Hillary Clinton Voted for the War in Iraq - Let no one deny that truth

Run time: 03:03 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-6vFQ0Ep_8   Posted on YouTube: January 06, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 02, 2008 By DU Member: peoli Views on DU: 1222

 
Leadership does not exist in Hillary Clinton.

How many times can you beat that old drum?

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/707/present-votes-illinois

PRESENT--Rather not weigh in on an issue.

Even John Edwards had a problem with his tack.

Like I said, we're electing a PRESIDENT, not a Present-dent.

Nobody died when Obama voted present.

Don't vote for her, now, if you can't bear her voting record.

Vote for the Present-dential candidate of your choice!!!

people that were once very respected around here are now not making any sense. Why are you trying to justify a vote for this idiotic war with the fact Obama voted present. Again, what does that have to do with anything related to this thread?

I can't wait until the primaries are finally over.

They are childlike and simplistic, and no amount of arguing with people who cannot see the big picture or take the larger view is going to change the minds of those who just don't have the capacity to absorb the argument.

Joe Wilson, husband of Valerie Plame, who is ardently opposed to our adventures in Iraq, supports HILLARY CLINTON for PRESIDENT.

I suggest you find his endorsement and read it, it gives one a sense of the LARGER issues that people are so willing to ignore whilst eagerly playing a GOTCHA game.

Don't tell me I should be impressed with Obama because he made a speech, but wasn't in a position to actually hear the arguments, to include the classified briefings, and cast a vote. It does NOT and will not move me. See, he didn't have to VOTE on that, either. And when he was in a position to cast yes or no votes on tough issues, he ducked. I agree with John Edwards, that you aren't sent to represent a constituency to parse and two-step. You're sent to state your position.

Your mileage obviously varies about who you want to support, and that's fine. I really don't care who you vote for. But just because you don't agree, saying that I am "not making any sense" is just a horseshit little 'dig.' It doesn't hit the mark, but the 'attempt' is....noted.

he was not in the senate. Sure. But he was out there on the front lines against this war. Why are you trying to destroy that with an argument that makes absolutely no sense? Your new argument that he wasn't in the same position as HRC is a valid, but in my opinion wrong, argument. But at least we can discuss that. His present votes in the Illinois senate have nothing to do with this discussion, you are a smart person and you know that.

I respect Joe Wilson just like I respect Wes Clark and others that are throwing their support behind HRC. Just like I respect most members around here that throw their support behind her, as long as they do it in an honest way. I have not read what Joe Wilson has to say and to be honest with you this is the first time I heard that he actually endorsed her. I do not have time to look up what he said now but I'll look for it later, thanks.

But that brings me back to the original point. The war in Iraq was a huge issue. When Bush had decided to sell us the Iraq war I was young, still in high school. So I was dumb and I for the most part believed Bush like most americans did. If I was in the position to vote back then my dumb ass would probably have voted for anyone that supported this war. Luckily I wasn't in that position. People like HRC knew this. They knew that voting against this war would have been politically unpopular. And despite her spin on this she knew she was voting for the war, everyone that high up at the time knew Bush's intentions just as all those millions of people on the streets knew them. Obama was one of those millions that was ready to take an unpopular position eventhough it was the right position. He fought against this war. He was out there on the streets with all those protestors. You have absolutely no right to try to take that away from him simply because it happens to hurt your candidate. You should be proud of him, just like you should be proud of any other democrats or republicans that were against this war at the time. They were right, HRC and the other group of pussy democrats worried about reelection were wrong. And now 4,000 americans and almost a million innocent Iraqis are paying for that. This is why this is so important to me. If you don't find this as important I can not understand why, but fine, to each his own. But again, you have no right smearing Obama for the simple reason of him being right while your candidate was wrong.

Cindy Sheehan, though she annoys me in some ways with her Hugo hugging and histronics, WAS on the "front lines" with regard to this issue.

You probably will be surprised to know that I was against this war from the beginning, and I argued vociferously with no number of senior military leaders AGAINST it--I was a rare and lonely voice, unfortunately. And I have reasonably recently retired from a very long military career.

I do understand what Congress was trying to do--they were giving the Commander in Chief a tool. The Commander in Chief misused the tool, broke it, and broke our damned military along with it. Some senior military leaders, yes men and toadies all, share that blame, putting visions of cakewalks in SECDEF Rummy's/VP Dick's heads (Rick Shinseki was NOT one of them).

