Hillary explains her "hard choice" in voting for Iraq invasion

[nichomachus]

[HooptieWagon]

1. Yet she repeated the mistake.

Either she's an exceedingly bad learner, or her corporate donors profit from war.

[hobbit709]

2. 3 guesses, first two don't count on that one.

[Baobab]

36. A half million children died

If only Iraq had not had oil.

[Squinch]

6. Did you vote for Kerry?

[HooptieWagon]

9. Has Kerry repeated his mistake?

No. And he's done a credible job cleaning up all the messes Clinton made at State Dept.

[Carolina]

65. Hey Squinch,

I know you didn't ask me but I will offer this explanation of why some of us voted for Kerry despite his IWR vote but will never vote for Hillary (see my long post down thread).

Kerry fought in that wasteful Vietnam war and having known the Bushes were liars since he investigated Iran-Contra, he really should have known better. It was a vote of moral and political cowardice. And it cost him in the end because throughout the campaign, he ended up twisting himself in knots trying to explain and justify the unjustifiable.

But back in 2004, many of us held our noses and voted for him because we still had HOPE. The US had only been in Iraq for one year and Afghanistan for 3. The crash due to Clinton's reversal of Glass-Steagall hadn't happened and Honduras, Libya and Syria hadn't occurred.

But now we see the Corporatists, the MIC and the pols who are bought and paid for by them more clearly, and there is no more voting for the not-so-lesser of two evils. In fact, I think the duplicity of Dems like HRC is worse than repukes because of their lip service to Democratic principles and values while they ultimately upend the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society.

[Squinch]

70. If you can't see the difference between Hillary and Trump, between a Supreme Court after

a Hillary or a Trump presidency, I don't know what to say to you. I see a big difference.

But if you can't see the difference, and can't vote for her, so be it. Do understand, though, that choosing not to vote for the Democratic candidate (and I am assuming you won't be voting for the Republican) makes your opinions about the presidential race irrelevant.

[Kelvin Mace]

84. Maybe you can vote for someone who laughs about dead children

and children with limbs blown off, and who talks about her "mistake" as a way to sell a book, but others can't and won't.

But I guess as long as the suffering is "other people's children", you know, not "Americans", that's fine.

[Squinch]

89. Maybe you shouldn't make decisions based on bad editing of propaganda films.

[Kelvin Mace]

93. She was laughing about a mistake

that killed over a million people, maimed probably a million more and cost this country trillions. Not a damned thing funny about it. It was as funny as this:

[Carolina]

85. Geez

If you don't see the point I was making, then you're willfully blind. And by the way, if you don't see that voting for the same DINOs and neoliberal proponents has lost more Congressional seats and State Houses than ever, and doing so again will get the party and the nation nowhere, then you don't recognize the definition of insanity.

You kept asking if another poster voted for Kerry?! Well a lot of good that did us...

[Squinch]

87. If that is the case, then I guess you don't see the difference in the country under the Bush and

Obama presidencies. I certainly do.

[RufusTFirefly]

3. Thanks for posting!

This is truly sickening but it's important for people to face these "inconvenient truths."

[Squinch]

7. Did you vote for Kerry?

[bahrbearian]

29. “It's time for the United States to start thinking of Iraq as a business opportunity,"

she said in a 2011 speech.

[Baobab]

37. In other words, chance for massive crony capitalism.

Yes, its clear.

[pdsimdars]

4. Hard choice. . . .she makes the same choice every time. . . Money vs. what's good for the country.

She chooses money.

[RufusTFirefly]

5. Meanwhile, single-payer will "never, ever come to pass."

https://m.

Hard choices indeed.

[Sparkly]

41. I believe she was talking about Sanders' plan

for single-payer, which starts with a Congress that's still trying to repeal the ACA.

[Art_from_Ark]

88. It's time to stop listening to people

who have everything but think scraps are good enough for the rest of us.

[Sparkly]

94. .

[Art_from_Ark]

97. Hillary's got everything

But in the video she's basically saying that the rest of us have to settle for scraps.

Sanders at least would fight for his proposals.

[Squinch]

8. Did you vote for Kerry?

[hollysmom]

12. you must believe 3 times the charm (j/k)

[Squinch]

47. No, it's just that, as we are on Democratic Underground, I assume all those people who are saying,

"I could never vote for Hillary due to her vote on the IWR" were also people who voted for Kerry. This puzzles me. And when I ask the question, "Did you vote for Kerry?" I almost never get an answer to that question. I get a lot of replies, but I very seldom get an answer to that question.

