Sen. Clinton wanted to emphasize her national security creds at the end of the debate. She did this by reminding viewers of the prevalence of terror around the world:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/us/politics/15demdebate-transcript.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=politics&adxnnlx=1200514252-Q3NfZ1OvYkhdknAg7V34iw&pagewanted=print CLINTON:
". . . the highest and greatest duty of the president of the United States is to protect and defend our country. And at the end of the day, voters have to make that decision, among all of us, Democrats and Republicans, who are vying for the votes.
Because it is a critical question. It always is. There are, you know, reasons going back in our history why that is so.
But in this time, in this period, where we're going to have to repair a lot of the frayed relationships coming out of the Bush administration, where we're going to have to summon the world to a concerted effort to quell the threat of terrorism, to root them out wherever they are, it's going to be one of the biggest jobs facing our next president.
And I feel prepared and ready to take on what is a daunting but necessary responsibility."But, it struck me that, if she was touting her own role and responsibility over the years since 9-11 in keeping the lid on terror, she needs to answer for hers, and the Democratic majority's failure to restrain Bush as he made things worse with his attack on Iraq and his diversion from the pursuit of the original terror suspects. She was on the Armed Services Committee.
But despite Sen. Clinton's (admittedly Minority) efforts, the Pentagon ravaged the landscape with their anti-constitutional abuses, their unbridled aggression abroad, their hijacking of our nation's defenses for their political self-interest, and the rape of our treasury. Many of those administration abuses were carried out with the aid of funding which Sen. Clinton voted for. If she's relying on her position as senator to illustrate her effectiveness, I think she fails the mark.
The most pernicious influence perpetuating violent attacks against the U.S., our interests and our allies since the small band of thugs attacked us on 9-11 has been Bush's unrestrained military expansionism in Iraq, as well as his diversion from the pursuit of the suspects in the attacks. To the extent that our elected Democrats have failed to restrain or direct Bush, or his republican enablers in Congress, there can be no legitimate claim of any superiority from them in keeping our country safe.
This administration could not have gotten as far along in their tyranny and reckless belligerence without Democrats like Hillary Clinton regularly advancing the funds for their militarism or voting to advance the architects and orchestrators of that militarism, like Rice, and the rest of the White House minions. There should have been zero cooperation with the agenda of this president, but there seemed to be no limit to the 'cooperation' of Democrats in the tyrant's steady construction of his 'terror war' and his destruction of the Constitution in his domestic assault on privacy and other rights. Hillary Clinton was part and parcel of many of those.
She says, "we're going to have to summon the world to a concerted effort to quell the threat of terrorism, to
root them out wherever they are . . .
Sounds like a continuation of Bush's terror war, to me. At best, it's not a progressive stance which should be received with open arms by our Democratic constituency. It's an appeal to those who believe that the solution to addressing those individuals or groups around the world who feel compelled to violently resist our imperialistic, nation-building advance on their territory is even more imperialistic military meddling. It smells like the same old militarism, to me, that we've endured for most of Bush's term.
I'm just not impressed by this hard-line posturing our candidates feel compelled to perform to prove they'll exercise our nation's defenses if necessary. I'm more interested in the 'repairing' Clinton spoke of. But, she can't have, both, heightened U.S. military aggression abroad, and the healing she's giving lip service to. I can imagine those desires falling by the wayside if some continued militarism by her administration just serves to feed the resistant fires abroad.
She just doesn't make me feel any safer when she postures like this. If that aggressive stance -- or her 'experience' -- is the basis of her claim to superiority over the others, I'm not buying.
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree