A diary on the rec list celebrates the fact that Hillary has gained over 100,000 new donors since October. I think it's high time to reflect on another six digit number: 144, 532.
That's the minimum number of civilian deaths attributed to the disastrous War in Iraq. On top of that was 4,488 US servicemembers killed during the Iraq War. Not only was the war a "blunder" contributing to widespread instability across the Middle East, it was a genocidal series of war crimes, leading to happy little statistics like Fallujah having the world's highest rate of birth defects. This past Wednesday, 11 people were killed by a car bomb in Baghdad.
Don't get me wrong, Bush and his cronies deserve the bulk of the credit for the disastrous war, but Hillary Clinton was the highest-profile Democrat in Congress at the time. Her vote for the war helped to consolidate the position of the Joe Liebermans and New Republics of the world drumming the beat for the war.
How earnest progressives can look at her war vote and evaluate Hillary the best qualified candidate in the primary I find stomach churning. What a mindless way to denigrate the lives of the over 149,000 people killed by this illegal war--to elect one of its most crucial enablers to the highest office in the land.
And to think that the key argument against Bernie these days is his record on guns! Hillary Clinton's war vote did more to advance the cause of violence in the world today a thousandfold more than Bernie's votes on guns.
There's petition on Daily Kos right now calling on the Republicans to reimburse the public for the $4.5 million Benghazi committee. A worthy cause for sure. But the War in Iraq cost over $1 trillion-that is, over 200,000 Benghazi committees-and killed countless children to boot.
The War in Iraq is not over by any means: the US is continuing to aggressively exploit Iraq's resources, while the talk of accountability or reparations has been completely shunted to the side. What's more, many on America's left are talking about Hillary Clinton--who didn't even read the Bush administration's faulty intelligence prior to making her bloody vote--as the one to solve the world-historic crises of climate change, inequality, and militarism.
And it's not like opposition was out of the mainstream either: countless elected officials representing more conservative constituencies voted against the War.
Bernie's messaging on Iraq has been piss-poor, in my opinion, because Iraq was not just a "blunder". It was a series of war crimes and atrocities committed against some of the world's most vulnerable people, in the service of a racist and corrupt oil-military-industrial complex-- a complex that happens to fund Hillary's campaigns.
I urge everyone here thinking about supporting Secretary Clinton to take a step back and see if they really want to vote for somebody who played a crucial assist in the racist and colonialist effort to occupy Iraq--leading to the proliferation of weapons across the Middle East, including to one of the most crazed violent nongovernmental groups the world has ever known, that is ISIS.
Let's say that people who vote for war crimes are not eligible for the Presidency any more. Let's stop Hillary Clinton from getting this nomination.