Hillary Clinton has been chastised by many including the editorial page of the New York Times for saying that if Iran attacked Israel "we could totally obliterate them." Her comment on Iran, which she refuses to retract, has been explained by some as the desperate effort of a losing candidate to fall back on populist hyperbole to defeat her opponent.
Chastising and explaining are not enough. Clinton's threat was criminal. If a major leader in any other country talked about obliterating a country, that leader would be condemned as contemplating mass murder, even genocide. The word "obliterate" extends far beyond the usual American bluster about promoting "regime change" in this or that country, and that bluster has opened the way for invasions and the deaths of tens of thousands of people.
When the would be leader of the only nation ever to drop atomic bombs on human beings threatens the obliteration of a country through the use of nuclear weapons----what else could her remarks possibly mean---the world is awakened to the ultimate meaning of the American Empire. It is a military empire that is capable of killing every man, woman and child on earth. At a time when the economic power of the empire is in serious decline and its conventional forces are failing to win wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the nuclear threat is the trump card, the card that makes us all pay attention.
In the 21st century, empires are dangerous beasts. Our survival literally depends on their good humour. Americans who wonder why so many people around the world don't trust their country need to understand that what appears to them as little more than a campaign tactic on Clinton's part, is a reminder to the world of a wholly unacceptable state of affairs.
14 comments:
that's so scary
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! So true, now that Dr Laxer has pointed this out for me.
Relatively speaking (we are talking about a potential leader leader of a brutal empire, the policies of which are characterised by a kind of madness and obscenity)was this comment really so outrageous? Sounds like a reference to nuclear deterrence, what used to be called "MAD" in another context. Nuclear bullying, perhaps. I'm not surprised.
And McCain would occupy Iraq for a hundred years. And Obama would bomb Pakistan if it didn't do what it was told.
The USA has been lawless on the international front for decades. What we have now is a threesome who openly advocate more murderous wars, attacks and egregious abuses of human rights, world-wide and at home.
Hillary"s threat to obliterate Iran ia par for the course.
Did Hillary Clinton actually say "obliterate"?None of the news clips I saw on tv which purported to replay her using the word "obliterate" ever did show her uttering the word "obliterate". What she said, that kept getting replay, was "massive retaliation".
Hillary Clinton wants to make health care in the US universal. Health care has been an issue dear to her heart since her husband's inauguration, and before that. Universal health care would surely be a tremendously civilizing step forward for that country. A WORLDVIEW- changing step forward for them, surely. (And it would take some of the pressure off Canada that tends towards the dismantling of OUR medicare system.) She is the ONLY presidential candidate offering or promising that. I think it beats talk of "hope", "change", everyone pulling together, and coalitions. Politics is what it is, not Democrats inviting Republicans to sing kum-by-yah around a campfire. The 2 main parties really do stand for different political positions. (And Hillary's husband isn't a hospital executive..not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that.) JFK may have owed his election to his charisma (and to Nixon's lack of it), but the verdict is that he wasn't a great president. And the Bay of Pigs (for instance) occurred during his administration. He had some good speeches. (Ted Sorenson wrote for him and for Barack Obama.) And Hillary Clinton at least hasn't claimed that "only in America" could it happen that she would be a candidate for the hightest office in the land. For Barack Obama to make such a claim about his own candidacy--as he has done over and over!-- is surely--given his education--pandering to the kind of American chauvinism Canadians and others have always found distasteful and even dangerous. Also, as to "negativism": Obama's whole campaign, from the get-go, has been based on a negative attack on Hillary Clinton, positioning himself as the voice of a new politics, and of youth, change and the future and thereby (and also by stating so directly) consigning Hillary Clinton to the so-called 'old' politics. The old politics is probably just politics. Anything else is a Democratic sellout to conservatism, and to the Republicans. Obama could have attacked the kind of nasty politics and disregard of Constitution practised by the Republicans under GW Bush, but instead of such meat he goes for the imaginary and so doing tarred Hillary Clinton with a broad brush she didn't deserve. But after all, so long as they're contending for the same office, that's POLITICS, isn't it? It seems verboten to point out that Obama practises old-style politics at the same time as speaking like a visionary (with few specifics). Truly it seems to me that Hillary Clinton has been given a much tougher time of it by the media and all round. Clinton did make a mistake, I think, in using the phrase "white, hard-working Americans"--not because "white" raises race (as if she were the first to raise the subject!), but because she didn't--so far as I've seen in media clips--also mention black, hardworking Americans in some context, for there surely are many of them, too. The problem isn't injecting "race", it's seeming to have made an invidious comparison between races. It's a seductive thought, for many Americans, that the US have a black president, as if that alone can magically change the face of their country to the world or clean up or atone for the war in Iraq. Just that, and TALK of change and hope, won't change the U.S.
--Polly Tix
Clinton is not calling for Canadian-style medicare. She's not Tommy Douglas.
Of course Hillary Clinton isn't Tommy Douglas--no one is. However, right now she is the nearest to Tommy Douglas that the Democrats have to offer for a presidential candidate. Spreading and universalizing health care in the US has been Hillary Clinton's project since even before her husband became President, and she tried to go some of that distance while she was "First Lady" but took a lot of scorn for it--of course: all those wealthy insurance companies were bound to be against her, an the conservative Republicans. Yet even now, as she runs for the Presidential nomination of her Party, she is strong on this point, boldly from the beginning straightforwardly stating her intent of having EVERYONE covered, and making it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage. The forces arrayed against Hillary Clinton are formidable and one must suspect that has something to do with the terribly slanted media coverage she's been getting. (And some of it might be due to sexism, but I rather suspect sexism is only the tool, not the real motive.)
