« Suharto Dead | Main | Jonah Goldberg, Punk'd » A Surge of Applause29 Jan 2008 08:30 am SOTU tea-leaf reading: Clinton and Obama’s divergent views on the troop surge in Iraq, however, were plainly visible. And there you have it. Comments (23)
Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee on Dems who voted for the Iraq War: [Sen. Chafee] saves some of his harshest words for Democrats who paved the way for Mr. Bush to use the U.S. military to invade Iraq. That includes New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, whom Chafee says put her presidential ambitions above standing up to Mr. Bush and the rush to war in Iraq. “I find it surprising now, in 2008, how many Democrats are running for president after shirking their constitutional duty to check and balance this president,” writes Chafee. “Being wrong about sending Americans to kill and be killed, maim and be maimed, is not like making a punctuation mistake in a highway bill. “They argue that the president duped them into war, but getting duped does not exactly recommend their leadership. Helping a rogue president start an unnecessary war should be a career-ending lapse of judgment.” I agree. More... “Instead of talking tough or meekly raising one’s hand to support the tough talk, it is far more muscular, I think, to find out what is really happening in the world and have a debate about what we really need to accomplish,” writes Chafee. “That is the hard work of governing, but it was swept aside once the fear, the war rhetoric and the political conniving took over.” Chafee writes of his surprise at “how quickly key Democrats crumbled.” Democratic senators, Chafee writes, “went down to the meetings at the White House and the Pentagon and came back to the chamber ready to salute. With wrinkled brows they gravely intoned that Saddam Hussein must be stopped. Stopped from what? They had no conviction or evidence of their own. They were just parroting the administration’s nonsense. They knew it could go terribly wrong; they also knew it could go terribly right. Which did they fear more?” Hopefully some of the stupidity, duplicity and cowardice of that Iraq War vote is going to get more scrutiny in the coming days with Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama, and with Chafee speaking out. It's time to drive a stake through the heart of the zombie lies. 
Tell me again why I'm supposed to be voting for Hillary Clinton?
Tell me again why I'm supposed to be voting for Hillary Clinton? Because flag-burning is likely to be the hot issue of the 2008 campaign, and she's totally into stopping it cold!
Tell me again why I'm supposed to be voting for Hillary Clinton? Because her 35 years of experience, primarily as First Lady of Arkansas and the US, have prepared her to "lead" through osmosis. Tested. Ready. Shrill. Hillary.
So why is she talking about bringing back troops? I guess the anti-war message isn't polling as well as it used to. Time to catch the shifting winds.
In a year, 5 years or a decade Iraq is going to be a violent, bloody clusterfuck of immense size and ceaseless futility. EVERY sentient being sitting in that chamber last night knows that. Are we going to compliment the king's robes in perpetuity? Why do we laud these levels of denial? Instead of applause Bush should be marched to the gallows, followed by several dozen accomplices in genocide, torture and treason.
There it is in a nutshell.
My guess is that Hillary sees her weakness on Iraq has been subsumed by the economy, so now it's safe for her to suck up to the Lieberman/McCain centrists by declaring herself "right all along" on Iraq come the fall. Next step: Bill comes out and announces that he was for the war all along and then accuses the press of bias when they point out that he recently said he had been against it all along.
The difference is between those who have been tricked into thinking that Iraq has something to do with terrorism and those who understand that Iraq is an allegory for the American domestic factional struggle. DIVIDED WE FALL.
I'm an Obama supporter, so I'm probably not the best source of analysis on Hillary Clinton. But I have to tell you guys, I don't think she's triangulating on this one. I think Clinton genuinely believes in the Iraq war, and always has. Anyone who disagrees is invited to review her record for evidence to the contrary, as I for one would like to see it.
I agree with Steven this is pretty clear evidence HRC is just hawkish by nature, and that's a good enough reason to not give your vote to her. But can someone tell me what to make of this? When Bush warned the Iranian government that “America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies, and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf” Obama jumped up to applaud. Clinton leaned across Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), seated to her left, to look in Obama’s direction before slowly standing. The Illinois senator strongly criticized the former first lady last year when she supported a resolution calling for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to be designated a terrorist organization. Obama supporters and other Democrats charged the vote would give Bush political cover to begin military operations against Iran. Wouldn't Obama's criticism of the Kyl-Leiberman bill mean he shouldn't stand up here? And didn't he give that vote a pass in any case? Does not compute.
Now, guys, don't sell Hillary short. I'm sure she realized at a young age that the only way a woman could become President in the U.S. is to be more hawkish than the boys. And, of course, the way to stay popular as President is to have plenty of wars. It's just what she has to do, and she always does just what she has to do.
As an expat American of sorts, I don't think I'll ever understand the whole standing-to-applaud-a-president-of-the-other-party thing. In England that line would have received outright jeers and heckles, not effusive applause, from the opposition. Of course I understand there's the whole comity thing going on, but Jesus Christ it's not as if Bush has ever reciprocated.
What a farce. The "terrorists" are sleeping snug as a bug in a rug back home in Saudi, against whom this President won't lift a finger. And where are the Democrats on all of this: http:\\www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com Also, weren't we supposed to be fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them here? So if it's no longer in their interest to fight us over there . . .
It's naive to think that Hillary's Iraq war policy will differ in any significant way from shrub's.
When Bush proclaimed, “Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among terrorists there is no doubt,” Sock puppet terrorists tell the preznit how great he is? Nice.
Is Hillary Clinton able to make a decision on her own? She polls it, she asks Bill, she watches Obama, she puts her finger in the wind. Is this who we want leading our country? I think not.
