No surprise here, both Amanpour and Ms Clinton are advocates for neocon foreign policy and were trying to outdo each other. What expression is used when two women are in a contest of being more hawkish? I checked the transcript how often the progressive word peace was used during the long interview and Q&A session … just once as in ‘peace of mind.’
Hillary Clinton’s CNN Town Hall, Joint Interview with Bret Baier and Greta Van Susteren
CLINTON: It’s pub — it’s public information that they — that the United States government, along with allies, are looking at ways to help support the — the moderate — what the moderate opposition is. They are badly outnumber by both the Assad forces and the extremists. I think now, there are more than 1,000 Europeans who are fighting in Syria…
AMANPOUR: Well…
CLINTON: — for the extremists…AMANPOUR: — and I was going to ask you this, because I — after all the reporting I’ve done on this and the blow-back and the back splash and all of those fears, the police commissioner of New York City summed it up the best recently, in a way that Americans can understand, that this is the most dramatic threat since 9/11 and perhaps even bigger…
CLINTON: Um-hmm.
AMANPOUR: — that there could be an attack on New York and the United States in general…
CLINTON: Um-hmm.
AMANPOUR: — and also around many foreign capitals.
You were turned down — your idea and your plan, with all those national security officials that you mentioned, was turned down. Do you believe that if it hadn’t been, you would have been able to prevent what’s happening now, isolate the extremists, as you said was your goal…
CLINTON: Um-hmm.
AMANPOUR: — prevent them from going across to creating an al Qaeda state in Iraq…
CLINTON: Right.
AMANPOUR: — 14 years after 9/11?CLINTON: It’s very difficult, in retrospect, to say that would have prevented this. There were a lot of forces at work, as you well know. There were many different sources of — of revenue coming into these disparate extremist elements — Russia, Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah were supporting Assad. There were already many players in this very dangerous space. [does this statement make any sense at all, Ms Clinton refuses to name the allies giving support to Salafist extremists: Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Egypt (under Morsi), UAE, Kuwait and Qatar – Oui]
But I did believe then, and I believe now, that it is important for us to know what’s happening on the ground in these places. And unless you build relationships with people who you think are at least hopefully sharing some of your same goals and objectives, you lose — you lose contact. You don’t know what’s happening…
AMANPOUR: And this is (INAUDIBLE)…
CLINTON: — and that leaves it even more dangerous.AMANPOUR: — your own ambassador, the person you appointed, Robert Ford, to Syria, resigned and he told me in his first interview that he did so in protest and on principle because he could no longer defend the Obama administration’s policy. And we see where we are in the world because of this.
I want to ask you…
CLINTON: But let me just…
AMANPOUR: — should you have tried harder…
(LAUGHTER)
AMANPOUR: — you were surrounded by the top national security people…
CLINTON: Right. Right.
AMANPOUR: — on a mission to stop terrorism.
CLINTON: Right.
AMANPOUR: Should you have pushed harder?
CLINTON: We pushed very hard. But as I say in my book, I believe that Harry Truman was right, the buck stops with the president. And the president had very legitimate concerns. And, you know, Robert Ford, as I mentioned earlier, was an exemplary ambassador. He did just an extraordinary job until we had to pull him out because of the danger. And I think in some of his interviews even with you, he said the State Department was pushing, pushing…
AMANPOUR: The State Department, correct.
CLINTON: — pushing…
AMANPOUR: — but he said nobody else…
CLINTON: That’s right.
AMANPOUR: — was listening. He said the White House wasn’t listening.
CLINTON: Well, we — we did, as I said, create a — a proposal that both the CIA and the Department of Defense supported.
But I want to hasten to add…
AMANPOUR: Would you do that…
CLINTON: — the reason…AMANPOUR: — would you do it in the future?
CLINTON: Of course. I would always…
AMANPOUR: Go back again?
CLINTON: — speak out. I would always…
AMANPOUR: No, no, no.
CLINTON: — speak out…AMANPOUR: Go back again and, you know, arm and train?
CLINTON: Well, I said we should have done it, you know, two plus years ago. But I want to be very clear, these are difficult, hard choices if it was so self-evident that everybody should have done this, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about what we didn’t do, but we might be talking about the consequences of what we did do.
So you have people making these choices with imperfect information, trying to figure out what they hope will happen, what might happen, how to guard against contingencies. So, clearly…
AMANPOUR: To be fair, though — to be fair, your own husband, President Clinton, said a couple of years ago, the longer you leave it, the more space for the bad actors. And to be fair, many of your own officials who we’ve just talked about, plus U.N. officials, have been warning about this backlash for a long, long time.
CLINTON: Um-hmm. Yes.
AMANPOUR: And most people believed that this is precisely what would happen. If terrorism and stopping terrorism is America’s fundamental national security prerogative…
CLINTON: Right.AMANPOUR: — was this a failure?
CLINTON: Well, I think it’s too soon to tell. But let me just quickly add that originally, this was a rebellion by Syrians themselves. And it was clearly Assad’s goal to turn it into a battle with terrorists. There weren’t terrorists initially. And what has happened, partly because of the brutality of the Assad regime, and also the conflict — the proxy conflict between Iran and others in the region, you had, unfortunately, money and equipment going to extremists. And so this problem was made much worse.Now, if we had gone in earlier and tried to help the so-called moderates…
AMANPOUR: Right.
CLINTON: — I’m not sure that it would have turned the tide. But I believed then that it was important for us to make clear that we were going to try to support them against Assad and also fill the vacuum that would be created in that territory.
AMANPOUR: Which we’re witnessing right now.
CLINTON: Well, and we are…
AMANPOUR: I’m going to move forward…
CLINTON: — we are witnessing right now, yes.
Amanpour didn’t pop the question about Obama’s red line and the gas attack in Ghouta, would Ms Clinton have bombed the Assad military assets and thus help the extremists to a victory in Syria?
Hariri Assassination, Robert S. Ford as counsel to CPA in Baghdad under John Negroponte – 2005
Free Syrian Army Defeated, US Entices Saudi Led Terror Group
Out of the main media, I repeatedly read that Free Syrian Army general Idriss has withdrawn to the Syrian-Turkish border. Searching for more news, it appears the FSA has lost the civil war, not defeated by Assad’s Army but by terror groups funded by Saudi Arabia under command of Zahran Alloush. According to several jihadist commanders, “Zahran Alloush receives his orders directly from the Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan” and Liwaa al-Islam is Saudi Arabia’s private army in Syria.
That the Obama administration is divided on Syria policy is clear, now more so as the Geneva II conference is planned for January 22 and there is no agreement as to the opposition delegation. I understand Ambassador Ford is talking to terrorist Zahran Alloush as to his conditions to participate in name of the opposition force in Geneva talks. How completely void of sound thinking by whoever send this envoy to negotiate with this enemy commander.
