Good article, well worth reading in its entirety.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/23/7245/Why Hillary Clinton’s Iraq Vote Does Matter
by Stephen Zunes
snip//
In voting to authorize the invasion of Iraq, then, Senator Clinton has offered a clear demonstration of how she would approach international affairs and security policy:
* the United States need not abide by its international legal obligations, including those prohibiting wars of aggression;
* claims by right-wing Republican officials and unreliable foreign exiles regarding a foreign government’s military capabilities are a more legitimate basis for analyzing possible security threats than are empirical studies by independent arms control analysts and United Nations inspectors;
*concerns expressed by scholars and others knowledgeable of the likely reaction by the subjected population to a foreign conquest and the likely complications that would result should be ignored and faith should instead be placed on the occupation policies forcibly imposed upon that population by a corrupt right-wing Republican administration.
There are also a number of reasons to suspect that, if elected president, Senator Clinton could lead the United States into yet another disastrous war:
* she has refused to apologize for her vote to authorize the invasion, indicating her willingness to support another aggressive war in the future
* she has repeatedly threatened the use of military force against Iran and voted in favor the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which many fear the administration could use as justification for launching military action against that country
* just as she falsely claimed Iraq had a nuclear weapons program back in 2002, she also falsely claimed just last year that Iran had a nuclear weapons program, even though International Atomic Energy Agency and independent arms control specialists at that time, as well as a subsequent NIE report, indicated that this was untrue
As a result, Senator Clinton’s October 2002 vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq is not simply “water under the bridge.” It is very relevant and says a lot about what kind of president she would be.
Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, where he chairs the program in Middle East studies.
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