HILLARY HAS ANSWERS FOR IRAQ
Read it all for the details. -- Even as she is involved in an exhaustive campaign for the nomination, she's working and planning for the best interests of the nation.
Now, withdrawal is not risk-free, but the risks of staying in Iraq are certain. And a well-planned withdrawal is the one and only path to a political solution. The only way to spur the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future and to ensure that we don't bear that responsibility indefinitely. The only way to spur other countries to do their part to help secure stability in the region. The commitment to staying in Iraq has driven President Bush's foreign policy. It looks like it would drive Senator McCain’s foreign policy as well, but it will not drive mine. My foreign policy will be driven by what is in America’s national security interests.
So it is time to end this war as quickly and responsibly as possible. That has been my mission in the Senate, and it will be my mission starting on day one as president of the United States.
For the past five years, I have served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I have been to Iraq and Afghanistan three times. I have met with our soldiers and military leaders. I have met with Iraqi, local, regional, and national elected and other influential officials. Here at home I’ve attended countless meetings and committee hearings where I have challenged high-ranking Pentagon officials and military leaders investigating the situation in Iraq, probing the facts presented, and demanding real answers to tough questions. And I am honored that more than 30 of America’s most esteemed former admirals and generals, including two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and five retired officers of the four-star rank have endorsed my candidacy.
The American people don't have to guess whether I’m ready to lead or whether I understand the realities on the ground in Iraq or whether I’d be too dependent on advisers to help me determine the right way forward. I’ve been working day-in and day-out in the Senate to provide leadership to end this war. That’s why I cosponsored legislation with Senator Robert Byrd to reauthorize the war, legislation that would actually end the president's authority to fight it.
That’s why I’ve started laying the ground work for a swift and responsible withdrawal beginning in early 2009 by demanding that the Pentagon start planning for it now. I’ve introduced legislation ensuring that Congress would be briefed on those plans and that's also why I’m working to block President Bush's effort to keep this war going after he leaves office. I’ve introduced legislation banning him from unilaterally negotiating a long-term security commitment to Iraq, including the possibility of permanent bases.
Here's more.
Labels: Hillary Clinton, Iraq war
posted by Motherlode at 8:31 AM
17 Comments:
After she got us in this mess!! Yes Hillary sure whatever you say!!
All by herself, did she? You'd think it was a tie in the Senate that she magically broke- or that she didn't say anything critical of it until last week, when that started circa 2003 and since.
Why don't you shut up. If you did a fraction of the work this lady does, you would be dead tired and would feel sorry for yourself.
If you had a fraction of her grey cells, you would understand the importance and the urgency of having somone like her making our future a better place not only for all Americans but for most of the World.
Go to bed, you must be extenuated.
If you want Rev. Wright as chief advisor in our government, go ahead and vote for Obama. If you want Rezko as financial advisor, go ahead and vote for Obama. This election is too important to take a risk with a rookie it does not happen in sports and it should not happen in our government.
Hillary's thoughtful and detailed plans are indicative of the type of President she will be. Her reasoning is logical and sane. Yes, she voted for the war during a time when the majority of this nation was pro-war. (The closer you were to ground zero, the better your understanding of the reasoning. I don't expect those who have never experienced something of that magnitude to underston.) If you will evaluate her vote, then you cannot remove it from the context. The true question is why didn't Obama vote for the war? He has not provided an acceptable response to that question.
Of course Obama voted against the war, having been raised muslim, he sypathizes with the enemy.
If the revelations of late have taught us anything it is that Obama has many versions to a story, mixed loyalties, he will stand idly by while others defame our great nation, and then try to bend our realities about what is really going on.
Go Hillary! You are the smartest candidate out there.
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Give our Lady Hillary some credit. She was duped by Bush, right along with the rest of the senate; but, she has since taken responsibility for her ill-advised vote and for her aggressive determination to get us out of Iraq. In addition, everyone who knows the freshman senator Barack Obama for all his "present" votes, knows he surely would have voted the same as all the other democrats did. Remember, he is highly ambitious and would not want to stick out as a sore thumb, a'la Dennis Kucinich. If anything, he would make more excuses after the fact.