[hollysmom]

51. I voted for Kerry. I always vote.

[Squinch]

54. Me too. On both counts.

[Carolina]

90. I know

Such a loser response. I tried to be reasonable in a responsive explanation up thread, but got back a snarky, BS reply.

Not worth wasting time responding to that poster further

[bahrbearian]

31. ?

[oasis]

39. GWB kept promise to NY Sen. Clinton for $20 billion after 9/11 attack.

She pushed for the funding, Bush said "yes".The rest is history. Keeping promises builds relationships.


Next.

[bahrbearian]

40. How much of the 20 billion went to the Clinton Foundation?

Iraq is a business opportunity.

[oasis]

42. New York bounced back. Hillary was the architect and New Yorkers

showed their appreciation in last Tuesday's primary. This we DO know.

[JackRiddler]

58. "Hillary was the architect"?!

Since that's your nonsense and not a Clinton campaign statement - they've been dumb at times but not yet this dumb - you'd be smart not to repeat this nonsense. If it's picked up by right wingers it will end up a bigger joke than "Al Gore invented the Internet."

Almost 800,000 New Yorkers who were allowed to vote last week actually think the carpetbagger should stop pretending she has anything positive to do with our state. Don't you speak for us.

And if last week's election had been open to all New Yorkers in a single vote, Sanders would have been runaway first and Clinton and Trump would be fighting to see who gets into the runoff. If even that.

[oasis]

64. I'm only speaking for the New Yorkers who were eager to

show their support for a senator who "got it done" when they needed it most.

[democrank]

10. Listening to Hillary laugh about her "hard choices" makes me want to vomit.

Hillary`s hard choices are absolutely nothing compared to the hard choices our wounded vets and their families have had to make.

She`s a war hawk who, like Dick Cheney, will never, ever have to worry about her child getting killed or maimed or destroyed emotionally.

[PufPuf23]

13. Agree 100%. Repulsive. Repeat of the Libya clip.

Hillary Clinton does not have the character to be CIC nor POTUS.

[leveymg]

11. Since when was "I regret my mistake" a basis for promotion?

Not unqualified. Disqualified.

[Squinch]

15. Did you vote for Kerry?

[bahrbearian]

34. Did Hillary vote for Bush ?

[Sparkly]

14. Horribly misleading editing.

[leveymg]

16. Terribly effective editing.

What misleading about it? She was part of the Bush-Cheney Iraq War-making machine. A terribly effective part. Then she became a leading part of the Libya and Syria regime change machine. She's a war-maker. If you don't like that truth, you are horribly deluded.

[Sparkly]

38. It's called agitprop.

It's heavily edited to make her seem as sinister as possible. I didn't subject myself to the whole thing but I did manage to track down a couple of the videos that were used.

The full interview of the first clip: Snipped out of context. The interviewer pivoted from Iraq to ask for a comparison to Syria where there was NO invasion, as the president's decision. She answers the question.

The full transcript of the clip about business investment in Iraq: This was a forum with international representatives to encourage businesses to work in Iraq. This is not a bad thing-- it is to create economic stability and opportunity there.
http://articlesofinterest-kelley.blogspot.com/2011/06/hillary-clinton-and-iraq-transcript.html

From NPR around the same time:

I made the best decision that I could at the time. And as we went through the years, and I saw the way that the president [George W. Bush] and his team used my vote and the other votes to authorize action, I became increasingly distressed. I did not believe that it was in the best interest of our country, and it was not something that I any longer wanted to be associated with.

(snip)
Also interesting re: conservative attacks:

I am so used to these people; they're like a bunch of gamers. They're trying constantly to raise false canards, plant false information, and that's what they do. They don't want to have a real debate about what the tax policy should be. They don't want to have a real debate about how we begin growing the economy again. ... They don't want to have a real debate about climate change and clean energy. They want people to get diverted and totally off subject, and that is their modus operandi.

But I have to say that if that's the best they have to offer, let them do it. Because that's not the debate that I think the American people want to have. There's a difference between fair game and playing games. And it is unfortunately too common in today's political environment that people want to play games that divert attention from the real issues that affect our country and its future.
http://www.npr.org/2014/06/12/321313477/hillary-clinton-the-fresh-air-interview

[leveymg]

52. Nobody would ever assume it's objective and balanced. Call it agitprop. But, it's still accurate

and factual. It's the facts that bother me most about Hillary, not how some have spun her.

