We have an election coming up in three fucking months.
Three.
And yet again, there's a fact-free diary on the reclist going after Hillary Clinton. Clinton Derrangement Syndrome seems to be an affliction hitting a lot of people right now.
And the jokes on them.
Because now I'm talking about Hillary Clinton, in order to deal with reclisted diaries that are talking about Hillary Clinton.
Newsflash: By even talking about Clinton as someone who opposes her, you just got played by helping keep a spotlight on Hillary Clinton. Congratulations. You're helping her stay a trending topic.
Rather than letting her message die in a vacuum because there's more important (NOVEMBER OF THIS YEAR) stuff going on than the 2016 election, you've just created "Hillary Clinton" metadata that bounces off of web crawlers and tells the news that people want to hear more about Hillary Clinton. You've helped rebroadcast her message, even though you're usually about as honest about her message as Sean Hannity is with quoting Obama.
I have plenty of problems with Hillary Clinton, and I'm not really here to argue in support of her.
I do want to take some points from recent diaries and rip them to shreds, though, just to prove that the people screaming loudest about HRC have absolutely no grip on the real world. It seems a lot of folks are suffering from CDS, or Clinton Derangement Syndrome.
And that's dangerous, because we're supposed to be a reality based community. If we can't even agree on reality, we're going to go down a tea party rabbit hole.
There's a reclisted diary that is really a poster child for fact-free CDS.
Let me count the ways:
Obama has kept us out of new major international conflicts and wound down the current disasters.
We just lost a general in Afghanistan. We're bombing Iraq again. There's an ongoing genocide in Iraq. The disasters caused by Bush & Co. are going to take decades to clean up. Obama has done a great job of trying to move our response to Bush & Co's mess to something intelligent and achievable. But to say that either of these disasters has been in any way "Wound down" is just wrong. Barack Obama shifted our involvement in these conflicts to a place where we're using our brains instead of our dicks to decide what the best course of action is.
How the hell can you say Obama has wound anything down when we've shifted from a massive ground war to a massive drone war. Oh, and that's another break from reality for people. I hear all about our opposition to drones, which is a wasted argument. I'm assuming that people would be just as opposed to the "Drone War" if it was being carried out by F/A-18 fighter jets instead of glorified kites with missiles. It's not a question of drones, which have existed since the 2nd world war. It's a question of whether or not it's acceptable to carry out an air war based on incredibly shitty intelligence, an air war that exists globally, and an air war which amounts to a campaign of assassination against people, some of whom are American Citizens.
Talking about the weapons we use to do this rather than the fact that we're doing this at all is really foolish. And by the way, there's no daylight between Obama and Clinton on Drones.
Has he kept neighbors from killing neighbors in any dozen different places around the globe? No, but he has set specific goals in Libya and Syria and met them.
... What?
Obama just admitted that failure to act on Libya was probably his biggest foreign policy mistake. Yeah, we helped out a little, but we did fuck all to manage things post-revolution, and now Libya is falling apart.
As for Syria, ISIS is crucifying people, beheading people, having children behead people, and letting their kids parade around with severed heads. And no, I'm not linking to Not-Safe-For-Humans gore porn. Find it yourself. But do NOT do a search for "Syria Severed Heads" in Google images if you want to sleep well this week.
If you're counting John Kerry's accidental diplomacy as a "Goal" that we somehow "Met" then... Frankly I have no idea what to say to that, other than you clearly are living in a different universe than I am.
I'm glad that we have a President capable of responding diplomatically when a dictator offers to hand over his WMD arsenal, but that was the acceptance of a gift, not the successful execution of some grand plan.
He is giving Putin enough rope to hang himself while ratcheting up the pressure on his cleptocratic supporters.
Actually, Obama's handling of Russia has been incredible. Obama really has done the impossible here. On this we agree and are friends, but you're about to say something really stupid about Obama and Russia/Ukraine. I will say, though, that his handling of that situation is one of the things that made me proud to have voted for him.
He is pivoting toward China, which is the next great rival.
Cold war thinking much? He's pivoting towards
the pacific which means increasing our relationship with the majority of the human race, working with India, Australia, Japan, and yes, working with China. Who are a minority, by population, in Asia-Pacific, the most overpopulated region on Earth.