I should make it clear right now that while I support Hillary instead of Obama, I do not welcome comments that slander BO. He was NOT raised a Muslim, we have no evidence that his loyalties lie anywhere except with his, and our, country, the U.S.A. And he couldn't vote for or against the war because he was only an Illinois state senator when the vote was taken.
It is appropriate to add that since he joined the U.S. Senate his record on the war has, like many other Democrats, been in favor of every funding request by George W. Bush.
A speech made against the war five years ago (which I applaud) is not that relevant now. What IS important is who is best prepared, through diligent study, consultation with military experts, and plain old hard work, to get us out of this mess. That is Hillary Clinton.
Sen. Obama spelled out exactly why he was against the war back in 2002. The idea that he didn't is exactly what happens when you irresponsibly dismiss eloquence as lacking substance. I agree that what is important is who is best prepared to get out of this mess, and we should measure that based on the evidence at hand. Who said the war was a bad idea even as the misled masses were (or at least thought they were) ready for it? And who authorized the use of force? You claim that past experience is important yet you dismiss past performance as being irrelevant.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72B3tUAqpo4
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Obama still can't capture the female and white vote. That is a concern to Democrats. He doesn't want the votes counted in Florida and Michigan where the majority of voters are white. Obama is behind in the polls. These are all facts.Pennsylvania is just weeks away and he will have a difficult time convincing delegates to that he is a winner if he can not get the majority of women and white male voters. Unless his new politics is saying their vote doesn't count. which is what appears to be the message when Al Sharpton tries to sue Florida for counting the votes. The delegates are watching closely to see how it plays out in Pennsylvania. Obama has to re-register independence to vote for him. That is a hard work.
Obama's campaign time and again discard Obama's promises to the American voters as "just campaign rhetoric"! Now they are dismissing Pastor Wrights statements as "just campaign rhetoric". Come on now- "Let's be clear about this" ??? Obama you are a phoney. You do not write your own "inspirational" speeches, what you promise the voters you are going to do as president is "just rhetoric", you go to a church for 20 years that you dismiss as "an old uncle" yet you said he was your mentor and you gave him a campaign role, you claim you are the one to unite this country - yet the first time in many many years we have radical racism - from blacks - surfacing and dividing this country & the DNC. Obama - you are bad news, race baiting anything and everything as "racist" to inflame the black votes against any other nominee. Enough! Enough! We reject you and your scary agenda of hate and militant black racism. This country will turn its back on you and walk away.
“Purple” states are those where, for example, the Presidential vote in 2004 was separated by about 6% or less. Those include Ohio, Florida, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and New Mexico which Hillary either already won or is leading. These are the states that the Democratic Party must win in November. It is critically important that the Democratic candidate be the one who draws most strongly in those key states. To believe that the candidate who did not attract a majority of Democratic voters in the primaries there, will somehow get not only most of those Democratic voters but also draw similar voters from outside the Democratic Party is naïve and dangerous if your ultimate goal is to not have a Republican in the White House this time next year. Upto now Hillary has 2064 delegates and Obama has 1394 delegates using the same method that is used in the General election. Assuming that Hillary wins PA, WV,Indiana and PR & Guam and Obama gets SD, NC , OR , MT , she will have 2439 delegates and Obama will have 1606 delegates. If Democrats ignore this and give top of the ticket to Obama, 25% of the Democrats will vote for Republicans and we can lose both the House & the Senate. This is exactly what happened when Anti War hero McGovern was nominated and we lost all states except Mass.
The color Purple. Much as we may crave it, we do not live in a democracy. If we did then each person would have one vote in every issue, and that vote would count as much as any other. But we don’t. If you participated in a caucus, your vote counted about ten times as much as someone who voted in a primary. In the general election, what ultimately matters is the votes in the Electoral College, not the popular vote, as we re-learned so painfully in 2000. So the question facing the uncommitted “super-delegates” is how do we run the best campaign with the highest probability of defeating John McCain in November, and win the majority of Electoral College votes. Cuurently Clinton has 267 electoral votes and Obama has 202 electoral votes using the same method as used in the GE. Assume that Hillary wins PA, WV, Indiana
and Obama gets SD, NC , OR , MT , Clinton will have 308 electoral votes and Obama will have 230 Electoral votes. You know who should be on top of the DREAM ticket.
