Hillary Clinton evil ?

[asahi]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

Have you ever read her speech before her Iraq yes-vote?

Her yes vote was complex and nuanced and was predicated on Bushes word he would exhaust all diplomatic resources before entering into a hot war.

He lied. Seriously, read her floor speech if you haven’t already. It may just impact your opinion about that particular position.

She was also a senator from NewYork. I don’t know if you’re from New York, but the folks from NYC probably would have ripped her apart had she not voted yes.

It’s a lot more complicated than “she voted yes for Iraq”.

Agreed - there were nuances. Nobody knew at the time how badly the intelligence had been manipulated and cherry picked by the likes of Cheney and George Tenet. I would agree that people should have been more skeptical of our involvement just based on history, but the context of 2002-3 is much, much different than the one we’re living in now.

[gatorslap]

@asahi

Agreed - there were nuances. Nobody knew at the time how badly the intelligence had been manipulated and cherry picked by the likes of Cheney and George Tenet. I would agree that people should have been more skeptical of our involvement just based on history, but the context of 2002-3 is much, much different than the one we’re living in now.

I don’t think it’s true that “nobody knew”. Nobody was aware precisely of how the intelligence was manipulated and by whom, but many did find the intelligence dubious. When Colin Powell gave his presentation to the UN, he was subject to a lot of criticism, and he was directly contradicted by Hans Blix like a week later. I know that happened months after the vote, but still, the intelligence was far from a slam dunk, even as presented in 2002, and that was clear at the time. It was only due to post-9/11 jingoism that so many people went along with it without thinking critically.

[John_Mace]

@Human_Action

Her position was foolish. If you want Bush to exhaust all diplomatic resources before going to war, then you don’t authorize war until all diplomatic resources have been exhausted.

Senator Levin of Michigan proposed an amendment that actually promoted diplomacy: Bush could invade only if the UNSC passed a resolution authorizing it, or if Congress passed a second, “go it alone” resolution if diplomacy failed. Clinton opposed the Levin Amendment.

Oh, so she merely got caught up in a lynch-mob mentality directed at Middle Eastern Muslims, and had to satisfy her constituents’ blood lust? That’s not the sterling defense you seem to think it is.

Not really. She actively facilitated the worst thing the US has done in my lifetime.

I’ve linked to this article in the NYT Sunday Magazine before, and recommend it as a detailed analysis of Hillary and Iraq. It’s a long read, as such articles are, but it’s a good one.

And I’ve read her floor speech. To me, it sounds like someone who is afraid to vote against the AUMF (can’t be seen as" soft on Saddam"), but who wants plausible deniability if things go wrong. Her alleged reticence would be more believable if we heard from her in early 2003, when Bush was going to war after NOT exhausting all the diplomatic options. Not a peep.

Just to be clear, Bush et al are the ones who started the war. But to say Hillary didn’t vote to authorize it is laughable. Or, it would be laughable if one could laugh at such a tragedy as the Iraq War.

[Lemur866]

@HurricaneDitka

I don’t particularly mind that we’re flying aircraft over Syria. I wouldn’t have particularly minded it if HRC ordered it either. The concern arose from her no-fly-zone policy. She was asked point blank if she’d order the military to shoot down Russian jets and her answer was something other than an unambiguous “no”. That’s alarming.

ETA: I think your post above about predicatability makes a lot of valid points, but those points don’t describe HRC’s Syria policy. It was ambiguous as hell.

Seriously?

I mean, I guess in a universe where Hillary was running against an unambiguous peace candidate, and you were an uncompromising dove, that would be one thing.

Insufficiently unambiguous rejection of military force in Syria was what soured you on Hillary? Please.

[HurricaneDitka]

@Lemur866

Seriously?

I mean, I guess in a universe where Hillary was running against an unambiguous peace candidate, and you were an uncompromising dove, that would be one thing.

Insufficiently unambiguous rejection of military force in Syria was what soured you on Hillary? Please.

That’s not what I said at all. I probably soured on HRC decades ago, but certainly by the time she was praising Australian gun control laws. The post was not about what soured me personally on her. It was about whether there was ambiguity in her foreign policy. asahi contended (quite rightly I think):

@asahi

… The last thing you want to be in an age when the political order is undergoing some possible realignment is to add to the level of instability by being unpredictable. Trump prides himself on being hard to read, which might work to his advantage when trying to stiff creditors, but in this context, it’s lethal. In fact, being unpredictable is the antithesis to diplomacy - you absolutely need clarity. Being unpredictable is a strength when you anticipate military conflict. This really ought to make it clear what Trump’s ultimate intentions are. The US is on the path to war with someone; it’s just a matter of against whom, and when.