--Polly Tix
My above reply was cut off. Herewith the rest:
I suspect this is why Hillary Clinton is fighting so hard: It's not personal ego, it's not even to exalt the position of women in the land, it's because she is the only candidate who intends to make health care universal in the US, and while she has a CHANCE, she feels morally bound to pursue that goal. (Not Tommy Douglas, but maybe Prometheus?)
And as for Barack Obama's saying only in the US could a person of his background (in the context in which he uses this expression, he seems to include his racial background) have risen to where he is today: if by any chance he actually believes that, then surely that reveals a surprising ignorance of other countries, like even the one just to the north. It's nearer the truth to say that only in the US would it even be an issue! Obama WAS right when he was against the US invading Iraq; though one could wonder whether he would have been so right if he'd been a sitting Senator at the time or if--for whatever reason--he would have voted with Clinton, as apparently (so I've heard repeatedly on tv) he has on all Iraq-related votes since.
But looking to the future, both Dem presidential candidates want to withdraw the troops, and--for what it's worth this far in advance, since conceivably circumstances could change--Clinton has stated a swift timetable for it, besides. So there's not a wide difference there. But the gap on health care is HUGE. Clinton is right, it has to be universal or be nibbled to death by exceptions.
I'm sure the Republicans would rather have Obama than Clinton, because they fear her strength and, after all, there are quite possibly (speaking figuratively) bodies buried all around by the current Administration, which Hillary would uncover, and Republicans perhaps fear the kind of righteous indignation she might feel and stir up, with the trouble the Republicans caused her husband's administration still warm in her memory. On the other hand, Barack Obama talks of reaching across aisles, and so forth. He can't surely be that naive. Can the US afford to have a President that naive?
--Polly Tix
Thanks for your comments. I agree with the point that Clinton's position on health care is better than Obama's. Three or four months ago, I was inclined to regard her as the better candidate.
There's no doubt about the virulence of her comment on Iran, though. You will find the quote in the news stories on what she said. Here is the quote from the Reuters story:
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel)," Clinton said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them," she said.
"That's a terrible thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic," Clinton said.
However difficult a campaign may be for a candidate, it is never acceptable to threaten the use of nuclear weapons against a country to show how tough you are. As a non-American, I have a greater interest in an America that is not bellicose than in the details of their health care system.
I'm with James. She's great for health care (by the standards of the US), but her comment about Iran was not acceptable.
Agreed that the word "obliterate" is a shocker, and an unwise choice for Clinton to have spoken (she was speaking extemporaneously). But the ever-present threat of a nuclear bombstrike, anywhere, itself is shocking. Yet the US has these weapons, and so has Israel. To be fair about what Clinton said, one surely must quote the QUESTION she was asked, to which she was making reply. I went online to check the videos, and invite others to do the same: Get the question, and her whole reply. She had been asked what the US, if she were President, would do if Iran nuked Israel. She indicated that was for the near future at least not terribly likely, since Iran lacks the capacity, when she said (more or less) "over the next ten years, if Iran develops the capacity". What could one expect her to say? She could perhaps have said, "We'd send a diplomatic note of disapproval" (really,now!), or have said, that's too hypothetical (sounding timid and wishywashy), or that Israel has the capacity to defend itself (unless of course being nuked is disabling--or dare one say it, pretty much obliterating--, as we certainly know it is), or that we'd all probably be too sick from the radiation to manage much, or that under no circumstances would she unleash a second such lethal and toxic weapon upon the planet and its peoples, but instead she said SUCH an attack on Israel, a country considered one of the US' greatest allies, would trigger "massive retaliation." Prodded further on that point, she said Iran needed to know that "we could obliterate them". Could, not would (does anyone doubt the "could" part?). The US--at least under Bush--is a warmongering country, but it isn't fair--yet at least--to paint Hillary Clinton as a warmongerer. Incidentally, Barack Obama's reply to the question when it was posed to him was more or less the same; asked to elaborate on his reply: He said NOTHING (in the way of response) was "off the table". Nuclear weapon capacity isn't new. The threat of its being used has subsisted for decades (and we all remember which country has actually used it, and to what effect). Here, a hypothetical was posed wherein a U.S. ally (apparently so considered) was already nuked, and Clinton was responding to that. I don't think, in context, that that makes her more of a warmonger or sabre-rattler than (a) one might otherwise have thought; (b)perhaps anyone else in a prominent leadership position the USA.
--Polly Tix
And I still think universal health care would be a significantly civilizing influence--possibly a worldview-changing influence on our neighbours to the south. Let them come to think of it as a right--a human right. Talk about paradigm shifts! And only one candidate wants to deliver it, and has dared to say so from the outset.
--Polly Tix
Found some pertinent links re what Clinton was asked and what was replied.
Here’s a version of the interview: http://youtube.com/watch?v=abJ2jbXasNg
a shortened version of it (but see the one above, too!):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fUiFcaWxn8o
Obama on nuclear deterrence (no options off the table):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EaCbBk9ul1A&feature=related
The point I--like James Laxer, also a Canadian!--was trying to make was, I believe that universal health care and a US that is less bellicose are linked, are on the spectrum of civilizing change in consciousness--a cause in which the whole world has a vested interest. (For sure Barack Obama gets wins points, though, for speaking of the U.S., under him if he were elected, being willing to sit down and TALK with pretty much any country with which the US. may have issues. His not subscribing, or not openly subscribing, to the need for health care that is universally mandated by law, however, is significantly coming up short on something he would, if elected, be able to effect, that wouldn't depend on intangibles which may not yet arise. (And, for whatever it might mean--which the media have not bothered to question-- his wife is a hospital executive... .)
I intend to quit posting, at this point; I do realize it's James Laxer's blog, not mine!
--Polly Tix
Post all you like. It's thoughtful, articulate stuff.
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