[Sparkly]

53. It is not accurate.

It is heavily edited, as I pointed out, to make her seem like she delights in death and injury and laughs about it.

[leveymg]

57. If it's factual, it's accurate. There is no such thing as objective political communication.

Everything one reads is spun for effect. May sound cynical, but there is not a single newspaper, organization, or party without a traceable ideology, agenda and spin.

And, by the way, even though this gem wasn't included in the video. the lady does delight in death and injury:

[Sparkly]

59. Nope, it's cherry-picking -- it is MORE than spun.

A transcript. An interview. A book. A floor statement. These are primary -- not secondary -- sources.

This is nonsense. "Delight in death and injury?" She just found out that a mass murderer had been killed (not by her).

The video is cooked-up propaganda, plain and simple.

[leveymg]

100. It's a representative sampling of an ugly side of HRC that is evident to everyone

except her acolytes. I acknowledge that there are some good things about her, but that doesn't outweigh the ill.

You think the excerpts are cherry-picked propaganda, rather than typical of her, because she's all-good to you. You don't even accept that it's factual. You have been indoctrinated into a cult of personality.

[liberalnarb]

19. Misleading?

These are the consequences of war. Plugging your ears and looking away doesn't change that.

[Gwhittey]

60. Yea but the people killed

where not "real" Democrats so it does not matter.

[Squinch]

26. Did you vote for Kerry?

[bahrbearian]

32. I didn't vote for Bush

[Jokerman]

18. Jury voted 1-6 to LEAVE IT

On Mon Apr 25, 2016, 01:57 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

Hillary explains her "hard choice" in voting for Iraq invasion
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511830112

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

The video contains extremely graphic images of war dead and injured children juxtaposed with interview footage of Hillary - manipulative and completely over the top.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Mon Apr 25, 2016, 02:03 PM, and the Jury voted 1-6 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: This is about what happened and was said. If you ban it here, you will leave Hillary supporters not knowing what they need to combat. If history itself can be considered a violation of TOS here at DU, DU will be destroyed as a discussion board. IMO.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Clinton voted in favor of "war dead and injured children". If you don't like the facts about your candidate I suggest you find someone else to support.
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: These were the consequences of the war. Nothing manipulative or over the top about showing what happened.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Wars are ugly
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #7 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Right-wing propaganda hit piece

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

[liberalnarb]

20. I was juror #3

[FlatBaroque]

23. Wow

Clue less.

[leveymg]

24. Factional Alert Abuse.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. She's just advertising her impeccable foreign policy experience...at making "mistakes" and CYA.

[7wo7rees]

22. Damn. That clip does bring back some really harsh memories!

Anyone have any clips from Senator Byrd at that time speaking of all the reasons not to cast a yes vote?

We were on front lines trying to stop this disaster.
Just heartbreaking.

Ms. 7wo7rees

[Maedhros]

25. Yeah, George Jr. also played the "hard man making hard choices" card.

Didn't buy it from him, won't buy it from her.

YOU AUTHORIZED AN ILLEGAL INVASION THAT RESULTED IN HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DEATHS.

[Squinch]

27. Did you vote for Kerry?

[Squinch]

45. I'll take that as a "Yes."

[bahrbearian]

33. Did you vote for Bush?

[Squinch]

46. Nope. I voted for Kerry. How about you?

[Gwhittey]

61. I voted for Bush in 2000

And in 2004 I voted for no one because I started to get my mind straight and saw how corrupted and evil GOP was. I saw swiftboating in 2004 done to Kerry as last straw. So I started to rethink my political views. And at some point it dawned on me about time of SC primary that Clinton was just as bad as Bush because she ran a swiftboating job on Sanders. So as a reformed GOP I can see how Clinton is just like them. Too bad people like you only see a party and can not see how she is same as a GOPer.

[Squinch]

69. Forgive me if I don't use you as my political guru.

[Gwhittey]

71. Ok I re read my post 3 times now

Where did I even suggest you do that? Or are you just making a stupid statement just to try and be cool and "win" some internet dollars against a random person.

[Squinch]

73. No, it's not about being cool. It's about being stunned that someone who voted for Bush

thinks he should try to school people on recognizing the merits of a candidate.

