Hillary on combating terrorism, Iraq
by areyouready, Fri Aug 24, 2007 at 09:10:51 PM EDT
Let's get this latest Hillary interview out, I guess this will cause another 'uproar', 'controversy', 'anger' across netroots...
Whenever a democrat talks about combating terrorism, there will always be some knee-jerk reaction from the usual corners. I don't understand why democrats are not even allowed to talk tough on combating terrorism. If democrats are afraid to talk about it, Rudy will sure be happy to continue his 24/7 terror campaign
Anyway, I expect more whinings from other camps and netroots...
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.
dll/article?AID=/20070825/FRONTPAGE/7082
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Clinton stresses diplomacy, toughness, Terror a 'serious and real' threat, she says
"I think they're out to get us every single day, and they are very clever and they bide their time," Clinton, a New York senator, said in an interview with Monitor editors and reporters. "I have no doubt that they are looking . . . for another spectacular attack, because they believe that makes the biggest impact."...
"I guess I'm somewhere in between here," Clinton said. "I think we've got to do a lot more in reaching out and being smarter about how we connect with people than some Republicans do, but I think it's a very serious and real threat."...
"There will be a moment of opportunity" between next year's election and several months into the new president's term to signal a change in course, to inform the world that "the cowboy diplomacy is done with," Clinton said. The effort will require a combination of aid and outreach - building schools for Iraqi refugees in Jordan, sending eminent Americans to represent the nation - and frank discussion of what Clinton described as the Bush administration's bungles and "dismissive" attitude toward the rest of the world.
...
"I had an Arab diplomat say something to me that was chilling. He said, 'You know, for a superpower you have to be either liked, respected or feared, and right now you are none of those,' " Clinton said. "We've got to be able to reinstate where fear is appropriate: with our true adversaries, fine. We have to restore respect and we have to hope to be liked."
...
On Iraq...
Nowhere was Clinton's foreign policy critique so bleak as her assessment of Iraq."I'm not sure there are any good outcomes," she said. "There are perhaps less bad options."
A continued U.S. presence in Iraq simply "keeps the cap on" violence, but won't heal that country's divisions, the "depth of feeling and the sense of, just, rejectionism they have for whoever their adversary is," she said.
Until Iraqis assume responsibility for security and political reconciliation, United States military involvement is futile, Clinton said. "If we withdraw at the end of this year, or next year, or five years from now - in the absence of the Iraqis themselves deciding that they'd rather be an intact country, they'd rather not be a pawn of Iran, they'd rather figure out how to have some political system that includes the Sunnis - there is nothing we can do militarily."
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U.S. troops ought to begin withdrawing immediately, Clinton said, although she acknowledged the "very difficult problems" ahead. Improvised explosive devices could harm troops traveling through southern Iraq into Kuwait. "Pitched battles" against Shiites in the south could also stymie the withdrawal, she said. And then there are the thousands of civilian Americans working in Iraq, and those Iraqis who have sided with the United States.Withdrawal will also shift the political landscape in the region, as Iran is forced to side with factions in Iraq and changes "create space for a resurgence of Iraqi nationalism," she said.
As neighboring countries continue to absorb refugees from Iraq, Clinton warned that "Jordan can particularly be destabilized by this, which is very dangerous for the entire region."
Despite mounting opposition to the war - earlier this week, Republican Sen. John Warner of Virginia said some troops should return home by year's end, to signal to the Iraqi government that the U.S. presence is not open-ended - Clinton predicted little change in the Bush administration's strategy.
"There's not much appetite in the White House to actually plan to withdraw because they don't want to admit it's necessary, and they frankly don't want to do it on their watch, which I think is the height of irresponsibility," Clinton said. Although Bush might draw down some troops, Clinton anticipated that "it will be up to me to figure out how to withdraw our troops in a careful manner."
On reaching out to the world...
The conflict in Iraq - and the Bush administration's larger foreign policy approach, which Clinton described as heavy-handed - has damaged U.S. standing in the world, she said.To restore the nation's reputation, "we'll have to not only talk about Iraq. We'll have to talk about Abu Ghraib. We'll have to talk about Guantanamo," Clinton said. "We'll have to start by acknowledging that the United States has made life very difficult for people inside Iraq and in the region."
On long term struggle with Islamic extremists...
But Clinton used stark language to describe what she deemed the "long-term struggle with Islamic extremists." Such extremists, she said, "have a combination of motives, among which are a rejection of modernity, of women's roles, of democracy, a dangerous nostalgia for the past that drives them to believe that they hold all the answers because of their specific religious perspectives."Much of the Muslim world, however, is home to individuals who might respond to diplomacy: They reject extremism, yet also oppose "what they see as the culture and mores" of the western world, Clinton said. But "right now, we're not winning that battle of ideas."
That battle of ideas, as Clinton described it, also includes the seemingly superficial.
Clinton recalled a conversation with an officer at Fort Drum, a U.S. Army base in New York that had recently hosted a group of Afghan officers. Before visiting the base, the Afghans' sole knowledge of the United States came from watching Baywatch and professional wrestling. "We laugh about it, but think about what that would mean to a devout Muslim living in the mountains of Afghanistan," Clinton said. "We haven't don't a very good job of conveying our real values."
Tags: Hillary Clinton (all tags)
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