So is the architect of bringing “democracy” to the Middle East, Paul Wolfowitz! Senator Clinton voted FOR the Iraq War.
Republicans Against Trump: Bush Advisor Wolfowitz Says He’ll Likely Vote for Clinton
SPIEGEL: Mr. Wolfowitz, as deputy secretary of defense under President George W. Bush, you supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Today, many people regard this war as a key factor behind the instability in the Middle East as well as the rise of the Islamic State (IS). Do you feel personally responsible?
Wolfowitz: No, because Islamic State is mainly a direct result of the failure in Syria. That’s where IS has grown. That’s where IS spread from. The Western alliance should have supported the Sunni opposition against the Assad regime from the beginning. As far as Iraq is concerned, if it had stayed stable the way it was in 2008, IS would not have been able to expand in Iraq the way they did. The mistake was that Barack Obama withdrew the armed forces from Iraq too fast.
SPIEGEL: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump criticized the war in Iraq, too. He has announced he wants to stop “current policies of nation-building and regime change” — precisely the policy you backed.
Wolfowitz: It would be a huge mistake to abandon democracy promotion. Peaceful political change has been enormously successful in the past years in Eastern European countries as well as in countries like South Korea, South Africa, Chile and Indonesia. However, if possible, the use of force is something to avoid except in cases where genocide is threatened, like Bosnia or Libya or with regimes that threaten our security, like the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. After a regime is removed, however, it is dangerous to leave a security vacuum. This is where we failed in Libya and in Iraq.
…
SPIEGEL: Paris, Brussels, Orlando, Nice — is the West threatened even more today by terrorists than it was 15 years ago?Wolfowitz: Fifteen years ago, we had 3,000 people killed in a single day. We had a very real concern that terrorists were going to get their hands on anthrax [traced to US Army lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland] or sarin. The fact that that hasn’t happened is itself an achievement. But, obviously, these so-called smaller attacks are a problem. People change their habits. I know Americans who don’t go to Paris because they think it is too dangerous. I think that is an overreaction. Countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh have been living with this level of terrorism for a long time. But life goes on.
Wolfowitz: We are already seeing a degree of instability in the world because Obama seems to have consciously wanted to step back. Trump is going to be “Obama squared,” a more extreme version of the same thing.
…
SPIEGEL: Who are you going to vote for in November?Wolfowitz: I wish there were somebody I could be comfortable voting for. I might have to vote for Hillary Clinton, even though I have big reservations about her.
h/t Arthur Gilroy. It’s a complicated world led by a single superpower, isn’t it!?
My focus is foreign policy and the reach of the US across the globe. As I have written months ago when Bernie Sanders was an option for Democrats …
○ Neocons Jumping Ship, Will Likely Vote for Hillary Clinton
○ Humanity – Today’s Syrian Refugees Rejected as Jews in 1930s
Confirmed this week, IS leader Abu Baghdadi was not only imprisoned by U.S. Occupational Forces in Camp Bucca but also in Abu Ghraib. A stain on the United States for generations to come.
I’m not so sure it’s a good thing for the Clinton campaign to be associated with Paul Wolfowitz. The last I heard of Wolfowitz, he was forced to resign the presidency of the World Bank due to his granting his girlfriend monetary favors. Maybe Wolfowitz’s having to vote for Clinton is an attack of nostalgia for the good old days of Scoop Jackson?
Maybe she’s trying to look relatively ethical by comparison.
HILLARY 2016: NO PROOF OF QUID PRO QUO
Heard a “former US ambassador” (sorry didn’t catch his name or administration” ripping into Obama for refusing to put “boots on the ground” in Syria. This was a news item relating to the Kurds, Erdogan, and Syria. He claimed “only 250 0350″ troops would be required”. I didn’t hear him say “we know the WMD’s are there” but I think he was from that administration. Or maybe Bill Clinton’s come to think of it.
I hope the Republicans will be very happy with their new fusion President. (Hmmm! Could take that two ways. Sorry, physicist free associating.)
This is what I’ve been thinking. Not Obama’s third term, but WJC’s third term.
If that former US Ambassador was Robert Ford, he’s been singing that song for at least two years now.
Career FS officer, several appointments during the GWB administration, but he became Ambassador to Syria on January 28, 2011 (a recess appointment, originally nominated in February 2010, and confirmed in October 2011).
Perhaps he’s looking for a job in the HRC administration.
