My reaction to Clark endorsing Clinton (from "The Agonist")

[autorank]

Perhaps an honorary degree from the School of the Americas too

This is actually good news. The supporters of total denial unfurl their flags. They are as one moving forward, learning nothing. We need a dose of reality. One reality is that there's a consistent pattern of very negative public attitudes towards HRC, mid to high 40's over time. Beyond that practical issue, Clinton voted to enable Iraq at a time when every single Senator knew there were no WMD in Iraq. It was convenient, an easy political call. Just like it's convenient for Clark to endorse her after his crypto-progressive act of the past two years.

Poll: Civilian toll in Iraq may top 1,000,000

Link

A recent British study updated the earlier effort from Johns Hopkins University on civilian deaths due to the Iraq War. JHU's 650,000 is now at 1,000,000 civilian deaths that would not have occurred had there been no invasion. ONE MILLION DEAD CIVILIANS DUE TO THE INVASION.

Of course, no one in Congress gets much ink for mentioning this fact but it is the central issue - we're approaching Pol Pot numbers here.

For HRC, Clark, Mitt, Rudy G and the rest of them to think that this death toll will be ignored by the rest of the world is absurd. "We" didn't do it, the citizens without the power to stop it or those duped into supporting it. It truly is "they" who bear this responsibility and are guilty without need of trial for the deaths; the quiescent killers.

Clark's endorsement goes a long way to prop up (or should I say "stand up") this widely disliked, morally indifferent candidate who represents the one chance for a continuation of true madness - the continuation of Republican rule.

I'm optimistic that the public will find a way to reject HRC and the rest of those responsible and start working out of the mess bequeathed by George H.W., Bill, Hillary, W, and the rest of the in crowd. They are truly the very worst collection of leaders in the history of the world because they are the first collection of political leaders whose policies have lead to serious questions about the survival of our society in any acceptable form over the next few critical decades.

Michael Collins September 15, 2007 - 4:43pm

[BlooInBloo]

1. I wonder if it will ever occur to a DUer than maybe, just maybe Clinton just isn't as bad...

... as the DU-mob-bandwagon dogmatically insists?

BWAHAHAA!!!! Who am I kidding. OF COURSE du-ers will simply rip on anyone and everyone who supports Clinton.

And I say that as a non-fan-non-hater of Clinton.

[alfredo]

I just want to win. I don't care if it is any of the top three, just as

long as they can win, and all three are much better than the moral midgets from the GOP>

[emilyg]

10. You got it right.

I don't want 8 more years of R's

[alfredo]

13. that's it. We must trust the wisdom of the primary voter. Once they

have made their choice, we must do our best to win.

[autorank]

2. It's not directed just at Clinton, it's a buffet ... enough to go around.

Why isn't this the issue - 1,000,000 - dead Iraqi civilians?

[aquart]

3. Single-minded hatred is so reminiscent of that other website.

And that other party.

The desperate need to deny an opponent any human quality or decency is both wrong and revolting.

[autorank]

15. 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians DEAD who would otherwise be alive but for the invasion.

That's the point of the post, one million dead. I don't hate anybody but I'm disgusted at drive by
foreign policy and those who endorse it. If the shoe fits wear it and those mentioned have a
perfect fit.

This was a political expediency that resulted in one million deaths. Comment on that rather than
diverting the topic through the straw man of your concocted "hate" theme.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. I'm sure you got the memo-- Kucinich or...

nobody.

Unless Gore runs.

[autorank]

16. :)

:hi:

"We've got mail!"

[bullwinkle428]

5. I've been a big pro-Clark guy for years, but was a little disappointed

recently when he was being interviewed on the Stephanie Miller show. He seemed to be pushing the "Iran is arming the insurgents in Iraq" kind of forcefully, like he's expecting a future Democratic President to be prepared to take action against them once they're in office. I can't say for sure...just a vibe I received that bothered me a bit.

