Jeff Weaver has so jumped the shark. And since he’s still in charge, looks like the Sanders campaign has, too.
For the first time, I wish he’d just go away. He’s served his purpose, now he’s getting into to Trump territory with his ego taking over and forgetting the bigger picture.
It certainly is a stretch to blame HRC for ISIL. Bush´s handling of the war, the de-Baathification policy, and the US support of Shi´ite anti-Sunni government, were far more direct influences on the rise of ISIL. All she is guilty of is casting a vote (along with Republicans and a minority of Democratic Congressmen) that allowed the whole tragedy to unfold.
The Sanders campaign increasingly looks like a bag of dicks.
all of those who voted for the Iraq invasion are responsible for the existence of ISIS, including Hillary but not Bernie. Al Qaeda in Iraq didn’t exist until we invaded. Then al-Qaeda in Iraq morphed into ISIS. ISIS is the DIRECT consequence of the government’s criminal invasion of Iraq. Hillary was part of that genocidal company who participated in the destruction of Iraq and its subsequent decline into terrorism. The assertion about Hillary is accurate. Her cowardice along with all of congress and the administration created ISIS with their lies about Iraq.
Goodness me, she responded with, you know, historical facts. Where will that ever get anybody on a Sunday morning “news” show?
Understatement!
There is only one problem with your comment - it is not true.
So much for not going negative, smells like desperation to me.
Blame is a strong word, but it’s equally absurd for the Obama administration and Clinton’s State Dept. to disavow any responsibility for developments in the Middle East over the past 7 years. Obama reaffirmed support for that Shi’ite anti-Sunni government.
Are Assad/Iran/Russia primarily responsible? Hells yes. Did Bush get the whole shit show going? Hells yes. Did Clinton take a stand when it mattered? Nope. As an American leader during the unfolding of these events, do you get to point to circumstance and throw up your hands? Nope.
Absolutely. That’s exactly the kind of wild, baseless smear Trump makes, and you have to wonder if Sanders’ judgment hasn’t been overwhelmed by a taste of electoral success. What was once an interesting, laudable thing is now damaging the greater cause. If he’s going to rescue his reputation this needs to stop.
And just generally, when you make this kind of short-term X led to Y which led to Z statement about the Middle East, you pretty much automatically make a statement that’s beyond absurd. Wahhabism precedes the creation of the United States itself, and the Sunni-Shia disagreement originated in the 7th century. You really can’t blame HRC for that part of it. Not everything that happens in the world happens because of what Americans do or don’t do.
Nonsense. How out of proportion can you Sanders bots get?
It´s a smear, I´ll grant you, but it´s not entirely baseless. Just mostly.
Informed Comment says that he is mostly incorrect.
Although Clinton did vote to authorize the Iraq War, it wasn’t the war per se that created Daesh there but rather the US backing for Shiite policies of political reprisals against the Sunnis. Clinton did not have anything to do with policy-making in Iraq.
Asking people to accept responsibility for their actions is so radical, amirite?
You can’t place that one vote as the cause of ISIL. It was a cause, but not really a huge one. I want to note from the start of this that I opposed the AUF and still think Clinton and the rest of the Dems should have acted like Bernie and not voted for it. But it’s still not the horrible act some folks see it as, and it’s certainly not as simple as suggesting Clinton is a warmonger and responsible for all the horrors of the past 25 years.
First of all, you need to read what she was saying at the time and how it was being sold. She and many others viewed the AUF as a lever to use in the UN to get their support for inspections. They wanted to have a unilateral pressure point to push Saddam to accept them. That worked. Bush then went against the UN, ordered the inspectors out after Saddam was complying, and invaded anyway. He could not have done so without the UAF, so it was a cause of the invasion, but blaming a single vote in Congress for the way Bush acted is shifting responsibility.
Second, Clinton has repeatedly stated her regret for the vote and stated that she used poor judgement. There is no one who wants to run for president who doesn’t have mistakes and regrets from their public lives. She’s even advocated reducing boots on the ground in other instances that she’s accused of warmongering.
Third, as a Senator Clinton had no say in how the war was prosecuted. The biggest reason for the rise of the opposition that turned into ISIS was the complete deBaathinfication of Iraq. Anyone who had been a Baath member was kicked out of their jobs. But to have a government – bureaucrat, cop, military, teacher, street sweeper – or other good job under Saddam you had to join the Baath party. Kicking them all out meant there was no military, no police, no government – and that the pool from which to draw from was full of uneducated, unskilled and untalented people. And the pool for the opposition to draw from were pissed off educated, skilled and talented people. That’s where ISIL came from.
Fourth, there is no end point where ISIL started. You can blame Truman and the Allies for the way they created Israel. You can blame Eisenhower for the Shah of Iran who oppressed his people and that led to the 1979 revolution. You can blame Carter and Reagan for backing Saddam Hussein over the Iranians. You can blame Reagan and Bush for fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan and funding the beginnings of al Qaeda. You can blame Clinton for maintaining troops in Saudi Arabia unnecessarily and resulted in inflamed passions among the crazier Islamists.
Fifth, there is a distinct possibility this was going to happen anyway. Given all that history – and the oppression from Hussein in Iran and the Ayatollah in Iraq and Al Assad in Syria and the Saudi family in Suadi Arabia and the military in Egypt and the rise of al Qaeda and the rest of the mess in the Middle East – there was going to be a boiling point where something like this would have happened. Can’t say when, or where, or to what extent but it was coming. Al Qaeda was already attacking in Africa, Syria, Suadi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Asia and the United States before they attacked us on 9/11. ISIL was already started, and the difference is that it’s changed its name.
Sixth, it’s just more complex than a vote authorizing the use of force. All that above, and thousands of other things over the past 50 years are as important as the AUF, and even move over the past 4,500. It’s easy to bumpersticker that Clinton is responsible for ISIL, but it means you are unserious and don’t care about actually learning about the issue. You (not personally, generally) just want to make political points.
Clinton has taken responsibility for that vote, apologized and stated that it is her greatest regret as a Senator.
It’s sad that you think the only way Clinton could take responsibility is to accept sole responsibility for ISIL and all war in the Middle East.
He gets more ridiculous every day. He’s cranky like his candidate. He;s responsible for the fuckup the other day when he read the WAPO headline and ran with it - only to have his candidate have to walk it back,
She has done that already Bwkfat - many many times ad nauseum
You certainly enjoy swinging that around like a dead cat don’t you Carlos?
Allow me to attempt to cancel the reparte regarding the import of who did/didn’t vote for the AUMF?
Or what the implications may have been prior to voting on the AUMF?
The Iraq war was going to happen independent of what (D)s did or didn’t vote for it.
Pinning the outcome on anyone other than the ® party-- is a false dichotomy.
Period.
The use of it as some holy-cudgel is a reflection on the one holding it.
jw1
I don’t have a problem with Sanders supporters’ criticism of Clinton for her vote on the Iraq War. I just wish they would apply the same standard to Sanders’ vote for the 1994 crimes bill, instead of offering the fiction that he voted for the bill because of the Violence Against Women Act and the assualt weapons ban when he voted for a version of the bill that didn’t contain those provisions.