Hillary's Other Foreign Policy Judgment Call

[IndianaGreen]

Hillary's Other Foreign Policy Judgment Call

Andrew Gumbel

The Clintons have been tone-deaf on the Balkans before. In the first few days of Bill Clinton's presidency in 1993, he had a chance to end the war in Bosnia, then a few months old, and establish a multi-ethnic independent state made up of 10 autonomous provinces. This was the scenario successfully negotiated by Cyrus Vance, the former US secretary of state, and David Owen, the former British foreign secretary. All President Clinton needed to do was to pressure the last hold-out to an agreement, the leader of the Bosnian Muslims, and the war would have been over.

Instead, though, Clinton decided the Vance-Owen plan was a de facto capitulation to ethnic cleansing by the Serbs, encouraged the Bosnian Muslims not to sign, and vowed to set out on a whole new peace process.

Bad mistake. Soon, a whole new front in the war opened up, pitting the Muslims against the Croats, and the Bosnian morass continued for another blood-soaked two and a half years. The peace deal Clinton brokered in Dayton, Ohio in 1995 ended up being a far greater capitulation to ethnic cleansing than Vance-Owen ever was. (The best account of this can be found here.)

Is this the sort of experience Hillary hopes will persuade the people of Ohio and Texas to vote for her on March 4? If so, a quick history lesson the Balkans and its tragedies might not be out of place.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-gumbel/hillarys-other-foreign-p_b_88062.html

[Henny Penny]

1. And of course someone who's prepared to bomb Pakistan

at the first opportunity is a better bet...

Sadly neither of them are much to write home about on the foreign policy stakes. But I think Clinton just has a few more degrees of freedom and represents the lesser evil.

[earthlover]

3. If you are talking about Obama, you are being totally deceptive about what he said....

This is SO ORWELLIAN!

Obama last summer said he would RULE OUT using nuclear weapons against Pakistan. Hillary said that she would not, and criticised Obama for making such a pledge. I guess that was part of her dissing his foreign policy ideas as "naive" at the time.

Fact is, Hillary had said virtually the same thing as Obama last year!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/10/us/politics/10clinton.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

About bombing Pakistan, Obama said this: "“Let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains, that murdered 3,000 Americans,” he said, continuing with resolve: “If we have actionable intelligence about high-valued terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will."

I seriously doubt if it would be so wrong to go after the 9/11 terrorists if we knew where they were. I also doubt if Hillary would have any qualms about doing the right thing and killing the bastards.
She, after all, had few qualms about invading a country totally unrelated to 9/11.

McCain is making sounds about Obama's words about Pakistan. All Obama has to do is remind him that Iraq was a huge distraction away from us going after the real terrorists, and it destabilized the Middle East even more than it already was.

As to Democrats trying to make McCain's point for him...whose side are you on?

[Henny Penny]

4. Am I?

"US presidential candidate Barack Obama has said he would use military force if necessary against al-Qaeda in Pakistan even without Pakistan's consent.

Mr Obama made the comments in a speech outlining his foreign policy positions.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said any threat to act against al-Qaeda from within its territory should not be used for political point-scoring.

Earlier this month, Mr Obama's chief rival, Hillary Clinton, described him as "naive" on foreign policy."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6926663.stm


You're right it is Orwellian... thank God for google cache though...

[earthlover]

5. You were quoting a news report, not Obama....in case you didn't know....

I gave the full quote, and you did not respond to it. I don't think anyone who was president would NOT go after the bastards who did 9/11 if they had actionable intelligence about high priority targets, with or without the consent of Musshariff. But you paint Obama as if he were ready to bomb Pakistan as the first resort without saying why....
that was deceptive.

As to your article's talking about Obama as being "naive" on foreign policy...the quote from Hillary is "irresponsible and frankly naive". And what was THAT a response to, pray tell? It was Obama saying he would negotiate with foreign countries, even our enemies. Hillary took exception to that, saying that was "irresponsible and frankly naive".

I don't think it is naive to talk with enemies. If we do more talk, we might get into fewer wars. It can be tough talk. But nobody wants war. And the basis of diplomacy is communication.

Hillary disappointed me last summer with her pooh-poohing of talks. Since when does a Democrat pooh-pooh diplomacy. She disappointed me when she said a few days later that she would not rule out nuclear weapons against Pakistan, even though she had earlier ruled it out, but that was before Obama ruled it out and she had to try to diss Obama.

And it really disappoints me when the Hillary Herd take the EXTREME position that would knock Obama for saying he would kill the terrorists who caused 9/11 if he knew where they were and could take action.

Seems to me, every sensible thing Obama says about foreign policy, the Hillary camp has to disagree with!

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. Wisdom means learning from all experience, not just the good calls n/t