[autorank]

17. "Won't get fooled again!" Till the next time. I was and guess who else was

...Michael Moore, who endorsed him. I supported him in 2004 before he dropped out. I thought he was different...blablabla. I'm disappointed in Me, wait that's a DU user friend, I meant "me."

Memo to self: forget the personal appeal, the trappings, and go right to message.

Clark has helped but I don't see this as consistent with a new way of working with the world.

We don't get to invade and kill at will, that's over and it's damn costly to everybody involved.

Think where we'd be without all of these "wars of one" declared by presidents to lie by calling the
actions something other than war and who jerk the American people around with the corporate media
and a bunch of lies.

Time to "ground" these Rambos in Chief and send them to their room.

PS. The evidence for your vibe is new to me and you're right on target. These threats and obligations of our great nation are not at all acceptable. Even Gen. Pace said that's b.s.

[Cha]

24. I was thinking about that earlier..

"wonder what Michael Moore thinks about Clark now? :(

Clark, rightfully, stood up for Moore when he was being bashed unmercifully for F9/11 so Moore endorsed him(the way I understand it). Moore also said he was at a fundraiser where Dean was and thought he was an arrogant so and so..wonder what Michael thinks of Dean NOW?

Michael also had words about Kerry the other week ..calling him a "weenie" which I think he ought to have thought about some more before shooting that one off. But, on the whole..nobody's perfect and I respect them all except I don't want hillary for pres.

[MissWaverly]

6. Thanks for the post autorank

I have been thinking about this all day today off and on, just how is the Supreme Leader of Iran going to make good
on his promise of bringing Bush & Co to trial for war crimes against Iraq. This is a terrible thing, one million
people dead over there, and we just go through some kind of jabberwocky about staying the course. Somebody
has to be accountable for this. I have not forgotten that both HRC and JE voted for the war.

[autorank]

20. It's amazing to hear Congress talk of "soft partition" when this is right there, in the open

Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, follow up by a decent British polling firm - we're talking reality here and all we hear is a bunch of nonsense.

It really puts in perspective those who argue for a continuation or one of those 12-24 month withdrawals (from those who say we should leave;): THEY DON'T ACKNOWLEDGE THE DEATH TOLL.

Time for truth!

:hi;

[MissWaverly]

22. We can not control 27 million people with 160,000 troops

we cannot stop the ethnic cleansing with that number, the majority of the people in Iraq do not have what they need to
survive, we have to acknowledge that there is a better way than what we are doing and have been doing.

[autorank]

23. It's like trying to control California with that many.

There are more people in California but it's a good analogy. What the heck are these guys
thinking?

[Cha]

25. "Bombs Away"?

As long as they personally don't have to go to the ME to fight the Freedom Fighters.

[MissWaverly]

34. If we bomb the hell out of the Middle East

The Iraqis and the Iranians will conveniently deliver suicide bombers to our doorsteps.

[Cha]

37. Oh yeah, and anyone knows that..

even the buSHITS who want martial law and a forever military complex machine. It's not JUST about the OIL..it's control of the people and money forever spent on bombs.

[MissWaverly]

39. I saw Bush standing in front of a flag with 38 states

and I thought is this what he's planning, a small rural America with the Northeast, California, and the Mid-West clones of
Katrina with the Texas and the South, Florida, Alaska and Northwest left.

[MissWaverly]

33. I did look up facts on Iraq

It's twice the size of Idaho, with 14% of it capable of being cultivated, mostly plains with a desert climate, it has less than
1% permanent crops. Now I figured it out, put into this space 27 million people, that's the population of Chicago, Philly
and New York combined and then take away all the reliable infrastructure, popular songs in Iraq say that you can not tell
the difference between a policeman and a thief. And then add 160,000 US troops to make up for no government structure,
over half of the Iraq parliament now live outside the country. What government Iraq has now is in the Green Zone.
Most are lucky to get 2 hours of electricity a day, the water is undrinkable and cholera has now broken out North of
Baghdad.

[Peregrine Took]

7. I think he was always a Klintonista. No surprise there. n/t

[bigtree]

8. "morally indifferent candidate"

what a hack

[autorank]

31. "Killing in the name of..."

