Sanders upends foreign-policy critique by Clinton experts: 'I was right' on Iraq

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Bernie Sanders pushed back against global-affairs experts backing Hillary Clinton who questioned the Vermont senator’s grasp of foreign policy, touting his judgement over her experience as he surges in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“On the crucial foreign policy issue of our time, it turns out that Secretary Clinton – with all of her experience – was wrong and I was right,” Sanders told the Guardian after a campaign event on Tuesday in Underwood, Iowa, freshly condemning his then-senate colleague’s 2002 vote to approve the US invasion of Iraq.

While conceding that he has fewer foreign-policy credentials than the former secretary of state, Sanders said he maintains better judgement.

“It is fair to say, in terms of experience, Hillary Clinton was secretary of state for four years and has a lot of experience, no debate about that,” Sanders told the Guardian. “But there is a difference between experience and judgement. Not only did I vote against the war in Iraq, I helped lead the opposition to that war.”

Earlier on Tuesday, a group of 10 former senior US diplomats and national security officials who are supporting the former secretary of state released a letter calling Sanders’s foreign policy agenda “troubling” and “puzzling”. The letter-writers characterized Sanders’s strategy to defeat Isis as improbable and his plan to normalize relations with Iran as “out of step” with the current adminstration.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/19/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy-experts-hillary-clinton

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Adam Gabbatt in Underwood, Iowa and Lauren Gambino
Wednesday 20 January 2016 00.46 GMT

Reposted to LBN by request

[Omaha Steve]

1. I didn't go to this rally because we got 4 inches of snow

[Joe Shlabotnik]

3. Whoa, whoa, ok wait....

Steve, that is the worst excuse I ever heard. (Granted I am Canadian)

[Omaha Steve]

6. Marta said no after the traffic accident reports started rolling in

I would have had preferred seating too.

A 6 lane highway that runs through the middle of Omaha was closed. Yada, yada,yada....

http://www.omaha.com/weather/afternoon-road-conditions-improving-after-difficult-morning-commute/article_8757e3fc-be90-11e5-a976-0f0efb5c1431.html


RYAN SODERLIN/THE WORLD-HERALD

An Omaha police officer directs traffic at 90th and Dodge Streets on Tuesday. Traffic was blocked going west on Dodge Street between 84th and 90th streets to give plows a chance to clear the snow-covered hill.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

7. I was just teasing ya. n/t

[Omaha Steve]

9. Got ya

[forest444]

2. While it's true Hillary was lied to by the Bush regime at the time she cast her vote.

Guess what? So was Bernie - and yet he had the foresight and plain common sense to know better.

That's the difference.

[morningfog]

4. Worse, Hillary knew he as lying, but pushed the war anyway.

[Hoppy]

29. --- don't wanna be called "soft on national defense, ya know."

That would look bad when I run for president.

[24601]

30. I think you nailed it exactly. There were people on both sides who voted exactly what they really

believed. The Democrats who pictured themselves as future presidential candidates probably opposed the authorization but supported it anyway precisely because they thought that position would keep them viable as candidates in 2004 or later. I doubt Mr. Sanders was thinking in those terms - and wasn't he 1 of 435 in the House (and in the minority) at the time while Leahy (D) & Jeffords (I) held Vermont's Senate seats?

But I'll disagree on a common theme I almost always read here: The Bush administration also believed the intelligence and there's just no credible evidence that they believed there was no threat but supported it anyway. They were wrong, but were true believers and that's the difference between lies and mistakes.

Just like when President Obama played down the ISIL threat and called them the "JV Team", there is no doubt in my mind he really believed it. So he didn't lie, he misjudged it. Did his pre-disposition on the issues contribute play a part? Almost certainly yes. But there is an art to Intelligence just as much as there is a science. Every day, two analyst look at the same data and reach different conclusions in complete good faith.

What's a member of Congress to do? Most rely on the committees; however, when it's an important issue, they can always slog over to the Capitol's secure facility and read the same intelligence that's going to the Executive Branch of government.

