Reply #72: Like yourself, many of us supported her in 2000, now betrayed

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

We progressives cannot support someone who's practically to the right of Bush on many basic issues of war and peace. Hillary's lame capitulation in 2002-- when she could have been raising questions about the shoddy and sloppy intelligence leading up to the Iraq War-- was bad enough. But this transgression was compounded by her warmongering on other fronts as well.

She's been pushing for economic sanctions and even military action against Syria, which poses absolutely no threat to us whatsoever. Bashar Assad's regime is autocratic but actually far more benign than the regimes of our "allies" such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who emphasize radical Islam, brutalize their women and deploy an especially repugnant justice system. Syria in comparison is secular (led by the Alawite Baathists) and vehemently opposed to Islamic fundamentalism-- in fact, just as in Saddam's Iraq, women have been able to enjoy a remarkable degree of freedom and professional potential in Syria because of the regime's secular inclination. Bashar is also more of a reformer than his father, and while the reforms may take decades, Syria's actually moving in a more pro-democratic direction than Iraq was. If we're stupid enough to impose sanctions or take military action to depose Syria's regime, we'll get the ultra-fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood in its place, thereby creating yet another dangerous enemy for ourselves to tackle in the region.

Hillary's also been pushing for military action against Iran, despite the fact that Iran is at least a decade away, by even generous estimates, from having a nuclear weapon. We cannot, absolutely cannot afford another big Middle Eastern war, it will destroy our country when we're already reeling, but this is precisely what Hillary is pushing for. She's even in favor of permanent bases in Iraq, which we cannot allow. Those of us who count ourselves progressives just can't support her because of these stands.