"morally indifferent candidate"

[illinoisprogressive]

9. Good post. I feel the same way.

When I think of Hillary as our nominee or even president I feel the exact same way I did in Nov. 2004.
I was running errands and in one little shop the radio was on and suddenly it came on that John Kerry had bowed.
I remember walking out of the shop and for several days afterwards it seemed there was this eerie silence that hung over the world. Like one of those collective, what the hell have we done?
I was depressed, in shock and walking around like I was outside myself. and this very heavy feeling inside me.
that is how I feel when I think about Hillary getting the nomination or winning the white house.
I don't feel that way about the other candidates.

[MissWaverly]

12. I agree, I want to move ahead with someone who can

heal the country and I don't think it is Hillary.

[Baby Snooks]

11. The lesser of two evils...

The lesser of two evils is still evil.

[autorank]

18. Isn't that the truth!!! WELCOME TO DU!!!

:hi:

[LeftCoast]

19. Lotta people said there'd be no difference between Gore and Bush too

Though we'll never know for sure, I find it difficult to believe that in hindsight.

Same thing here. There is a HUGE difference between our candidates and their candidates and if you can't see that I'm wondering what country you've been living in for the last 7 years.

[autorank]

27. LeftCoast, I did NOT say that there was no difference between parties.

Were was that in the post. This is curious. Upthread someone accused me of spreading hate. Wow,
you disagree with a selection or a position of one part of the party and it's hate. Now you see,
without a quote, an argument that there's no difference.

Here's the difference. Clinton did not attack Iraq. That's great. But we did bomb and there those
sanctions during the 90's. By conservative estimate, 100,000, and by UN figures, 500,000 Iraqi
children who died during the 90's blockade of Iraq. That's either 1/10th as bad to 1/2 as bad
compared to Bush. The real point is CIVILIANS ARE DEAD had we not interfered - either through the
blocade and preemptive invasion.

On some issues there is a huge difference, on some a noticeable difference, and with regard to the
human life of those we attack, not enough - the problem isn't the Iraq War per se, it's the
mentality that we can interfere and cause death. For what, to protect Kuwaiti oil revenues; to
settle a score with bin Laden by attacking the wrong country.

So there's your difference and there's your similarity.

Death of Iraqi Children due to 1990's Sanctions


http://www.fff.org/aboutUs/bios/jxb.asp

A United Nations Children‚s Fund (UNICEF) report in 1999 concluded that half a million Iraqi
children had died in the previous eight years because of the sanctions. Columbia University
professor Richard Garfield, an epidemiologist and an expert on the effects of sanctions, estimated
in 2003 that the sanctions had resulted in infant and young-child fatalities numbering between
343,900 and 529,000.

Regardless of the precise number of fatalities (which will never be known), the sanctions were a key
factor in inflaming Arab anger against the United States. The sanctions were initially imposed to
punish Iraq for invading Kuwait and then were kept in place after the Gulf War supposedly in order
to pressure Saddam to disarm.

[burythehatchet]

14. Amen

[Sparkly]

21. "every single Senator knew there were no WMD in Iraq"

Really?

Clinton "represents the one chance for a continuation of true madness - the continuation of Republican rule" -- not a fan of hers, but I don't know what that statement is supposed to mean.

[autorank]

29. Information and clarification.

This opened my mind, in a very big way. Prior knowledge on WMD issue

There are other sources too but the one above is comprehensive. Can a specific member deny prior knowledge?Sure. But we'd know that was a total bull shit excuse because they were all there, they talk to each other they have smart staffers who follow this stuff. It was like the vote on habeas corpus in 9/2006 or the FISA extension vote a few weeks ago - the Republicans are lock-step, right down the line and they piece off some Dems to legitimize it. It's one thing to take our liberties, it's another to take a whole lot of lives of civilians.

"They" do it, we don't but they do it in our name. I sick of it.

