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Sen. Hillary Clinton today defended her statement that the United States would "obliterate" Iran if it ever launched a nuclear strike on Israel. "Why would I have any regrets?" she told George Stephanopoulos and group of Indiana voters on ABC's This Week. "I am asked a question about what I would do if Iran attacked our ally, a country that many of us have a great deal of, you know, connection with and feeling for."

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This is madness, on two different levels.

Morally: Seventy million people live in Iran. They are currently ruled by a religious dictatorship covered by a thin veneer of "controlled democracy": the voters can vote, but only for candidates the mullahs approve in advance. Threatening to "obliterate" them because of an action by the government they didn't choose means offering to outbid Hitler, Stalin, and Mao in the mass-murderer auction.

Diplomatically: The current Iranian regime has an unsure grip on power. Younger people and the educated urban elite (think of it as the Iranian version of the Obama constituency) hates the current ruling clique and would like to move toward democracy and civil liberty. Iran's wealth and military power make it a key player in the Middle East, and the fact that Iranians aren't Arabs means that Iran isn't necessarily part of the anti-Israel coalition. (The Shah was strongly pro-Israel, and that wasn't what caused him to fall.) Bringing about regime change in Iran by fostering the growth of democratic forces must rank very high on any intelligent list of American foreign policy objectives: much higher, for example, than achieving a stable Iraq.

Even within the current ruling group, Ahmadi-Nejad's fanatic anti-Western stance is controversial. He could easily lose his position in the elections next year.

Anything that strengthens Ahmadi-Nejad against the less bomb-happy fundamentalists, and anything that strengthens the fundamentalists against the democratic forces, is very bad for the world. A threat from a major American politician to obliterate Iran, which is sure to be repeated endlessly in the state-controlled mass media there, is a gift to the bad guys.

Even during the Cold War, no American President ever explicity threatened to "obliterate" the Soviet Union. Clinton's comment raises serious questions about her fitness for the office she holds, let alone the one she is seeking. It is precisely because the United States has the biggest stick in the history of the world that we can and must talk softly.

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Originally posted by ballpeen:
Teddy had it right....talk softly and carry a big stick.


Hillary is a buffoon.

quote:

Originally posted by ballpeen:
Teddy had it right....talk softly and carry a big stick.


Hillary is a buffoon.

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Transforming the Kosovo conflict from a war fought with limited means for limited objectives to a ground invasion of Yugoslavia aimed at producing unconditional surrender in Belgrade would have divided the United States from our NATO allies, stripped the war of any legitimacy under international law, and risked creating the sort of deeply problematic post-war occupation the country has been enjoying in Iraq.

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Originally posted by shepwrite:
Obama's cooler. Hillary knows more. McCain's older than dirt and loves war and W.

• Obama has surrounded himself with advisers who opposed the war (in 2002).
  
  
• Clinton has surrounded herself with advisers who supported the war.
  
  
• McCain has surrounded himself with advisers who want to start the next war.

quote:

Originally posted by shepwrite:
Sev, I've heard Clinton speak about 20 times now... and she knows her shit inside and out.

Read a great article about just that knowing of shit, how even her opponents are a little boggled at how she can know so much about so much. Someone said most candidates are one or two issue candidates... Hillary is a five or six issue candidate.

Yeah, the pandering bullshit bothers me, too. But she's a intensely intelligent and obsessively informed woman. I listened to her riffing really freely on the complex web of the Middle East in the last debate while, frankly, Obama seemed to freeze up a little.

Obama's cooler. Hillary knows more. McCain's older than dirt and loves war and W.

quote:

Originally posted by DieHardBrownsFan:
Well shep, you and Rich are older than dirt and we still listen to you in here.

Uh no we don't.

I mean sure, both are hate filled and ignorant beyond descriptipn but Rich probably actually needs psychiatric intervention.

Oh Shep too. but his narcissism probably doesn't pose a risk to others.


WSS

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Well shep, you and Rich are older than dirt

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Originally posted by shepwrite:

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Well shep, you and Rich are older than dirt

Huh? Are we just saying random shit now?

Well, you have that large green penis growing out of your forehead!

Honestly, I assumed Diehard was the old one. He reads old and I thought he said he was a WWI vet or something?

quote:

Originally posted by rich4eagle:
So which part of Hillary speak is way wrong and which part of the mindless morass we are in is way good

The answers that include facts will be pleasing and missing

Of course brain dead spin will do it's dumbass thang