Clinton support: Can you fill us in on her vast experience on foreign policy again?

[blm]

I seem to have misplaced those many threads that explained it in such great detail in the past.

Can you refresh our memories for those of us who would like to examine that issue of experience?

Thankyou.

Please use this thread as a compilation effort - I am sure it will be long with so much to add, not to mention the links.

[DefenseLawyer]

1. Ask a member of her foreign policy task force:

[rndmprsn]

2. don't forget...

[blm]

3. ;)

.

[Whisp]

9. was that the time she took Chelsea to dodge sniper bullets with ma? nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

18. no when she was touring cathedrals and having lunch

[blm]

32. if only she was having lunch with BCCI investigators, I wouldn't mind that experience.

.

[1620rock]

4. Um, oh yes, and while at it Can you fill us in on Obama's vast experience on foreign policy also.

[blm]

5. He and we didn't make the claim that it was vast and long - she and THEY did.

.

[blm]

6. Wow - this thread should have hundreds of replies as there were so many threads touting experience

for months now.

Doesn't anyone think it would be a good idea to have a nice, long list of foreign policy accomplishments to enlighten those who just may have to vote for Hillary at some point?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. She sailed the seven seas with Sinbad.

All eight!

[Whisp]

8. she attended an exclusive spa in the South of France

sometime in 1996. Details are not forthcoming because of National Security concerns.

[beachmom]

10. Not a Clinton supporter, but perhaps we can hear of Clinton's work on the Armed Services Committee

That isn't quite foreign policy, but since it's the military they delve into foreign policy issues. So what is Clinton's claim to fame in the Armed Services Committee? She has served there 6 years more or less.

[KittyWampus]

20. while we're on THAT topic, we can ask about her earmarks for the war machine

[Terran]

23. Anything she did as a Senator, that's fine...

that IS experience. But these claims of vast foreign policy/diplomatic experience while First Lady are, to put it politely, far-fetched.

[blm]

30. This must be why they fought so hard to keep this stuff from public view.

This really makes them look like lying idiots.

[futureliveshere]

11. This was an Opportunity

for all HRC supporters to come out, post links, copy-paste snippets to showcase her VAST experience. Hmmmm.... the silence is deafening!!!

[Ysabel]

12. kicking for all the excitement this is engendering...

- every cloud engenders not a storm (shakespeare)...

:D

[Voice for Peace]

13. Her foreign policy experience is imaginary;

her readiness to lead on day one is imaginary;
her ability to beat McCain is imaginary;
her campaign tactics are destructive & in my opinion inexcusable;
her lack of transparency is unacceptable,
her Senate votes are inexcusable
her candidacy is divisive

[blm]

14. But it was so persuasive to those who posted thread after thread about it for the last year.

Surely all those accomplishments that were listed for so long didn't just disappear overnight, did they?

[Voice for Peace]

15. it was all vapor.

[Tom Joad]

16. Supporting bush when it mattered most!! and supporting Billy Clinton

when he took illegal, aggressive action against Iraq too. (bombings and the like, people tend to forget that)
Real presidential. part of a long tradition of supporting US foreign policy, illegal, insane, immoral aggression against foreign nations.

she's crazy like a president.
If you love the status quo, you'll love Hillllary.

[blm]

17. You mean during Bill's high profile interviews during his 3wk book tour in 2004

when he repeatedly defending Bush's decisions on Iraq war against 'criticisms of the left' as he boasted?

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/06/19/clinton.iraq/

Yeah....that was how Clintons HELP Democrats during any election that doesn't have their name on the ticket.

[2rth2pwr]

19. She has a private table at IHOP.

[Bigleaf]

21. Well, regardless of what else is said about her in this post, I have to give her credit

for switching her car insurance to GEICO.

[DefenseLawyer]

24. And she did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night . n/t

[blm]

28. heh....ancient Chinese secret......

