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Hillary's claims about Rwanda
I can't write as well as Hlzoy - http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/03/hilary-clinton.html
But I think this is a pretty succinct summary of Hillary's claims.
"It's worth bearing this background in mind when you hear Hillary
Clinton claim that she advocated military intervention in Rwanda. If
you don't, you might think: well, it's perfectly comprehensible that
she might have argued for military intervention but failed to convince
her husband. After all, military intervention in another country is a
big deal, not to be undertaken lightly. And it's easy to imagine
Hillary Clinton being in favor of it, and her husband reluctantly
concluding that it just wasn't something he could do.
It's a lot harder to imagine that while Hillary Clinton was advocating military intervention, she not only failed to convince her husband to send troops, but also failed to convince him, for instance, not to advocate the withdrawal of most of the UN peacekeepers, or that he really ought to order the Pentagon to jam Radio Milles Collines. If she was doing her best behind the scenes, and failed to accomplish even this -- if, despite her best efforts, she couldn't persuade her husband not to advocate withdrawing UN peacekeepers just to provide cover for the Belgians -- then we really need to ask how effective an advocate she really is, especially since no one except her husband, in full campaign mode, seems to remember her efforts at all.
Of course, I think it's a lot more likely that she either didn't advocate action on Rwanda at all, or did so only in passing. If so, this would have to be the definitive example of her attempt to claim responsibility for everything good that happened during her husband's presidency, while disavowing all responsibility for his mistakes. This was, in my opinion, the most shameful moment of the Clinton administration. It ought, by rights, to have a place in Hillary Clinton's "thirty five years of experience working for change." Or perhaps she might claim that she wasn't that interested in foreign policy at the time, or that for whatever reason she just didn't pick up on the genocide in Rwanda until it was too late to act. That would at least be honest.
But if, in fact, Clinton missed the chance to urge her husband to help stop the Rwandan genocide, then she should not pretend that she was, in fact, right there on the side of the angels all along. That's just grotesque."
Bold is mine.







Comments (4)
What's really grotesque is what Obama's senior foreign policy advisor asked a meeting convened to discuss the genocide in Rwanda: "What's it mean for the mid-term congressional elections?" Ironically, you'll find this account in Samantha Power's fantastic book, A Problem From Hell. You'll also find within those pages Tony Lake (another Obama advisor) calling it a "sideshow." Hillary's foreign policy team would be lead by Richard Holbrooke, a guy who has actually stopped a genocide, not looked the other way.
March 8, 2008 8:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
While there is some value to knowing what an advisor might think, it's ultimately the candidate or the president who's responsible.
I don't see how your response adds any insight into Hillary's claim of advocating policy in Rwanda when she didn't or she did so poorly out of sight of any meetings on the subject.
The point of the post and my linking it here is questioning her actual foreign policy experience and to ask why she would continue to bring things up that don't back up her claims. Has anything she said been borne out under scrutiny? If I was 'hiring' her as she keeps asking us to consider it a hiring action, this whole line of resume padding would get her turned down for the job, and maybe even fired if it turned up after she was hired.
March 8, 2008 9:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
bill clinton had the chance to do something about rwanda. but they failed.
and you are so misinformed if you're going to characterize holbrooke as 'stopping a genocide'.
Holbrooke was complicit in Indonesia’s campaign of genocide against East Timor.
March 8, 2008 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, it adds insight because the two people most responsible for advising the president on policy, Lake as NSA and Rice as his top advisor on Africa, advised him to do nothing and they're now Obama's top advisors. Bill Clinton has gone to Rwanda and apologized, what about Rice and Lake? Holbrooke almost single-handedly forced a peace agreement (you can read about this in Power's book, as well numerous articles and books on the Dayton Accords) in the Balkans and is in no way remotely complicity in East Timor. If you're going to spout crap, back it up with facts.
March 9, 2008 9:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
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