"When Bush warned the Iranian government that 'America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies, and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf' Obama jumped up to applaud. Clinton leaned across Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), seated to her left, to look in Obama’s direction before slowly standing." Here you see the "experience" difference. Clinton knows that it's stupid to attack Iran - but she'll do it anyway, because what's the cost for her as long as she supports Israel and AIPAC keeps giving her campaign money? Obama is too damn IGNORANT to know that attacking Iran will be a disaster. Not to mention Pakistan. Both of them, however, will make both mistakes. I still think a war with Iran will be started by Bush/Cheney - or their surrogates in Israel - by the end of the Bush administration. However, if that is not the case, war with Iran will be started by Obama or Clinton (and of course, certainly by McCain) within the first year or two of their administrations. Unless Pakistan collapses - in which case, we'll be mired there first.
Richard, your analysis isn't as correct as you try and make it sound. Obama has repeatedly chastized Clinton for voting for Kyl-Lieberman. That shows that he knows attacking Iran would be a disaster. And Pakistan? If Osama bin Laden was there, I'm sure you'd go in for a military offensive, even if Musharraf didn't allow it. That was Obama's position-- he wasn't willing to attack it for the hell of it, only if the our favorites from Al-Qaeda were around. How do you go off saying that Obama would start a war with Iran? That is categorically incorrect, as all of the evidence points toward Obama supporting diplomacy.
Let me explain to you the problem in plain English. Obama declares that Iran is a "threat" Go look it up. Iran is NOT a threat - to anybody. Iran HAS NO nuclear weapons program. Obama believes that Iran must be "punished" with sanctions for not suspending enrichment - which is not a legal requirement of the NPT to which they are signatories, and furthermore the UN sanctions are technically illegal as the matter of whatever minor breaches they are actually guilty of does not fall under the Security Council mandate, but rather under the IAEA mandate. Obama talks about "diplomacy". What is the POINT of "diplomacy"? To get the person you're talking to to agree to some version of your point of view. The Iranians CANNOT suspend enrichment. First of all, they cannot trust any other country to supply them with nuclear fuel, so they need the full fuel cycle. Second, they have every legal right to enrich under the NPT. Third, there is little they could be offered to do so, given the necessity for their own nuclear energy program. Therefore there is absolutely no reason for them to suspend enrichment. Therefore Obama's "diplomacy", since it is based on the false premises that Iran is a "threat" and that Iran must suspend enrichment, cannot possibly succeed. If he is not willing to engage Iran in some sort of "grand bargain" - involving recognition of Israel, improved relations, acceptance of their nuclear energy program with improved monitoring and actual technology assistance, and most importantly, security guarantees against attack by the US, he will be utterly unable to succeed in his so-called "diplomacy." In short, he hasn't said one damn thing different from Bush on this matter - except that he'll "talk". "Talk" is cheap - especially when he doesn't know what he's talking about. "If Osama bin Laden was there, I'm sure you'd go in for a military offensive, even if Musharraf didn't allow it." Wrong on many counts. First, it's very likely bin Laden IS there - if he's not dead (as Benazir Bhutto believed.) Second, you reveal an equal ignorance to Obama on the consequences of trying to impose a US military solution to either Al Qaeda or the Taliban via Pakistan. Read my lips: There IS NO military solution to Al Qaeda or the Taliban in Pakistan - not by the Pakistani military and not by the US military. Any attempt to put US troops in that country - where eighty percent of the population already oppose the so-called US "War on Terror" - will simply accelerate the collapse of the Pakistani government, and mire the US in a military situation many times worse than Iraq. Pakistan is much larger than Iraq, has 175 million people in it - most of whom, according to polls, respect bin Laden more than they do Bush OR Musharraf. The terrain is nearly the ultimate in inhospitable for military operations. The people there have been fighting externally imposed governments for centuries and have never been defeated. Musharraf made reference to this the other day, pointing out that the US has "no magic wand" to solve the military problems of the FATA territories. Now, it would indeed be possible to locate and kill or capture ONE GUY - bin Laden. Or even locate and take out a certain number of his associates. As I've said before, I could arrange it for enough bucks in advance. But that is NOT a solution to Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Those are *movements* which cannot be eliminated by the elimination of one or a few leaders. Therefore, any attempt to "carry the fight to Al Qaeda" as Obama has said - note, he didn't just say "get bin Laden", he intends to fight all of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan - is doomed to failure and another disastrous miring of US forces in a foreign country they can't defeat and can't even understand. Get a clue - Obama doesn't know what he's doing in foreign policy. Again, neither does Clinton.
Richard-- Yes, Iran is a THREAT. Nuclear weapons or not, they are fueling insurgency groups in Iraq, and has steadfastly supported Hezbollah. They are a threat because they destabilize the region, even more so than we have by invading Iraq. In determining whether Iran is a threat, nuclear weapons and enriching uranium is not the whole story. But I don't agree with going to war with them, and neither did Obama. I'm not sure how you translate "this nation is a threat" to mean that we are declaring war on that country. And I don't think that Obama has called for Iran to suspend enrichment. And agreed, Al-Qaeda cannot be elimiated by decapitating a few leaders. But Al-Qaeda cannot be encouraged by countries who choose to give them a safe haven. America must pull its leverage and threaten countries with military force if they continue to provide Al-Qaeda or other such transnational entities with a place to thrive.
Comments closed February 12, 2008. |
Search
Subscribe to this blog by Email Books by Matthew Yglesias
Recent Comments
Recent Posts
Weekly Archives
Categories
|
Copyright © 2007 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
| 
Heads in the Sand
When Bush proclaimed, “Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among terrorists there is no doubt,” Clinton sprang to her feet in applause...
Hardly "tea-leaf reading." More like "enormous neon billboard reading."
Posted by James Gary | January 29, 2008 8:37 AM