LOL

[ElsewheresDaughter]

22. for the record

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHW0RzXe4DQ

[blm]

26. Wow - Rose Law Firm. Jackson Stephens was its biggest client. What happened to the records

and files of work for all his dirty BCCI dealings with GHBush and Dubai and Saudi royals when Bushies were pretending to be scouring every file at Rose looking for Whitewater material?

[cosmik debris]

25. "I've done quite a lot of cookie baking in my life,

and tea-pouring too!" Living History, p. 109.

[blm]

31. I wouldn't mind if she was sharing that tea with an investigator asking about BCCI-Jackson Stephens

and GHWBush and Dubai and Saudi royals.

THEN it would have made an actual difference to this country and its future, wouldn't it?

[nebula]

35. Well she certainly has the cookie monster's vote

[azmouse]

27. kick

[Mooney]

29. LOL. n/t

[fedupinBushcountry]

33. Kick

:kick:

[tabasco]

34. Combat experience.

Hot LZ. "Head down" - - "under sniper fire" - - MUST GET TO THE BASE!!

[Hepburn]

36. How about ... being strafed by bullets in Bosnia???

Oh, wait...the Hillbots prolly should not go there, right? :evilgrin:

[bigtree]

37. In response to the question of Barack Obama's experience in foreign and military affairs,

. . . we have five points which HE has offered in rebuttal to Hillary Clinton . . .

1) He's lived overseas.

2) He has family overseas.

3) He has served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

4) He made a speech in 2002 opposing the Iraq resolution and Bush's plan to invade.

5) He doesn't get rattled.


article: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Vote2008/Story?id=4374621&page=3

Obama: 'How Do You Know Any President Is Ready?'

"Look, I've lived overseas," said Obama. "I have family overseas. I have served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."

As for Clinton's experience in the White House, Obama is dubious. "It is true that I've not lived in the White House," he said. "Although, one of the tough things about Sen. Clinton's campaign has been the degree to which she takes credit for good things that happened and doesn't take credit for bad things that happened."

I Don't Get Rattled'

Obama believes that his "matter of temperament" best prepares him for the White House.

"One of the things that I've known about myself for a long time," he said, "is that, in difficult or stressful moments, I don't get rattled And I don't get rattled during campaigns. I don't get rattled when things are up ... and I don't get too low when things are down."

____________________________


Hillary Clinton is the first New York senator to sit on the Armed Services Committee, where she has focused on improving pay and benefits for troops, both active and reserve. New York has the fourth-largest number of servicemen and women deployed in Iraq. Clinton visited Iraq in February in a much-publicized trip with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

• She introduced legislation last month to boost the Army by 80,000 soldiers over the next four years.

• She has co-sponsored bills to improve military health benefits with GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jim Talent of Missouri. "I think that generally her work on the (Armed Services) committee has been very strong," Talent says.

• She was nominated by the Pentagon — with which her husband often had contentious relations, particularly on gays in the military — to serve on a blue-ribbon panel studying how to foster better cooperation among the military services.

Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, named Clinton to the "Transformation Advisory Group." Clinton returned the favor last month by introducing him at the Armed Services hearing on his nomination to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Clinton says a combination of factors prompted her to make national security a key focus in the Senate: a long-standing interest in military and foreign policy issues, the fact that New York City was attacked on Sept. 11.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-07-18-hillary-cover_x.htm


As first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton . . .

. . . jaw-boned the authoritarian president of Uzbekistan to leave his car and shake hands with people. She argued with the Czech prime minister about democracy. She cajoled Roman Catholic and Protestant women to talk to one another in Northern Ireland. She traveled to 79 countries in total, little of it leisure; one meeting with mutilated Rwandan refugees so unsettled her that she threw up afterward . . .


Her role mostly involved what diplomats call “soft power” — converting cold war foes into friends, supporting nonprofit work and good-will endeavors, and pressing her agenda on women’s rights, human trafficking and the expanded use of microcredits, tiny loans to help individuals in poor countries start small businesses.

