the Iraq enforcement altogether with a noncompliant Saddam. If returning to ‘containment’ was even practical at that point, the ‘containment’ option was broken. The failure to follow through on the threat of regime change would have left only freeing Saddam.
In hindsight, the Duelfer Report shows that a free Saddam meant an unreconstructed Saddam rearmed with WMD. Saddam’s motive was defeating the US-led Iraq enforcement and rearming Iraq, not compliance and rehabilitation. He was already reconstituting Iraq’s NBC capabilities, with an active program in the IIS, and was intent on fully restoring Iraq’s WMD, which he believed was necessary for Iraq’s national security, countering Iran, countering Israel, countering the US, and advancing his regional ambitions.
Three, the Iraq ceasefire enforcement was the defining UN enforcement of the post-Cold War. The UN had been unreliable during the Clinton administration, and Bush tried to reform the UN as a credible enforcer for the 9/11 era. If the US had backed down when Saddam failed to comply, then UN enforcement of international norms with rogue actors and WMD proscription would have been undermined, perhaps beyond recovery.
——————————————————————————–
. . .
The public controversy is over Bush’s presentation of intelligence on latter Iraqi NBC stocks and programs. However, in the context of the Saddam problem, Clinton and Bush officials were obligated to judge the intelligence in an unfavorable light for Iraq, and 9/11 compelled US officials to increase their wariness due to Saddam’s belligerence and guilt on terrorism. Again, the “clear and present danger” (Clinton) of Saddam was imputed from Iraq’s noncompliance, not Iraq’s demonstrated possession of WMD stocks, due in part to the proven success of Saddam’s “denial and deception operations” (Duelfer Report), which included hidden stocks.
The pre-war intelligence that Bush presented was the intelligence that was available. Congressmen, Democrats and Republicans, who independently reviewed the pre-war intelligence largely shared Bush’s determination. A partisan Democrat-slanted Senate Select Committee on Intelligence later analyzed pre-war statements by Bush administration officials and concluded they were largely “substantiated by intelligence”.
Bush’s mistake was presenting the pre-war intelligence to the public inapposite of its actual, circumscribed role in the operative enforcement procedure. The imprecision of intelligence due to Saddam’s deception was a known issue from the beginning and accounted for with Iraq’s presumption of guilt, burden of proof, and standard of compliance. For Operation Desert Fox, President Clinton had cited only to Iraq’s noncompliance in terms of insufficient cooperation and deficient account of weapons when he declared “Iraq has abused its final chance” and imputed the “clear and present danger” of Saddam. Clinton’s citation of noncompliance as the reason for bombing Iraq matched the operative enforcement procedure. When Clinton endorsed Bush’s Iraq enforcement, Clinton stayed consistent with his compliance-based justification for ODF by citing to the threat, heightened by the 9/11 attacks, of Saddam’s “unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons”.
Bush cited properly to Iraq’s noncompliance as Clinton had done for ODF, but Bush also cited to the intelligence, despite that the intelligence could not trigger enforcement. Propagandists pounced on Bush’s error of presentation to shift the burden of proof from Iraq to the US, but the mistake does not change that Saddam was noncompliant at the decision point for OIF and Bush properly applied the operative enforcement procedure.
Eric
Dredd: “War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes;”
That applied more when the US had a smaller GDP.
While the War Terror has had a large dollar cost, in fact, it’s not relatively large as a percent of GDP. Which is to say, the War on Terror, while a significant factor in the national debt, has not been a major driver of the national debt. There also hasn’t been a specific war tax, though every tax “revenue” is generally disbursed.
================================
Yep.
That is why we have no national debt.
Good thinking Eric.
Only problem is we are not in a cafeteria, so let me highlight what you feared and ran from in my comment:
“Of all the enemies to public liberty … [war] comprises and develops the germ of every other [enemy of public liberty]. War is the parent of armies … the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war … the discretionary power of the Executive is extended … and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect … may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war … No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established.” – James Madison
Fiver:
Agree w/most of what you wrote, except that…
1. Many people, at the time, thought we should have fought against the Soviet Union, not Germany.
2. The U.S.embargo on Japan’s oil supply did what FDR was hoping for – retaliate to prevent the country from going down the tubes.
Dredd,
Why Obama insists on carrying Bush’s waters…
… I wonder if Hillary would keep secret the drone program that kills wedding parties.
FYI,
Since 2009… NO REPARATIONS FOR OBAMA’S DRONE MURDERS.
Afghanistan: No justice for thousands of civilians killed in US/NATO operations
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/afghanistan-no-justice-for-thousands-of-civilians-killed-in-usnato-operations
Max-1
Dredd,
Conservatives claim to uphold the Constitution and its ideals…
… The authors of the pact and what they actually wrote matter not!
=====================
Yep.
The “lyingest spy” took his oath on the copy of it prior to Madison’s Bill of Rights, the First 10 Amendments, having been added.
Why Obama keeps him around is the mystery.
FYI ladies,
Last election, I voted for a woman… Jill Stein.
She campaigned on principles I could get behind.
Hillary, not so much.
3rd Party is the solution to America’s MIC.
Eric, there is little chance that I would vote Republican, there are issues that are incredibly important to me and the Republican platform is diametrically opposed to them. Libertarains are too closely aligned with the right for me to get interested in them.
I’m seeing a quick and sudden pivot. Hillary takes a swipe @ the incompetent President and now, the liberal columnists who were sycophantic, are taking shots @ him for Hillary. Dana Milbank just wrote a piece blasting Obama for being on MV golfing while the Middle East is on fire. I guess it took Hillary to lead the charge and let folks know the detached, arrogant, incompetent, lazy, emperor wears no clothes.