Here's an excerpt from Wilson's endorsement. I agree with his views completely: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-wilson/the-real-hillary-i-know-_b_77878.html

...A number of us, like then Illinois state senator Obama, opposed the second Gulf War. My own opposition from the beginning has been well documented. I fought the fight in the arena itself, Washington DC, against a ruthless administration and its supporters while the senator's opposition came from a far distance and carried no risk, given that he represented in Springfield, Illinois the district encompassing the University of Chicago. As an obscure but safe provincial political figure, he never was granted access to the distorted intelligence that was used to drive the Congress and the media. When I looked to the left or to the right for support, I never saw the state senator. In fact, I never heard of Barack Obama until he announced his intention to run for the Senate in the 2006 election.

After he came to Washington, Obama's views were thoroughly conventional and even timid. In 2004, he said about the 2002 congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force: "I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. What would I have done? I don't know." On Iraq-related votes in the Senate, Obama's record identically matches Senator Clinton's--with the exception that Senator Clinton voted against the confirmation of General George Casey as Army chief of staff. Obama's vote was typically passive.

In the run up to the war and thereafter, I was in frequent discussions with senior Democrats in Washington, including Senator Clinton, and I was keenly aware of her demand for the full exercise of international diplomacy and allowing the weapons inspectors to complete their mission. Many of the most prominent early opponents of the war, including former General Wes Clark and former ambassador to the United National Richard Holbrooke support Senator Clinton for President, as do I. We do so because we know that she has the experience and the judgment that comes from having been in the arena for her entire adult life--and from close personal participation with her in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. And we have trust in her to end the war in Iraq in the most responsible way, consistent with our national security interests.

We know that she has won and lost but always fought for her beliefs, which are widely shared within the Democratic Party. The battles she had been in have been fierce--and the battles in the future will be no less intense--and she has proven her steadfastness and is still standing. She does not have a cowardly record of voting "present" when confronted with difficult issues. She does not claim "intuition" as the basis of the most dangerous and serious decision-making. What she has is deep and vital experience, more important than ever in restoring our country's place in the world.

those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it

Kyle/Lieberman amendment

When you're President, you cannot be PRESENT-DENT.

No ducking allowed.

Everybody knows that Obama was ASKED by NARAL and PP to vote "present".

The bills did not pass.

OTOH, Hillary voted for the IWR.

It passed.

And we've had 5 years of war since then, and uncounted hundreds of billions of dollars.

He didn't have the guts to say where he stood on the matter. He chickened out.

We don't need a "PRESENT"dent....we need a PRESIDENT.

...how come you aren't addressing Hillary's vote in favor of invading Iraq?

Now, if that's not enough for you, I tell ya what--DON'T vote for her. I think we don't have to worry about you filling in the wrong oval, now, do we?

The Senator didn't duck her votes, like PRESENT-DENT Wannabee did. And no amount of parsing can change that.

If she came up with a valid explanation, I'll read it.

Transcripts too.

You know how to use the Google, doncha?

I'm not going to do your homework for you. If you're really in earnest search of knowledge, you don't need me to spoon feed you.

And I'm not going to plead with you to change your vote. You stick with your candidate if that makes you happy.

On to Super Tuesday....

And she had no insurmountable issue with it. Neither do I. Of course, I know first hand what the Pasaradan does in Iran, unlike the Ahmadinejad acolytes here who don't understand that they kill teenaged girls for crimes against chastity after they turn up pregnant after being raped by perverted uncles, and hang people from drott cranes for the crime of being "gay."

So, sorry, you aren't rattling a cage with that portentious comment, either. You cheer those Pasaradan on like they're good guys.

in threats or calls for permanent presence in Iraq as long as Iran is considered a threat

If you want to bring up the intolerance of Iran, in which you are correct, than you should also include, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in that list

and while we are at it don't forget the Armenia genocide

Would it have been better to engage China in a dialog, as Nixon did, or continue to threaten them with missiles?

of the Royal Family in SA or Mubarak's regime in Egypt. And the Turks need to 'get correct' with their version of what happened to the Armenians.

But you present a false argument, whose purpose is only to distract and divert. Why bring up a "three wrongs" argument, except to change the subject?

Egypt is NOT Iran. Saudi Arabia is not Iran. TURKEY is not Iran. The first two are ARAB nations. NONE of them speak the same language as Iranians do, and one doesn't even use the same alphabet. None of them share the same culture or history as Iran. Iran's predominant "brand" of Islam is entirely different from the others you name, and two of the others have not insignificant Christian populations. Most people don't know Iran used to have a significant JEWISH population--since the revolution, though, those numbers are shrinking. They also had a vibrant Armenian community.