Asked to name three major foreign policy decisions where she played a decisive role as first lady, Mrs. Clinton responded in generalities more than specifics, describing her strategic roles on trips to Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, India, Africa and Latin America.

Asked to cite a significant foreign policy object lesson from the 1990s, Mrs. Clinton also replied with broad observations. “There are a lot of them,” she said. “The whole unfortunate experience we’ve had with the Bush administration, where they haven’t done what we’ve needed to do to reach out to the rest of the world, reinforces my experience in the 1990s that public diplomacy, showing respect and understanding of people’s different perspectives — it’s more likely to at least create the conditions where we can exercise our values and pursue our interests.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/us/politics/26clinton.html?_r=1&adxnnlx=1203090233-ocLkicuTLhKkTB7gZB%20R/g&pagewanted=all


These two media accounts reflect what's been described by Sen. Clinton and her supporters. Not a major role in foreign policy as First Lady, but not the lack of significant experience her critics claim either. Certainly more foreign policy experience than Obama can credibly claim.

Couple that behind-the-scenes-of-the-Clinton-presidency experience with her present seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and her term as Senator and you have a pretty healthy resume. (Not to mention those contacts she made overseas during that period and beyond)


Oh, and this . . . a telephone call: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-daou/every-voter-should-hear-t_b_89573.html

Listen to it. It is a series of powerful testimonials from eighteen former admirals, generals, and senior defense officials who support Hillary. They are among nearly 30 general and flag officers who have endorsed Hillary. (link: http://static.hillaryclinton.com/files/audio/20080302_call.mp3

selected excerpts: (http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=6298)

3/2/2008
TESTIMONIALS: Former Admirals, Generals and Senior Defense Officials on Why They Support Hillary Clinton to be the Next Commander-in-Chie

General Wesley Clark

“She has done her homework on national security and I know from my personal discussions with her and with many other friends that go in and brief her in her role in the Senate Armed Services Committee. She knows the facts, she knows the details, plus she has the big picture. She is a strategic thinker but she has the building blocks of the strategy in her personal knowledge. This is someone that when she is president our military is going to respect very highly, and when our Senior Officers brief her and meet with her they are going be very, very impressed by what she knows and the intelligence that she brings to these problems.”


Brigadier General John Watkins, Jr.

“As I think about the challenges facing the nation and having been in uniform for almost thirty years, worked with a number of presidents to include the last four, I can’t think of a single person – those generals included – who is better qualified to walk into the Oval Office than Hillary Clinton. I don’t make that statement very lightly. She is more qualified, in my view, than her husband Bill was when he entered the office. It is no surprise to me that you would have as many flag officers who serve this country and Secretaries of the Army and Navy who have served this country who would come out and support Hillary.”


Major General Paul Eaton

“On a personal note, I have a Special Forces Captain son and a Sergeant Paratrooper both in Afghanistan and I find Senator Clinton the perfect choice to be their Commander-in-Chief and to display the loyalty to command our armed forces and to rebuild them after the conflicts in which we are engaged right now.”


Lieutenant General Claudia Kennedy

“I support her because I trust her. I trust Hillary Clinton because of her judgment and her leadership. I have confidence that she is responsive to the needs of people. I believe that she understands leadership the way we do in the Army and that is that it’s about building connections and relationships and establishing guidance and leadership for others.

I think she’ll rebuild relationships with other countries that have been suffering for the last seven or eight years; those relationships have really been strained beyond anything I would have anticipated. Another part of Hillary Clinton that I think is just tremendous is that she knows our reality. She is in touch with people, she listens to people. She decides what she believes about policy based on what’s right, she has integrity, and on what works, so she’s practical.”


Lieutenant General Frederick Vollrath

“I support Senator Clinton because I believe it’s time for change in our country, a new direction. And I know change carries with it risks. Senator Clinton is the candidate, in my opinion, with the proven experience that truly understands the risks and how to possibly cope with those risks to get the job done. We shouldn’t shirk from change because of the risks, but we absolutely have to have a leader with the proven experience. America, in the area of national defense, must be successful and Senator Clinton has that experience to create change, to understand the risk, and to get the job done.”


