Fair: How the Media Sanitizes Clinton's Reckless Foreign Policy Record

[amborin]

http://fair.org/home/media-trumpwash-clintons-reckless-foreign-record/

snip

Clinton has a long, objectively verifiable track record of acting recklessly on matters of foreign policy that seems to have slipped into a memory hole as the prospect of a Trump presidency looms overhead. While one would expect this rewriting of history to come from Clinton surrogates, it’s increasingly bizarre coming from nominally independent media pundits.

But “wiping the slate clean” is exactly what Iraq War boosters have done. Bush and Rumsfeld are currently playing golf, while those who supported the war, like Clinton, continue to hold positions of power. Clinton issued a belated and perfunctory apology—and that was it. And that’s just the one “mistake” she’s been called to answer for. Clinton’s support of a right-wing coup in Honduras, or the disastrous regime change in Libya, are seldom brought up, much less apologized for.

Perhaps Yglesias is referencing the material consequences to the world, rather than to the politician, but if this is the case, then why not address the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis resulting from the war Clinton pushed? Why not bring up the disastrous government she forced upon Haiti? Yglesias is right: The stakes are high, and, time and time again, Clinton has made decisions that resulted in material harm.

Slate’s Fred Kaplan and Bloomberg View’s Eli Lake also neglected to mention the Iraq War when recapping Clinton’s “experience.” It could be because they, like Yglesias, also pushed for that particular disaster. Indeed, as we’ve seen before, to indemnify Clinton for her past “bad judgments,” is to do the same for most of the pundit class who also followed Bush off the cliff. Her rebranding is their rebranding. This may serve immediate political interests—especially if one views Trump as existentially dangerous—but it doesn’t serve history, and it certainly doesn’t serve readers.

The media has a duty to vet the foreign policy record and plans of the respective candidates. As such, the pundits are right to pinpoint some of Trump’s more dangerous plans. Where they’ve consistently fallen short—and this was on full display in response to Thursday’s speech—is also contextualizing and harshly critiquing Clinton’s brand of measured, polite recklessness.

On this we have some pretty stark examples. The right-wing coup Clinton backed in Honduras in 2009 eventually led to the assassination of indigenous leaders and displacement of thousands of Hondurans as they fled right-wing violence.

One email from her aide Sid Blumenthal in March 2011 informed then-Secretary Clinton that a Libyan rebel commander told him that “his troops continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries captured in the fighting.” (“Foreign mercenaries” being code for black Africans loyal to Gaddafi). In response, the State Department continued to support the rebels without any clear concern for their war crimes. A BBC report that December detailed how 30,000 black Libyans were ethnically cleansed from the town of Misrata. A report the following year in the New York Times detailed how US arms “fell into the hands of jihadis” in an effort to overthrow Gaddafi.

Clinton’s eagerness to back dubious groups in the interest of regime change wouldn’t stop there. For years, the State Department watched Qatar and Saudi Arabia arm jihadists in Syria while pledging millions to overthrow the Syrian government themselves. Time and time again, Clinton’s desire to overthrow unfriendly governments resulted in arms “ending up in the hands” of designated terrorist organizations.

As for the former Secretary’s famous “wonkishness,” there’s evidence, as Peter Beinart noted in The Atlantic in 2014, that Clinton didn’t even review the NIE report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before voting to authorize the war in October 2002.

[tonyt53]

1. The Secretary of State works under the direction of the President, so lay off Obama.

Easy to see where you get your talking points. Lay off Obama. He has done one hell of a job.

[HooptieWagon]

3. LOL at order-barking Brockoli.

Been a member 2 weeks and already racked up 5 hides, huh? Yea, we got you pegged.

[SheilaT]

4. It's also pretty amazing that all those supporters of these many wars

didn't serve in the military themselves, nor do they have children who have served.

Oh, and there were various people who said over and over that there were not WMDs in Iraq. And they were right. Meanwhile, Congress collectively let itself be bamboozled into going to war. Remember the protests? I do. I participated.

[Juicy_Bellows]

5. My word.

"As for the former Secretary’s famous “wonkishness,” there’s evidence, as Peter Beinart noted in The Atlantic in 2014, that Clinton didn’t even review the NIE report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before voting to authorize the war in October 2002. "

What da fugg? Seriously?

[seafan]

6. “Did you read it?” the woman screamed.

As for the former Secretary’s famous “wonkishness,” there’s evidence, as Peter Beinart noted in The Atlantic in 2014, that Clinton didn’t even review the NIE report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction before voting to authorize the war in October 2002.

That is correct. When asked whether she read the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, she would only state that she 'was briefed' on it. (Old archived thread here.)


From the NYT, May 29, 2007:

.....

But it’s not clear that she was equally diligent when it came to the justifications for the war itself. So far, she has not discussed publicly whether she ever read the complete classified version of the National Intelligence Estimate, the most comprehensive judgment of the intelligence community about Iraq’s W.M.D., which was made available to all 100 senators. The 90-page report was delivered to Congress on Oct. 1, 2002, just 10 days before the Senate vote. An abridged summary was made public by the Bush administration, but it painted a less subtle picture of Iraq’s weapons program than the full classified report. To get a complete picture would require reading the entire document, which, according to a version of the report made public in 2004, contained numerous caveats and dissents on Iraq’s weapons and capacities.

According to Senate aides, because Clinton was not yet on the Armed Services Committee, she did not have anyone working for her with the security clearances needed to read the entire N.I.E. and the other highly classified reports that pertained to Iraq.

She could have done the reading herself. Senators were able to access the N.I.E. at two secure locations in the Capitol complex. Nonetheless, only six senators personally read the report, according to a 2005 television interview with Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia and then the vice chairman of the intelligence panel. Earlier this year, on the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire, Clinton was confronted by a woman who had traveled from New York to ask her if she had read the intelligence report. According to Eloise Harper of ABC News, Clinton responded that she had been briefed on it.

“Did you read it?” the woman screamed.

Clinton replied that she had been briefed, though she did not say by whom.

The question of whether Clinton took the time to read the N.I.E. report is critically important. Indeed, one of Clinton’s Democratic colleagues, Bob Graham, the Florida senator who was then the chairman of the intelligence committee, said he voted against the resolution on the war, in part, because he had read the complete N.I.E. report. Graham said he found that it did not persuade him that Iraq possessed W.M.D. As a result, he listened to Bush’s claims more skeptically. “I was able to apply caveat emptor,” Graham, who has since left the Senate, observed in 2005. He added regretfully, “Most of my colleagues could not.”

On Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2002, Senate Democrats, including Clinton, held a caucus over lunch on the second floor of the Capitol. There, Graham says he “forcefully” urged his colleagues to read the complete 90-page N.I.E. before casting such a monumental vote.

In critical issue after critical issue, her judgment is not adequate to serve at the level of the presidency.

[Cheese Sandwich]

7. The MSM has been disgraceful