Nick and Motherlode, please take note. Obama didn't get elected to the senate until after the vote to authorize the president to use war as a last resort, only if the inspections were not allowed to continue. It was a complicated vote, and there was a lot of highly convincing but ever so misleading (read Bush's lies) evidence to suggest that there were WMDs and possible ties between Al Keida and Iraq with 911. That said, it seems highly likely that Obama would have voted the same as Clinton did. He has shown an inclination to go with the flow of democrats choices and he at the very best he has shown a willingness to vote "present" over anything controversial. I really believe he would have voted Yes to authorize the war. If you don't agree, show a time in the senate when he has gone against the flow and voted against the grain.
I think that his endorsement is critical, especially amongst the anti-war crowd.
As for the war, Mrs. Clinton, you need to put out a detailed plan for what you will do in Iraq. Americans, I think, are tired of the vagueness of Mr. Bush's War. What is victory? Nobody knows, not even Mr. Bush. You need to come out with a plan that states what our objective is in Iraq, set up a time-table and benchmarks, and then set a date for withdrawal.
I think a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would be devastating. My cousin, a Marine, just returned from Iraq a few days ago. He was stationed in Rammadi. He says that the surge is lowering the frequency of violence, raising the confidence of the Iraqi people (to the point that they are now providing info on people selling weapons or planning attacks), and making it harder for the insurgents to plant IED's. However, it is not going to the heart of the problem: the political stagnation.
Our policy in Iraq should follow two principles:
(1) Our commitment is only to see that the Iraqi people are allowed to govern their fate.
(2) Our commitment ceases when the Iraqis fail to help themselves.
(3) We understand that this is an Iraqi conflict and our role should be limited to logisitical support and training.
(4) Finally, we must accept that we cannot accomplish our mission if we face a hostile or apathetic population.
A time-table and a detailed plan that focuses on military and political benchmarks will either force
progress in the political arena (we're making progress militarily) or it won't. We also need to nationalize the security forces and rid them of their militia mentality. If we cannot achieve these simple goals, then we need to pull out of the country. If we go to Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and other terrorists will certainly follow us, leaving Iraq to sectarian violence, unfortunately. Should it get too out of hand, we would, of course, have the prerogative of going back in. But we should not take our eyes off the enemy-- Al Qaeda and radical Islamic terrorists.
You need to put out a plan, and do it quickly. The American public will be willing to "stay the course" if they know where the ship is headed. At this point they do not know what the destination is, other than some vague notion of "victory". Our commitment should not extend any further than two years. I cannot stress enough how desperately people want clarity and certainty on this issue.
Finally, you need to get your little butt over to the Colbert Report, at least a few days before the Pennsylvania Primary. This will give your campaign a much need boost among young voters and will give your campaign chest a much needed shot in the arm. DO IT. Fire all of your adivsers if they don't see the benefit of appearing on this show. It is crucial, I am being totally serious.
Good luck! Keep up the good work! Get Chelsea out there more! She's your greatest advocate. I saw her speak in California and she convinced many undecided voters. God Bless!
I hear so much about there is not much difference between the two candidates. There is plenty. There is one and only important policy that will solve every difficult issues including war is the "Welfare of Children". Who is working on children issues tirelessly all her life including when she was a college student. That is Hillary. What has Obama done for children? We need woman leaders in the world every so often to inject humanity into this world. If only all the warmongering men in the world thought about their own children a little more and less about waging wars, this world would be a better place. I recommend everyone including Obama to read "It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children teach us”. Taliban and others like them in Middle East have no consideration for the children. After all they have made women nothing more than some one to provide sex and make babies for these people to send on suicide bombing mission after they grow up. If they were human, they will not be sending those young people in suicide mission.
Hillary is our only hope. Think of the future of your children and grand children
Our Military deaths may have slowed, but no account is given on how many of the Blackwater security people are dead. How many workers the contractors had lost. We may not like that the mercenaries do military jobs for 10 times the money, but their deaths and injured should count as well. Not giving an official count of them alters the stats and may make things look like there is less violence. So the Neocons can say, look, the surge is working!!!!
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