Final point, Democrats controlled the Senate during the Iraq AUMF vote. Had it been a party-line vote (and I don't favor that for matters of war & peace), it would not have passed.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

35. You are wrong.

The Bush team not only didn't believe the intelligence, they pressured the CIA to come up with it. They had been told by the French that there was NO Yellow cake procured from Niger. The CIA even sent Joe Wilson to investigate:

Time hoisted (the now discredited) Joe Wilson on its shoulders as The Man Who Told the Truth to Power: "Just last weekend, the man sent by the CIA to check out the Niger story broke cover and revealed that he had thoroughly debunked the allegation many months before President Bush repeated it."

Same with the "aluminum tubes" they said were for centrifuges, but in reality were for making rockets.

Lots of other lies to, if you google.

[roody]

12. So did I and millions of others.

[Bernin]

18. Somehow I'm not a DOD analyst

and yet even I knew Saddam's brother in law had escaped Iraq and confessed that Saddam had destroyed his WMD's.

Even this lowly plebe (me) knew it was a pack of lies.

So, either Hillary was inept; or, she wanted a war based on lies...

[Lasher]

19. Senator Robert C. Byrd knew better at the time, and said so.

[billhicks76]

22. Hillary Knew It Was A Lie

Her and Bill Are BEST FRIENDS of the Bush family...that is a fact.

[valerief]

32. The millions and millions of people all over the world who marched against the Iraq War

also had the foresight and plain common sense to know the war was just another racket. Anyone could see that. The only people who wanted the war were interested in the $$$ it would yield. At the expense of many, many lives, of course.

[Javaman]

34. as I have said in the past...

anyone paying the very least bit of attention to George w. morons* rhetoric would have seen through it as what it was: complete and utter bullshit.

it's apparent that while Hillary has "experience"; she either has no bullshit meter to speak of or she went along to get along (due to future ambitions)

[Jack Rabbit]

5. And she made a mess of Libya and she think we can fight ISIS and Assad at the same time.

Ousting Assad might be a nice to do, but the US establishment just doesn't seem to have this regime change down to a science yet, so I'd rather they not try it.

[retrowire]

8. Bernie Sanders was the only mayor with a Foreign Policy.

This man has always given a damn about world affairs.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

17. Yes!

[bemildred]

31. +1

He knows US politics.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Eugene.

[roody]

13. Killer Kissinger is probably one of the 10.

[billhicks76]

20. All Those On That List Benefit Financially From The Current Paragigm

And they also do the bidding of the top.00000001% families.

[meforbernie]

14. That is the most important point to make but he should expand

She was a bad Secretary of State that pushed intervention into, Libya and Syria, and discouraged the peace treaty with Iran . Hispanics would probably second guess their choice to vote for Hillary if they knew the things she did to help the right wing libertarian coup in Honduras. Not to mention that her state department intervened in Haiti to stop a minimum wage hike from 3 to 5 dollars A DAY! The latter would make blacks, and low wage workers think twice about voting for her.

[deathrind]

15. He was right to vote...

Against it and she was wrong to vote for it. History has proved this in vivid color. There were rallies not just in the US but world wide against the invasion of Iraq. Yet she still voted for it...

[zentrum]

16. He was right

…where it really counted.

[SoapBox]

21. It's about judgement...

Not about constant sabre rattling and being a War Hawk.

I'll stick with Bernie.

[billhicks76]

23. Hillary Turned Honduras Into A Murder Capital

[Bernin]

24. Let's look at some more shall we.

[elleng]

25. “But there is a difference between experience and judgement."

Sure is.

[Feeling the Bern]

26. Smack. Meet Down! Anyone who says she has FP cred, all I said is "she voted for Bush's War

and Bernie didn't."

That's the same thing people said about Obama. "At least he didn't vote for the Iraq War."

[Betty Karlson]

27. I love that juxtaposition: she's got experience, he's got judgement.

(And experience without good judgement is just repeating old mistakes over and over).

[JDPriestly]

28. Judgment is the most important attribute in foreign policy decisions.

[geek tragedy]

33. This line of attack didn't work so well in 2008. nt