Good point on the the "one chance..." remark. I was being obscure or tired but the key info isn't right there. HRC is the one chance for Republicans to win because her negatives are so high and have been for so long. I don't know how solid her base is, those who say yes. I do now you have to win by a big majority (the "e-voting" disadvantage) to win by any majority. So how do you get from low 40's nationally to a plurality or majority? I can't see it happening given the negatives, which are a function of all the right wing hatched jobs but exist nonetheless. Point taken.

If it's not Gore, we're screwed royally, imho.

[OzarkDem]

26. Bill Clinton did nothing to lead us into the current mess

Clinton's foreign policy was nearly flawless, he did the best he could w/ the mideast after the mess the neocons began with Reagan and Bush. To the contrary, he nearly pulled off a peace treaty in the ME and would have accomplished it if he had more time.

Big Dog was an excellent president and any attempt to group him in with the failures of the Bush regime is irrational and without merit.

[autorank]

30. I'm talking about lots of civilian deaths and the policies that lead to those deaths

Take a look at this, deaths of Iraqi children due to blockadesthat we instigated. 300,000-500,000
children dead due to the Iraq blockade during the 1990's. For what? To make the world safe for
Kuwaiti oil extraction? To soften them up for a preemptive invasion by Bush just like the one Gulf
War I was supposed to take care of?

I think Clinton was a good president, by and large given the nut job Congress he had to work with.
I think that he made a terrible mistake in the blockade of Iraq and these deaths support that
argument. I was very partisan toward Clinton during the right wing defamation attacks. I'm probably
one of like 12 people in the country who believed him on the non issue of sex "with that woman" - I
held out until DNA results were in. Thought he had some master plan to lure them in, ambush them;)

But I'm sick and tired of the government where I live "killing in the name of" what? Not in my name,
not any more, and no support for those who did it.

[OzarkDem]

36. Deaths of Iraqis as a result of the blockade

were Saddam Hussein's fault, not Clinton's. Clinton used the best option he had available. The only alternative was the one Bush chose, which we all know has killed many more Iraqi's.

[BlackVelvet04]

28. Will the Clark supporters

who think Clark is a wonderful man accept that he might know what he's doing endorsing HRC?

Certainly Hillary is not perfect but she is a smart, strong woman who has a great chance at being the first woman president. She'll get my vote and I won't have to hold my nose to do it.

[madmunchie]

32. I'll still hold out for some time. I love Clark, but at this point in our time

I choose to wait before I decide on anyone.

WC has his own reasons for endorsing Hillary, spoken and unspoken, waiting and watching will possibly shed light on the unspoken.

[Blackhatjack]

35. The decision by Clark and the timing of the announcement are surprising..

Any politician worth his salt knows that the Democratic Nominating process is far from finished, and while Clinton leads many polls anything could happen which might take her out as a viable candidate.

Clark ran in the last election, and he must know this.

So even if Clark were going to make such a decision and public endorsement, why now? Why hitch your wagon irrevocably to HRC with so much ground left to cover?

I like Clark and believe he could be very helpful to the next Democratic Administration. However, I am concerned that there is a 'backstory' here that we are not privvy to.

IMHO Clark just took himself out of the running as a VP running mate unless HRC wins the nomination.

[dogman]

38. And Gore would be different, how?

Gore has not been a pacifist in my recollection. We can only guess how Gore would have voted if he were still in the Senate. I do trust that he would not have us in this mess if he were President, only Lieberman or Edwards would have based on their positions in 2003.

[autorank]

40. Gore opposed the war openly. But more importantly, he sees the top priorities.

Which don't include a bunch of chest thumping and threats. Does the leader of Iran suck? Yes, he's a damn denier moron. Does that mean we need to get more people killed and go even more broke? Nah. I say, whoever gets in, make Richardson foreign policy czar, entirely. He's superb at dealing with screw ball's like the guy in Iran, has a record of real success. Them man is brilliant. I'd be interested to see what he did as president, very interested. Absent that, use his talent to keep the screw balls at bay and then focus on saving the planet.

That's a good question and I gave an inadequate answer but there are a few points of difference, mostly in the form of assumptions and priorities.