[Gwhittey]

74. Maybe if you served in Military you would understand

It kinda something that happens to you. Sorry my political views in my time of military was influenced poorly due to being over in Somalia and Iraq during 90s. But that is what it is. I can not change it and have learned. But party hacks like you can never understand anything and that is what has lead to how we are today with crappy political system controlled by two parties that are only out to help out the wealthy.

[Squinch]

75. Ah, I see. Only you understand... No one but you understands. Those who disagree with you are,

by definition, party hacks, and "can never understand anything."

How unsurprisingly non-Democratic of you.

[Gwhittey]

76. I'm done ignore boy

You keep arguing shit I never said. So next reply you can have last and final word, good bye.

[Squinch]

77. Imagine my despair. See ya.

[silvershadow]

28. Wasn't hard for me. I called it from my living room. Within minutes. nt

[YouDig]

35. Videos like this are less than worthless. A bunch of out of context snippets.

[nichomachus]

50. Welcome to DU. Happy one week anniversary. nt

[Nye Bevan]

43. Voting for war is always a hard choice. I'm sure it was hard for Bernie to vote for war

in Afghanistan, to take another example.

[nichomachus]

49. Do you have the video of him cackling about it? nt

[LondonReign2]

55. Not a hard choice at all. Afghanstan was harboring the guy that

masterminded 9-11. Iraq was...well, nothing.

It's called judgment. You Hillary fans like to forget all about that...which isn't surprising as she has shown nothing but bad judgment time after time.

[Gwhittey]

62. "Iraq was...well, nothing. "

This is not true. Iraq was a good business opportunity. Come on people who support Clinton and Bush need to get a return on their investments. So what a few 100,000 people got killed. They can not vote for Clinton so their lives are not worth anything.

[LondonReign2]

66. Indeed. And some posters point out, Hill got $20B for NYC.

How much does that come to per life?

[Squinch]

72. Should she not have gotten the funding to rebuild the site of the worst attack on US soil ever?

Was that evil of her too?

As a New Yorker, I'm very grateful to her for that.

[LondonReign2]

79. In exchange for supporting Iraq?

The dead U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians are, I'm sure, pleased that your life is better off as a result.

[Squinch]

80. Well, that's just a whole lotta bullshit, now isn't it?

[LondonReign2]

83. In your opinion, if Hillary got up on the Senate floor and argued against the Iraq war

with the same vehemence as she actually argued for it, extorted her colleagues to vote against it, perhaps even pointed out that the intel was crap and that in no way was Iraq connected to 9-11...Bush would have still given her the $20B?

[Squinch]

86. New York had just been bombed. That's why she got $20 billion. Take your bullshit

elsewhere.

[LondonReign2]

91. So then it had nothing to do with Hillary? NY had just been bombed, so Bush was going to

pony up? You failed to answer: If she voted the other way and made Senate floor speeches imploring her fellow Senators to vote against the Iraq war, Bush would still have given her the $20B?

[Squinch]

96. Here. Read snopes.

Her support for giving war powers to the president was highly qualified, and not exactly enthusiastic. And no it wasn't a quid pro quo.

http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-iraq-vote-bribe/

[LondonReign2]

98. Snopes says that Clinton did not admit to a quid pro quo.

I would hope not.

Her vote was wrong. Dead wrong. Horrible lack of judgment. And further she parrots all the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfelt lies.

[Warren DeMontague]

56. Except everyone with an IQ over 80 was able to distinguish between Afghanistan and Iraq.

Afghanistan had an actual connection to 9-11. Iraq did not.

[LondonReign2]

81. Much like Dick Cheney, many Hillary fans want to forget that

inconvenient truth. Republicans of a feather...

[NWCorona]

68. Not even close to being the same thing.

[Aerows]

48. I don't want to hear a goddamn thing

from the Nader yelling sect of our party when she loses.

Everybody has documented the voter suppression, the idiocy of "not having enough ballots" and such a diminished number of polls that people have to stand in line for five hours to exercise their right to vote.

They can cheerlead for Hillary their asses off, but they had best not attempt to whine when Republicans win - I don't want to hear it.

[Carolina]

63. There are no words, no

fucking excuse because:

Reason 1: Iraq did not attack the US; fifteen of the nineteen hijackers as well as Osama bin Laden were Saudi Arabian while the other four were from the UAE, Egypt, Yemen. They learned to fly here in the States (Florida, Arizona).