There's a hell of a lot more to Asia-Pacific than China.
What would have Hillary done?
Oh boy, here it comes. Brace yourselves.
Maybe advanced the domestic agenda a little more, but there would be NO real money as troops would be all over the world.
Wait, we don't have troops all over the world right now?
Would we still be in Libya? Yes.
See above, where Barack Obama himself said we should be in Libya.
Would we still be in Iraq? yes,
WE ARE. What, you think Obama was joking about sending military advisors?
would we still be in Afghanistan? Yes.
Last week, we learned that US Maj General Harold Greene had been killed in Afghanistan. Because the US still has a massive presence in Afghanistan. What magical world do you live in? One where Obama is some kind of isolationist and brought the troops home in 2008?
Would we be in Syria? Yes.
Okay, here's another place where I just can't understand what planet people live on.
The world is not black and white.
Our choices are not invasion and inaction. This is a holdover from the bush administration. This is neocon thinking here, and I want everyone to be aware of it.
Only neoconservatives think that our two options are invasion and isolationism. There are a whole range of options between those two points, starting with diplomatic pressure, and ending with major airstrikes and supplies given to fighters on the ground.
Clinton argued for sending guns to moderate folks so that they would have some defense from Assad, and from the groups that would go on to create ISIS. The latter was being given guns by the Saudis.
So the people we like, moderates, Kurds, Christian minority groups, all of whom want a democratic, multiethnic, pluralist society because otherwise they're going to be oppressed by the fundamentalist majority, they get steamrolled by ISIS and by Assad.
It's the Spanish Republic all over again.
We made it illegal to send weapons to Spain, while Franco was getting German air support and guns from italy, and buying oil from Exxon on credit.
As a result, two things happened:
The democratic government got steamrolled.
The Stalinists proved that they were the only ones equipped to fight fascism.
Similar things happened in Syria. Moderates gave way to Saudi-funded radicals because the Saudi-funded radicals have all of the guns. Just like the Stalinists had all the guns.
Would giving the moderates guns have made the situation worse?
Maybe.
But I'm pretty sure that ISIS wouldn't be rolling over the border into Iraq right now if they hadn't, with the help of the Saudis, become the largest rebel force in Syria. We could have done something about this. And we didn't.
And now people are being murdered by genocidal psychopaths for whom extermination of minority groups is an intentional goal, rather than a tool to instill terror. They want to wipe out anyone who isn't down with the caliphate, because they think god will bless the Islamic state if they purify it of all heretics and unbelievers.
When it comes to sending guns to moderate forces in Syria, Hillary Clinton was right on that point, and I was wrong. I'm pretty sure that I argued against sending guns to Syria at some point in a public forum in the past few years. And looking at what's going on right now, I was clearly wrong about that. And so was Obama.
In Africa? Yes.
Yeah, we're not in Africa at all, except that you can walk from the horn of Africa on the coast of the Indian ocean to the grain coast of the Atlantic ocean without leaving a nation where the US has a military presence.
And that's a good thing, because we're helping Uganda and the African Union stabilize things and hunt down rebel groups that kidnap children to use them as soldiers.
Have a map from WaPo as of May 21st.
The US is all over Africa. From sea to pirated sea. (Sea what I did there?)
Would you please research your statements?
Iran, definitely.
S...
Seriously?
Iran?
You think Hillary Clinton wants to invade Iran.
That is so insane that I don't even know how to respond to it.
Hillary Clinton talked about engaging in serious negotiations with Iran, saying that allowing them to enrich a small amount of Uranium for a research reactor was reasonable.
HRC: I would like it to be more than year. I think it should be more than year. No enrichment at all would make everyone breathe easier. If, however, they want a little bit for the Tehran research reactor, or a little bit for this scientific researcher, but they’ll never go above 5 percent enrichment—
JG: So, a few thousand centrifuges?
HRC: We know what “no” means. If we’re talking a little, we’re talking about a discrete, constantly inspected number of centrifuges. “No” is my preference.
JG: Would you define what “a little” means?
HRC: No.
That's not really John McCain saying Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran.
That's saying we need to negotiate.