Iran is an Indo-European, Farsi speaking nation with a long history that predates Islam. Just because they are geographically located next to, but not IN, the Arab world, there's this tendency to "lump" them--it is an erroneous and ignorant tendency, and frankly, it pisses off Iranians, who, with their long and rich history, don't care to be called Arabs or "lumped" at all.

Intolerance in Iran is as related to intolerance in the Arab world as intolerance in China is related to intolerance in Russia. Different governments, different cultures, different customs, different histories, different languages--located in the same "general" part of the globe.

Do you really fail to see the hypocracy in that?

But let me ask you, should we strike Iran with our military?

Obama record on the war since he joined the senate is exacty the same as Hillary'.

Of course, the big vote on the war was not "do we fund or not fund the troops" but the one that Obama WASN'T THERE FOR, the vote that says "Let's give Bush the authority to go to war!". The vote, btw, that his statements AT THE TIME says that he was against.

And, no matter how you slice or dice it, Hillary can't get away from that vote.

It's a question of judgment and leadership. Hillary failed.

And what will you answer the repukes when they say "McCain's votes on Iraq are the SAME as Hillary, all the way back to the start of the war!"

Honestly, Iraq might well be the biggest DOMESTIC and FOREIGN policy blunder in our nation's history. And the Hillary people here are now acting like "so what, it's not important anymore, or Hillary and Obama are the same on the war". Good grief! A major reason that our economy is in real trouble is the amount of resources spent on this war. A completely unnecessary war.

we should threaten our advasaries?

That is what the Kyle/Lieberman amendment does, which by the way is in direct conflict with what Baker/Hamilton recommended

One more point, since you are trying to justify the IWR vote. What that vote did is make the war powers act obsolete

It provides NO accountability for Congress to over see the executive branch. The War Powers Act was created after Viet Nam. Why do you believe we needed the IWR? The only purpose it served was to remove Congressional oversight for the executive branch

Since you want to bring Obama into the picture, Obama did not vote for the IWR, because he wasn't in the Senate at the time. However, he did critisize that vote at the time, when it wasn't popular to do so

Her vote on the Kyle/Lieberman amendment is in direct conflict with her new position on Iraq, that we will start to withdraw. You can't have it both ways

What should we call them? Buddies? Pals? Sweet cheeks? Sugar Britches? A swell buncha fellahs?

How naively "PC" of you.

Read the amendment, and don't believe what people tell you it says. It calls a group of torturing, murdering assholes what they are. And it is NOT "in conflict" with IRAQ--they're TWO DIFFERENT COUNTRIES with two different cultures, languages, customs and traditions (tearing hair out because it gets OLD trying to explain that IRANIANS are NOT ARABS) who share a border along the Zagros mountain range.

If you have a problem calling brutish people brutes, that's called turning a blind eye, or being a doormat. When we do that with Saudi Arabia--turn that blind eye to get oil--everyone whines and hollers. Why is it "better" to turn a blind eye to the sins of an elite group who DO murder young girls and gays, simply because we're hypocritical elsewhere in the world? That tired-ass "two wrongs" argument doesn't float. Certainly, it would be NICE if we could be consistent, but I have no problem with calling thugs, thugs. I wish we'd do it more often.

And I'm not "trying to justify the IWR vote." Please actually read what I said. She explained herself to my satisfaction. If that isn't YOUR satisfaction, well, you go on and vote for someone else.

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it's 3% of his votes - and it's a STRATEGIC move when he doesn't oppose a bill, but opposes the TECHNICAL merits of it.

DO. YOUR. RESEARCH.

something, you vote NO--not present. If you like it, you vote YES. And then you EXPLAIN WHY. That's why you are elected--to make TOUGH CHOICES and stand by them. Not straddle issues with PRESENT votes, not avoid having to take a stand with PRESENT votes. And that's what he did.

You don't vote present and try to have it both ways with an electorate divided on particular issues. Unless, of course, you're actually trying to have it both ways and fool that electorate.

You also don't DUCK critical votes so you don't have to go on the record.

But nice try. You're loyal, if nothing else.

Obama's health care plan will leave AT LEAST nine million Americans living at the edge of catastrophe.

Which is the lesser evil?

I just don't trust her on Iraq. She was one of the wars biggest cheerleaders until she decided to run for President.

It's all good. War, peace. It could be fascist anarchism for all I care. None of it is getting me laid. Which is the important thing.

I was lied to, too. Didn't fall for it for a second.

She fell for it? Good reason not to vote for her.

Got anything else?

and he has apologized for his vote.

Can we expect an apology from Hillary anytime soon? She sure has had enough time to do so.