Admiral William Owens

“In this world that we face today, very complex as all of us know, I think experience will be really at a premium, especially at the level of the Commander-in-Chief. There’s not time to learn. The phone rings and you have to be ready. You have to ready with intuition, with experience and with skills. And this world will have the complexities that perhaps we’ve never before seen. I’ve been impressed with and admire Hillary Clinton for her work in the Senate. And we need people with great judgment. I think she brings the best of talent, intuition and experience to handle these unknown threats in the future.”

complete audio of testimonials:




And, her committee work. . .she's not chairman, but, still . . .


Sen. Clinton 2007 ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE HEARINGS
http://clinton.senate.gov/issues/nationalsecurity/sasc

Senator Clinton Questions General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Iraq at Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing - September 11, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=282410&&

Senator Clinton Questions General James Jones (Ret.) on the Findings of the Iraqi Security Forces Independent Assessment Commission - September 6, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=281941&&

Nominee for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Commits to Senator Clinton to Brief Congress on Redeployment Planning - July 31, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=279055&&

Senate Armed Services Committee Approves Clinton Measures to Help Wounded Servicemembers - June 14, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=277007&&

Senator Clinton Questions Lieutenant General Douglas Lute at Senate Armed Services Committee Confirmation Hearing - June 7, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=275680&&

Senator Clinton Questions U.S. Central Commander Admiral William Fallon at Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing - May 3, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=273625&&

Senator Clinton Calls for Closure of Guantanamo Bay Detention Center - April 26, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=273211&&

Clinton Presses Bush Pentagon on Contracting Abuses in Iraq - April 19, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=272692&&

Remarks of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on State of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps - April 17, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=272681&&

Clinton Continues to Fight for Our Troops & Veterans; Questions Pentagon and Veterans Affairs Officials About Treatment of Servicemembers and Veterans at Joint Armed Services-Veteran Affairs Committee Hearing - April 12, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=272340&&

Senator Clinton Questions Air Force Leaders Over CSAR-X Contract Process - March 20, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=272340&&

Senator Clinton Questions Army Generals About Living Conditions and Administration of Outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center - March 6, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=270250&&

Senator Clinton Questions Administration and Military Officials About U.S. Policy in Afghanistan - March 1, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=269992&&

Senator Clinton Questions Vice Admiral John M. McConnell, USN (ret), Director of National Intelligence and Lieutenant General Michael Maples, USA, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at a Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Worldwide Threats - February 27, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=269792&&

Senator Clinton Raises Iraq and Darfur with Defense Secretary Gates and General Pace, Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on the Administration's FY 08 Department of Defense Budget Request - February 6, 2007
http://www.clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=268629&&

Senator Clinton Questions General George Casey Jr. on His Nomination to be United States Army Chief of Staff - February 1, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=268451&&

Senator Clinton Questions Admiral William J. Fallon, Nominee for Commander, United States Central Command - January 30, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=268177&&

Senator Clinton Questions Defense Secretary William Perry, Ambassador Dennis Ross, and General Jack Keane on Iraq Strategy - January 25, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=268038&&

Senator Clinton Questions General David Petraeus at Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing - January 23, 2007
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=267862&&

http://clinton.senate.gov/issues/nationalsecurity/sasc


Experience is a combination of opportunity, interest, and commitment. Hillary Clinton has demonstrated all of these in her duties as First Lady and as Senator.

[bigtree]

39. *chirp*, I say

*chirp*

[bigtree]

38. Oh, and the fact that folks aren't bothering to respond may have to do with your cynicism

. . . no sign of an open-minded debate. Just an opportunity for you to heap your scorn on their replies. What a joke.

[ButterflyBlood]

40. Dude, she's been under gunfire!

Unlike Obama. Don't you know, she had to dodge sniper fire in Bosnia!