I contend that HRC’s Syrian-no-fly-zone policy was terribly unpredictable and unclear (exactly what asahi said could be “lethal”). She was asked point blank (in the third debate):

… if you impose a no-fly zone and a Russian plane violates that, does President Clinton shoot that plane down?

That’s the sort of question that, under the asahi theory, if one desires to avoid military conflict (and we sure as FUCK should desire to avoid military conflict with Russia), ought to be met with a clear, unambiguous, predictable answer. A simple “no” would have sufficed. Instead, Hillary left us with this steaming turd:

Well Chris, first of all, I think a no-fly zone could save lives and hasten the end of the conflict. I am well aware of the really legitimate concerns you have expressed from both the president and the general. This would not be done just on the first day.This would take a lot of negotiation and it would also take making it clear to the Russians and the Syrians that our purpose is to provide safe zones on the ground. We’ve had millions of people leave Syria, and those millions of people inside Syria who’ve been dislocated. So I think we could strike a deal and make it very clear to the Russians and Syrians that this was something that we believe the best interests of the people on the ground in Syria. It would help us in the fight against ISIS.

[Procrustus]

@HurricaneDitka

That’s the sort of question that, under the asahi theory, if one desires to avoid military conflict (and we sure as FUCK should desire to avoid military conflict with Russia), ought to be met with a clear, unambiguous, predictable answer. A simple “no” would have sufficed. Instead, Hillary left us with this steaming turd:

I actually prefer her answer to a simple “no.”

[John_Mace]

You mean to tell me that Hillary offered an ambiguous answer in a debate? EVIL!!!

[Gyrate]

@HurricaneDitka

The point of the argument was to convince Gyrate that he was wrong about “every metric”, or at least demonstrate it to others.

Okay, I’ll give you that one, for what little it’s worth. But this would have been true of any of the other umpteen GOP candidates who ran as well. The Trump-unique elements were all bad.

ETA: We’re like 11 months into President Trump’s first term and the world doesn’t appear to have gone “to wrack and ruin”.

The GOP have just passed a tax bill that will drive up the deficit and hurt the most vulnerable members of society, one which a significant majority of the country opposes, in order to give whopping great tax breaks to rich people and businesses. Millions are set to lose their health insurance. The US is the laughingstock of the world and the President is considered a security risk by our allies. In addition to the four known indictments of former campaign staff members, the current administration has lost more senior staff members through firing or resignation than any president since Reagan, and that’s comparing those 11 months to Reagan’s entire eight years in office. There are serious discussions going on about the likelihood of a nuclear war.

It may be fair to say that the world hasn’t suddenly turned into a total shithole, but when you’re driving straight at a wall at full speed, it’s little comfort to say “Hey, it’s not like we’ve crashed yet!”.

[Sherrerd]

@Gyrate

The GOP have just passed a tax bill that will drive up the deficit and hurt the most vulnerable members of society, one which a significant majority of the country opposes, in order to give whopping great tax breaks to rich people and businesses. Millions are set to lose their health insurance. The US is the laughingstock of the world and the President is considered a security risk by our allies. In addition to the four known indictments of former campaign staff members, the current administration has lost more senior staff members through firing or resignation than any president since Reagan, and that’s comparing those 11 months to Reagan’s entire eight years in office. There are serious discussions going on about the likelihood of a nuclear war.

It may be fair to say that the world hasn’t suddenly turned into a total shithole, but when you’re driving straight at a wall at full speed, it’s little comfort to say “Hey, it’s not like we’ve crashed yet!”.

Yes. And it’s not just that the crash, when it happens, will be horrific. It’s that we won’t even be able to talk about the crash.

A lot of people haven’t thought about how totally and absolutely their daily lives will change, once the world economy tanks. There will be no more gabbing on the Internet to say the least. It probably won’t even be possible to speak one’s mind freely on whatever jobs may remain (likely, mostly policing jobs to keep the mass of humanity from bothering the one-percenters).

Many seem to believe they’ll get to go on much as they do now. Uh-uh.

[choie]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

She was also a senator from NewYork. I don’t know if you’re from New York, but the folks from NYC probably would have ripped her apart had she not voted yes.

Yeah, uh, no. Don’t blame that shit on us.