Where is this idea that we'd be "In Iran" coming from?
Ukraine, maybe, maybe not.
Remember how I said I was proud to vote for Barack Obama, on Ukraine?
That's because this is Barack Obama's policy. Maybe, Maybe not. Depends on whether the Russians invade.
Here's what Barack Obama said at the recent Africa Summit:
Well, keep in mind that the Russian army is a lot bigger than the Ukrainian army.
So the issue here is not whether the Ukrainian army has some additional weaponry. At least up until this point, they've been fighting a group of separatists who have engaged in some terrible violence, but who can't match the Ukrainian army.
Now if you start seeing an invasion by Russia, that's obviously a different set of questions. We're not there yet.
That's maybe, maybe not, on going into Ukraine, from Barack Obama.
And finally, there's the Sean-Hannity like misquote that I need to deal with.
And Israel.
"Some reports say, maybe it wasn’t the exact UN school that was bombed, but it was the annex to the school next door where they were firing the rockets. And I do think oftentimes that the anguish you are privy to because of the coverage, and the women and the children and all the rest of that, makes it very difficult to sort through to get to the truth.”
Nice editing, Sean.
Here's the context:
JG: Who do you hold responsible for those deaths? How do you parcel out blame?
HRC: I’m not sure it’s possible to parcel out blame because it’s impossible to know what happens in the fog of war. Some reports say, maybe it wasn’t the exact UN school that was bombed, but it was the annex to the school next door where they were firing the rockets. And I do think oftentimes that the anguish you are privy to because of the coverage, and the women and the children and all the rest of that, makes it very difficult to sort through to get to the truth.
That's what she said. She was talking about parceling out blame, not talking about how it's totally cool that schools got bombed.
Schools and shelters are not really schools and shelters.
She didn't say that, Hannity.
"When I asked her about the intense international focus on Gaza, she was quick to identify anti-Semitism as an important motivating factor in criticism of Israel."
Those dead children just cloud the reasons we have to bomb them. And anyone who questions that bombing are Jew haters anyway.
I love how you didn't use the actual Clinton quote there. You
quoted someone
paraphrasing Clinton.
Oh, and I'm sure that there are no instances of antisemitism going on in the world right now. None at all.
Nothing to see here.
Here's what she ACTUALLY said about antisemitism:
“You can’t ever discount anti-Semitism, especially with what’s going on in Europe today. There are more demonstrations against Israel by an exponential amount than there are against Russia seizing part of Ukraine and shooting down a civilian airliner. So there’s something else at work here than what you see on TV.”
But yeah, there aren't riots in Rome, with Jewish businesses being spraypainted with swastikas, schools aren't getting firebombed, and nobody died in France, especially not an
8-year old girl who was chased down, and shot in the head while she cowered in a corner.
HRC wasn't talking about attacks in Europe, was she? She was calling people who disagree with the bombing of Gaza "Jew Haters," right?
Now let me be clear:
I disagree with Clinton on Israel. I think that Israel is no longer a rational actor. I think that we've got to look at Hamas and Israel and say that neither of these groups are capable of acting in their own best interests at this point, and so it's long past time for the international community to step in and start making decisions about where the borders are and whose laws the settlements are going to fall under if the settlers choose to stay, and those decisions are going to upset people on both sides.
But if the international community doesn't make those decisions, they're not going to be made this century.
But that isn't the point. The point is that you're totally misquoting Clinton on these things. And that's dishonest.
Fellow Kossacks, I think we can all agree that there are places where we all disagree with Hillary Clinton.
I know that's true for me.
I know I'm still deciding who to vote for in the next presidential primary. I know that I love Elizabeth Warren and will join her campaign if she runs, electoral math be damned. For once in my life, I want to fight for a candidate I completely believe in, and I really hope that we'd be able to rally the nation behind her.
But if we're going to criticize HRC, can we at least be do so from the standpoint of, you know, reality?!
If you have a problem with HRC, I get it. I really do. I have problems with HRC. Hell, I'm a Warren supporter. Whether Clinton becomes president or not there are places I'll disagree with her. Just like I disagree with Obama.
But can we please not be the Tea Party about this? Can we criticize her without making shit up? Can we please be a reality based community?
Please?