Annie: “So Eric, then Obama should look great in your eyes.”
Obama does not.
As I said, I prefer slohrss29 and John Oliver’s alternative views to the Democrat leadership because they at least offer a logical alternative.
If, as the Democrats claimed to win power, Bush was really wrong, then Obama should have righted America’s course for real by switching responsibly to an isolationist foreign policy, with all that entails.
However, Bush was right and Obama kept the longstanding liberal American goals that defined Bush’s post-9/11 foreign policy. In fact, Obama’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 2009 raised the justifications for the Iraq enforcement.
But Obama practically deviated from Bush’s hard-won progressing course. If Obama was going to keep Bush’s goals, then responsibly, Obama should have stayed the course from Bush like Eisenhower stayed the course from Truman.
Instead, in practice, what Obama has done is a much worse thing than switch to an isolationist foreign policy. Obama has set us up – along with the world that has long relied on us – to fail on the traditional course of American leadership of the free world.
The Democrats’ con-job that won your votes has undermined the popular will and comprehension necessary for democratic peoples to compete. I wrote this, to one of my old professors in 2008/2009:
Annie, whether you switch sides away from the Democrats is up to you. But just know that the Democrats won over your loyalty with a lie. And not a little lie, but a fundamental lie that caused America the leader to knowingly sacrifice innocents to monsters to pay for your loyalty.
fiver, That was an excellent analysis! Thank you!
Darren, I agree. There are many, far more qualified people! The year of the black woman could have been 2008 when Cynthia McKinney ran on the Green party ticket. No she wasn’t perfect, but she was the one person to stand up for US citizens in the Supreme Court’s presidential coup for Bush.
Then in 2012, we had another chance at the year of the Women! Democrats were told voting for women that time would only bring a war monger into power. I guess what they really meant was it would keep one, their warmonger, in power!
I would love to see the first woman of color, preferably a fat lesbian, as president. But it can’t be any fat, female, woman of color who is lesbian. She’s got to stand for the rule of law, for the environment, be pro-peace, pro economic justice and willing to take on the intelligence community (just for starters). And you know what, that woman exists! I’d like to vote for her!
In the meantime, we must peacefully confront the blood lusting, war mongering president in place right now.
We desperately need new political parties not driven by corrupt money and we now have the technology to do it.
I get pathetic hysterical pathetic emails from the Democrats every day whining that we need to get the money out of politics, and then begging for donations to do it, as Hilary makes 100 times more than average worker making closed-door speeches to Wall St. Elite.
“WE WILL NEVER ASK YOU FOR A DONATION, ONLY THAT YOU USE SOCIAL MEDIA AND EMAIL TO BUILD SUPPORT FOR OUR PLATFORM”
The time is right for that approach. Everyone knows the 2 sham parties all work for the same 1% elite, all they need is another choice. In marketing everyone knows a personal recommendation beats paid advertisement, once the idea is reinforced a paid advertisement would actually work against a candidate.
There are real solutions to our problems hidden behind the partisan sham bickering that most people on the right and left could agree on if they knew about them and had a choice:
* Restore Article 1 Constitutional trade tariffs to restore the American free enterprise economy and promote democratic worker’s rights in the countries we trade with.
* Cut military spending and acknowledge the place that decades of our meddling corporate foreign policy has played in inciting violence and instability.
* Create jobs by diverting military spending to rebuilding old infrastructure and building renewable energy independence that pays for itself.
* End bank-rigged corruption and instability with democratic Article 1 monetary reform that takes away Private Banks’ power to create our money supply as debt via the Ponzi scam of Fractional Reserve Banking.
We could do it tomorrow, social media is viral and instantaneous, but the likelihood is that animal hierarchy “human nature” that kept us slaves to aristocracy and religion for millennia will keep us in “our place” as oppressed dupes to this sham democracy until things fall apart completely and rebuild to the next Enlightenment.
Music break… The Hand That Feeds
It would be better if the electorate was given more choices in presidents than the usual suspects.
There are over 300 million American Citizens, someone more qualified is out there but we are force fed a field of only a dozen per year, and often the same people.
So Eric, then Obama should look great in your eyes.
Dredd,
To follow up my response to your point about “[war] debt and taxes”, an excerpt from http://learning-curve.blogspot.com/2014/05/operation-iraqi-freedom-faq.html :
Q: Did Operation Iraqi Freedom really cost X trillions of dollars?
A: No.
According to the Congressional Research Service report, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11 (March 29, 2011), which measured the “cumulative total appropriated [for Iraq and Afghanistan] … war operations, diplomatic operations, and medical care for Iraq and Afghan war veterans”, covering DOD, State/USAID, and VA Medical costs, the combined cost for Iraq totaled 805.5 billion dollars through FY2011 and 823.2 billion dollars estimated through FY2012. Within the combined cost, the DOD portion totaled 757.8 billion through FY2011 and 768.8 billion dollars estimated through FY2012. DOD funding for OIF peaked at 138.5 billion dollars in FY2008 for the Counterinsurgency “Surge” and dropped sharply every year thereafter to a low of 11 billion dollars in FY2012, the last year of OIF.
That’s not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s also not X trillions of dollars.
For further perspective, the FY2008 peak year spending of 138.5 billion dollars for OIF was 1% of GDP. By that admittedly narrow metric, the only cheaper US wars by peak year spending have been Operation Enduring Freedom and the Gulf War. The next cheapest US war by peak year spending is the Spanish American War, which cost 1.1% of GDP in 1899. That fact is not dispositive about the cost of OIF, of course; however, it does illustrate relative dollar figures don’t look the same as isolated dollar figures.
Quit picking on Hillary….
Squeeky gets it as does Hillary. It’s whimpy male Presidents who believe is War-lite.