Reason 2: Iraq had been under horrific UN sanctions since the first Bush war on Iraq in 1991; so how could it have morphed into an imminent, mushroom cloud threat to the US in 2002 when IWR was being peddled

Reason 3: W's administration introduced IWR and demanded a vote on it right before the 2002 midterm elections. Wise men and women questioned the timing and the rush, but not those who voted aye... they had their eyes on being POTUS and cast calculating votes that reeked of political and moral cowardice.

Reason 4: Anyone who was paying attention knew about PNAC and therefore knew how the Bush cabal and Carlyle group had their eyes on carving up Iraq's oil fields. Clinton sure knew because the signers of PNAC policy papers wrote Bill seeking pre-emptive action while he was POTUS.

Reason 5: the Bush cabal STOLE the White House in 2000 precisely because they had their PNAC plans. Then, they ignored all the warnings/chatter leading up to 9/11 including the August 6th PDB. They allege they were blindsided and could not have foreseen such an attack. But that flies in the face of the fact that the airspace had to be closed around the G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy in July 2001 precisely because of terrorists' threats to fly planes into buildings! So therefore, why would any sentient 'leader' of the opposition party trust or "have good faith" in ANYTHING proposed by W

Reason 6: Anyone who knew history, knew that Reagan sold WMDs to Saddam/Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war (recall the photo of Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand). So when Cheney took to the airwaves in 2002 talking about WMDs and said he knew where they were and how they'd been used against the Kurds, he was telling the truth... about 1988. He was using his dirty past to foment a new war for oil

Reason 7: the Bush cabal withdrew the weapons inspectors because they were not finding anything. Scott Ritter (who was smeared) and his fellow inspectors' findings would not/did not conform to the desired Bush narrative, so Colin Bowel sold his soul and did his 'tube' presentation to the UN

Reason 8: Citing the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, Robert Byrd gave an eloquent and passionate speech about lies that lead to war, about the waste of war, about the unintended consequences of war... and he challenged the rush to war. Bob Graham (who actually read the documents available to Congress) and Ted Kennedy spoke as well. Why didn't HRC listen to them rather than Bush or Cheney? No, she gave Bush bipartisan cover with her aye vote, and so she has blood on her hands, too!

Clearly the rationale for IWR was all a LIE, and if millions of citizens could see all this THEN, why not Clinton?! She voted aye, ran for POTUS and lost in large measure because of that vote. Votes have consequences and there is no apology large enough to cover a cowardly, finger-in-the-wind vote that has caused so much death, debt, destruction and destabilization (ISIS)!

[Demsrule86]

67. Lets stop the crap right?

John Kerry also voted for the war...remember and we were all in it to win it for...we had a couple of days where only members could get on because his loss was so devastating...hypocrites most of you.

[LondonReign2]

92. Voiting to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 was the right thing

to do? Is that you Mr. Cheney?

Holy fuck, are we on Free Republic?

[Carolina]

95. Oh puhleeze

Kerry cast a politically calculating vote for war that was all the more egregious because he knew war and the legacy of a wasteful, wrong war. As a result throughout the 2004 campaign, he ended up twisting himself in knots trying to explain and justify the unjustifiable.

But back in 2004, many of us held our noses and voted for him because we still had HOPE. The US had only been in Iraq for one year and Afghanistan for 3. The crash due to Clinton's reversal of Glass-Steagall hadn't happened and Honduras, Libya and Syria hadn't occurred.

But now we see the Corporatists, the MIC and the pols on both sides of the aisle who are bought and paid for by them more clearly, and there is no more voting for the not-so-lesser of two evils. In fact, the duplicity of Dems like HRC is worse than repukes because of their lip service to Democratic principles and values while they ultimately upend the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society.

[oldandhappy]

78. This stream has shown me why the U.N. has problems!!

[silvershadow]

82. I called it correctly from my easy chair, before sundown that day. I was right. She wasn't. nt

[moondust]

99. I'm still waiting...

for somebody to question Bill Clinton at length on why he didn't know the status of Iraq's WMD since he was receiving top-level briefings as late as January 2001. Iraq's WMD programs were apparently abandoned by the mid 1990s, so Bill Clinton should have heard about it over the course of his last 5-6 years in office. He should have been able to at least steer his wife, other Democrats in Congress, and Tony Blair off the warpath. Of course Tony had his own independent sources that should have also known something resembling the truth.

[silvershadow]

101. Wrong on virtually everything. nt