Clinton's Iraq War Vote Still Appalls

[Bjornsdotter]

http://www.progressive.org/news/2016/04/188671/clinton%E2%80%99s-iraq-war-vote-still-appalls

Clinton’s vote, which she now professes to regret, raises troubling implications regarding her role as a potential commander-in-chief.

The United Nations Charter forbids member states from using military force unless they are under direct attack or receive explicit authorization by the U.N. Security Council. (Customary international law allows for pre-emptive war, but only in cases of an imminent threat, such as troops massing along the border or missiles preparing to be launched.)

Clinton now claims the vote was simply meant to pressure Saddam Hussein to allow inspectors back in and that it had the support of Hans Blix, head of the U.N. inspection team. But the bill she supported in October 2002 gave President Bush blanket authority to attack Iraq. When he did so in March 2003, despite inspectors having been in Iraq for over three months with unfettered access to Iraqi facilities, she supported that decision.

Furthermore, virtually all the alleged intelligence data made available to Congress has since been declassified; most strategic analysts have found it transparently weak, based largely on hearsay by Iraqi exiles of dubious credibility and conjecture by ideologically driven Bush administration officials. Meanwhile, Clinton ignored information provided by U.N. inspectors, reports by independent strategic analysts, and articles in reputable arms control journals that challenged the administration’s claims.

She was also the only Democratic senator to make the absurd claim—strongly challenged by scholars, diplomats and other observers—that the secular Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein was supporting the Salafist Islamist Al-Qaeda movement. And more than a year after the U.S. invasion and the Bush administration's acknowledgement that Iraq had neither any WMDs nor any ties to Al-Qaeda, Clinton insisted it was “the right vote,” adding “I don’t regret giving the president authority.

This raises concerns that, as president, Clinton might again be willing to blindly accept similarly inaccurate and alarmist intelligence claims over more sober strategic analysis in making decisions on whether to go to war.

[DemocracyDirect]

1. In light of the intelligence briefing that has now been declassified...

... which she had the responsibility to read, but clearly did not resulting in 100s of thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Qualified?

[Voice for Peace]

2. Alarmist intelligence with lucrative prospects, only.nt.

[EdwardBernays]

3. She was told

By Bob Graham that she should read the classified NIE, which he he told her changed his vote from yes to no. She has been asked if she read it and dodged the question.

Either she read it and deliberately lied or she utterly betrayed thousands of dead Americans by refusing to do something simple to make sure she cast an informed vote for war.

Imagine bringing that sort of casual attitude towards war to the White House.

A vote for Hillary is a vote for incompetence and war.