○ Former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford: I could no longer ‘defend the American policy’ | CNN Amanpour – June 2014 |
○ Townhall Meeting Ms Clinton with CNN’s Amanpour | CNN Amanpour – June 2014 |
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.’
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?
○ U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford was to be appointed to Egypt, but this nation refused to accept this troubled ambassador
In May 2013 Ambassasor Ford briefly crossed into northern Syria to meet with opposition leaders
Hariri Assassination, Robert S. Ford as counsel to CPA in Baghdad under John Negroponte – 2005
Amb. Robert Ford reflects on US intervention in Iraq and Syria - interview
○ Moderate death squads: Conversations with former US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford
Robert S. Ford is now employed as fellow at the Middle East Institute – a Saudi Arabia funded think-tank.
HRC and the Bill Clinton Foundation are well rooted in funding from Israel, Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Latest risk for Greece:
○ Ambassador Nomination: Geoffrey R. Pyatt — From Ukraine to Greece
Some good news:
○ Germany’s Vice Chancellor Gabriel: US-EU trade talks ‘have failed’ [TTIP]
I expect female war hawks to be very prominent in HC foreign policy appointments. Can think of two I expect to be top positions. She might even use some of Obama’s.
Not warhawks — they’re “feminist” women after all — thus, R2P-champions.
So THAT’s why they approve all the weapons sales!!
Thais is positively Orwellian, no?
Why not when a hundred years ago western women were busted for NOT wearing “burkina” type swimming costumes on beaches and now they’re busted FOR wearing “burkina” swimming costumes.
Don’t really know. I was sitting in the grocery store parking lot, half listening to BBC News (usually pretty straight – better than ours) on XM radio. During the broadcast, I heard “You have been listening to %^&&**, former US ambassador,” Who or ambassador to where didn’t register. It went by pretty fast unlike the interview, itself. Not quite as bad as those TV disclaimers that zip out two pages of dense legalese in about seven seconds.
It does sound probable.
Politico — Meet Hillary Clinton’s anger translator
Poor Hillary — if only her opponents and the MSM would stop criticizing her because she’s a women, she would be the most lovable and awesome Presidential candidate ever. This gaggle of whining wankers have their meme set up for the next four years — only misogynists could possibly oppose her highness.
And for good measure: “Putin, Putin, Putin!” He better look out because the R2P champions are gonna come and get him.
For the time being you can still get away with writing Her Highness with small letters. But you might want to prepare yourself for the soon-to-be universally accepted style form—without exception, anywhere, any place, any time. Those R2P people are rabidly stupid, in my book. Yes they are. Have they ever heard of Yemen?
Stupid enough to think that some people don’t notice the perfect symmetry between the poor people the R2P-champions gift with bombs and the poor people the warhawks want to bomb.
Stupid because their idea of woman in charge is Maggie Thatcher and Golda Meir.
Stupid because they think that feminism was all about women getting the right to be as disgusting as men. (Or more disgusting because women can sext their lightly clad body parts without OMG but men can’t do the same.)
God, she sounds just like a poster we all know and dread.
I’m guessing that Neera Tanden gets paid better and will soon be up for a big promotion.
Welcome To The Oort
The sad sores of Huma Abedin …
Says she’s separating from Anthony Weiner
In 1999, Saleha M. Abedin translated and edited a book titled “Women in Islam: A Discourse in Rights and Obligations,” published by the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs. Written by her Saudi colleagueDr. Fatima O. Naseef, the book explains that the stoning and lashing of adulterers, the killing of apostates, sexual submissiveness and even female genital mutilation are all permissible practices under Sharia law.
“The wife should satisfy her husband’s desire for sexual intercourse,” the book states on page 202, even if she is not in the mood. “She has no right to abstain except for a reasonable cause or legal prohibition.”
[Very much the Christian view on marriage “obligations” of a century ago and still lingering in fundamental circles … submission! – Oui]
[Source: Huma Abedin’s mom linked to writings on religious merits of sexual submissiveness, child marriage and Sharia law]
Global Muslim Brotherhood figure Tariq Ramadan has announced that the State Department has ended the ban on his entry into the U.S. According to a statement posted on his blog. [January 2010]
○ An International call for Moratorium on corporal punishment, stoning and the death penalty in the Islamic World by Tariq Ramadan - April 2005
○ Scheduled to give lectures in Mauritania, Tariq Ramadan was arrested upon his arrival, briefly detained and expelled