TYT: How Would Hillary Handle the Next Cuban Missile Crisis?

[ihavenobias]

How Would Hillary Handle the Next Cuban Missile Crisis?
By Cenk Uygur
Posted April 1, 2008 | 11:33 AM (EST)

NOTE: This is only an excerpt. Please click the link below for the entire article (it's not long but it *is* easer to read on the Huffington Post page)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/how-would-hillary-handle-_b_94445.html

Throughout the primaries there has been a credulous discussion about the different reasons why Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War authorization bill. Senator Clinton has said that she thought the president should have the authority to threaten force so he would have better negotiation leverage. Senator Obama has said she showed poor judgment in trusting President Bush to use that authority wisely.

Neither one of these things is true. Let's get real. She voted for the Iraq War because she thought it was in her political interest. I'm not one to think that every wink and nod of Senator Clinton is a meticulously thought out political strategy. But come on, this isn't a laugh here or a tear there -this was the biggest political vote of their careers. Did they take politics into consideration? Of course!!!!

And what was the political calculation here? All the Democrats who had national ambitions thought they would be called weak on national security if they didn't vote for the war. You know it, I know it and everyone who was paying any degree of attention knows it.

So, what does this vote reveal about Senator Clinton? She is willing to side with Republicans on matters of great importance to avoid the appearance of weakness. Instead of challenging the Republican frame on national security, she succumbs to it.

It's not just the Iraq authorization vote. It's the Kyl-Lieberman amendment where she agreed that Iran was killing our soldiers and was a terrorist threat to us (on very flimsy evidence), thereby paving the way for another possible war. We might or might not have that war, but she was willing to take that risk so she didn't appear weak on national security.

She also accepts the Republican position that negotiating with our enemies is a foolhardy and naïve idea (I know, Reagan was such a naïf when he negotiated with the Soviets). Why does she take this extreme position? Because otherwise the Republicans might call her ... weak on national security.

So, how will she react if God forbid there is a serious threat to this country when she is president? I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt and assuming she will not pull the trigger on imagined threats dreamed up by neocons. But if there is a real threat, what do we want our president doing? Worrying about the consequences of her decision to the real security of this country or worrying about how she'll be perceived by the Republicans?

Will they call her weak on national security? Should she pull the trigger to show them how tough she is?

At this point, every Republican reading this is screaming, "But she should pull the trigger! You said there was real national security threat!" It seems we have forgotten the days when firing first was not our only option. Remember when we had the Cuban Missile Crisis and John F. Kennedy was a hero for not getting us into war?

Remember when we thought war was a bad idea? Remember when we realized the true costs of war and didn't treat it as just a video game for America to win? Remember when avoiding war was considered a strong act of presidential leadership, not a weak one?

Sometimes war is necessary. But, although you couldn't tell these days, sometimes it isn't. We need a president strong enough to tell the difference. Is someone who has been tailoring all of her foreign policy moves to avoid criticism by the warmongering Republicans going to be able to show that kind of judgment, that kind of strength?

If we had a current day Cuban Missile Crisis, would Hillary pull the trigger just to show the Republicans she wasn't weak on national security? You can reasonably say she wouldn't. But even her most ardent supporters, in their heart of hearts, would have to admit they aren't quite sure. That has been her pattern. That has been her experience. That has been her record.

How sure could you possibly be that she wouldn't act in what she perceived was her political interest rather than what the moment truly called for? Now, I understand that every politician considers their political interest to some degree (though, to what degree matters a tremendous amount). But that's not the only problem for Senator Clinton. The other problem is that she has calculated her political interest all wrong...

(For the rest, please click here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/how-would-hillary-handle-_b_94445.html)

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. K & R

[CherylK]

2. K & R!

[navarth]

3. off to the greatest with ye. k&r n/t

[Jack Rabbit]

4. Cenk can say this, but Obama cannot

A pundit like Cenk Uygar can posit the idea that Senator Clinton voted for the IWR in order not to appear weak on foreign policy rather than to give Mr. Bush, the usurping president, a stronger negotiating hand. Most of us intuit that tha Mr. Uygar is correct, but unless one is witness to Mrs. Clinton's soul and thought processes, one can't prove it.

Senator Obama thus does what any politician, especially one who is a trained attorney, would do: he attacks Senator Clinton's excuse on its face. While it isn't cynical to have voted for the IWR for the reasons Senator Clinton gives, it's awful poor judgment to trust Mr. Bush on matters of war and peace, or even $20 until payday. Frankly, I don't think Mrs. Clinton is stupid, but cynicism is one of her less admirable character traits.

However, it would be impolitic of Senator Obama to say that.

Uygar brings up a good point that perhaps many my age have forgotten and many younger people have never known: that once upon a time, wise leadership was recognized as avoiding war, not plunging into one. It is surprising that this many years after Vietnam we need to be reminded of this fundamental premise. Unfortunately, the myth has prevailed in some quarters that Vietnam was lost because of a lack of will on the part of Congress and the American people themselves, not because sooner or later US troops would have to come home while the Viet Cong were already at home. I suppose we could have "won" in Vietnam, if completely destroying the country in order to save it from Communism is one's idea of a worthwhile victory. It is to our credit, and a testimony of the strength of our national character, that We, the People, had no desire to win that kind of victory.

The neoconservatives are not so wise. Nevertheless, these demagogues have convinced enough people that the US can solve any problem, any time, by bombing foreign capitals and sending in the Marines that it appeared weak, if not treacherous or unpatriotic, to suggest less desperate measures are what is in order. We should shame any politician, Mrs. Clinton included, or any political organization, including the Democratic Leadership Council, who acquiesces to this kind of nonsense as she did in the fall of 2002.

Mr. Bush and his lieutenants were willfully and deliberately lying to Congress and the American people. The "summary" of the NIE given to Congress left the impression that it was a proven fact that Saddam had biochemical weapons and was seeking to build nuclear weapons, yet the NIE itself was less certain. In fact, the case for war against Iraq was not proved. Many of the administration's points had been refuted by the time Congress voted on the IWR, and many more by the time the first missiles were fired on Baghdad. The case against the war was in the public record for those who knew where to look. Scott Ritter knew that Saddam was no threat, and said so. In Britain, The Guardian published a story by Julian Borger as early as October 2002 about the politicization of American intelligence. The same document that General Powell used to argue before the United Nations that Saddam had a biochemical arsenal also revealed that the biological and chemical agents were ordered destroyed shortly after the 1991 Gulf War.

I knew these things and responded to Bush's drum beat by marching to a different drummer in massive anti-war demonstrations in February 2003. Even today, I have very little patience for those members of Congress who voted for the IWRin 2002 and then, when things went as badly in Iraq as they did in Vietnam, made the poor excuse that Bush and his aides deceived them.

[ihavenobias]

5. True

Obama can't say these things and we can't be 100% sure, but it does make a lot of sense.

[CherylK]

6. Bump!