@NYTimes from 2003

Residents of the New York City metropolitan area were less likely to favor an invasion than people upstate, and more likely to think that the United States has not done all it could to solve its problems with Iraq through diplomatic means.

Republicans like Bush only gave a crap about what happened to NYC on 9/11 so they could push forward their warmongering–the rest of the time, they didn’t consider New Yorkers as part of “real America.” Because we allegedly thought we were better, smarter, more elite.

Well, we were smarter. The rest of the nation and the asshats upstate believed lies. Those of us closest to the World Trade Center ruins did not. Clinton did not have to vote lest she be burned in effigy for sending soldiers to invade a country that had fuck-all to do with the people who attacked us.

I understand her nuanced explanation, but if she genuinely believed handing a permission slip over to an untrustworthy administration consisting of people those who were beating the drum for war with Iraq even before they got into office, her naivete was far greater than I would ever believe of her.

That said? I still gladly voted for her in 2016. She’s not evil. She’s neutral.

[PhillyGuy]

@choie

Republicans like Bush only gave a crap about what happened to NYC on 9/11 so they could push forward their warmongering . . .

The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 was one of the worst laws in US history, making it much harder for any President to back down.

Crucial context here is that the US and UK had been ineffectively but most definitely bombing Iraq every few weeks for many years. This made any US President, and any British PM, look for a way to get definitive results. It seems to me this is repeatedly elided in order to focus on personality rather than underlying causes of war.

Al Gore sincerely thinks he wouldn’t have invaded Iraq, but if you look back on the reasons he gave for being against in the run-up, one was that Bush wouldn’t keep at it long enough.

I doubt Alistair Cooke had definitive proof, but this seems about right:

President Clinton fretted over this problem as much as anyone and had plans to go into Iraq to enact, on his own if must be, “serious consequences”, when Miss Lewinsky became a figure of fate, as significant as Napoleon’s mistress, Madame Waleska.

By the time Clinton was ready to mobilise an American or allied force he didn’t possess the moral authority to invade Long Island.

[septimus]

@Procrustus

Other than killing Vince Foster, none of the things she didn’t do but was accused of would even make her “evil” if she did them. Of course, I don’t think a 36% top marginal tax rate is evil either.

Oh, I forgot about the Pizza Parlor Child Sex Ring. That would be evil, if true.

No, Dear Leader Trump helped subsidize his friend Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex ring. That’s not the problem. The problem is that Trump has a manly erudite voice, while …

@squidfood

You have to admit that she cackles. Would make a great wicked stepmother.

With all the liberals here defending the wicked stepmother, let’s thank asahi for coming to the rescue with the #RealFacts:

@asahi

I’m relieved that we have a president like Trump. It’s refreshing to know that millions of the most vulnerable people in this country will lose their health coverage next year, that poor and disabled veterans are more likely to end up on the streets homeless, that seniors are going to have less for retirement, that the people who really need tax cuts - people like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates - are finally going to catch a break, that the major telecom firms are going to charge us increasingly more money for increasingly less service.

I’m thankful that we have a president who regularly threatens the increasingly fragile 200+ year institution of the free press for doing their job, who wakes up and tells lie after outrageous lie, who hires staffers with a view of truth and “alternative facts” that only Joseph Goebbels, Pravda, and the most notorious dictatorial information ministries in history could appreciate, who threatens political opponents with criminal investigations, who makes the blatantly false claim that a former president committed a felony wiretap, who spins conspiracy theories the way spiders spin webs to deconstruct our nation’s intelligence services, who uses such lies to deny justice to those who are victimized by abusers of power and who abuses power to obstruct justice, who ignores the climate change threat that imperils the future of humanity, who puts the equivalent of a flat-earther and geocentric universe theorist as the head of the EPA as a response, who destroys our most important diplomatic agency and replaces diplomacy with ‘his’ generals, and who can sow instability and discord with so much as a tweet. I’m thankful we have all of this and a corrupt republican congress that enables him.

Sure, he’s not perfect, but my God, we already know that Hillary Clinton murdered Vince Foster and Seth Rich with her bare hands, and she paid ISIS to murder embassy staff in Bengazi. Proof? Pffff, who needs proof?! We already know it happened - Project Veritas has her confessions on tape. I mean, if she were president right now she’d probably be emptying her recycle bin, defragging her hard drive, and deleting viral cat videos from her Facebook feed. We just couldn’t take that chance.