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The Democratic Party's Coming Collision on Israel


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The Democratic primary may be over after California votes on June 7, but loyalists to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders appear to be on a collision course over what the Democratic Party stands for — especially on the issue of Israel.


On this week’s “Powerhouse Politics” podcast, ABC News’ Chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl and Political Director Rick Klein talked to two members of the Democratic Party’s important Platform Drafting Committee tasked with writing a unified platform but divided in their choice of candidates: Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Clinton ally, and Sanders supporter James Zogby.


Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute and a pro-Palestinian activist, says the party is in need of more “balanced” and even-handed platform language on Israel and Palestine to move toward what he sees as an emerging consensus.


“There needs to be a recognition that there are two wings of this Democratic Party and we need both wings to fly,” he continued, “and that is the approach that we will hopefully take as a committee.”


Zogby said he’s seen an “evolving Hillary Clinton” on the issue since her time as first lady, when she called for a Palestinian state.



“[There was] Hillary Clinton as first lady, then there was a Hillary Clinton as senator; now we’re talking about Hillary Clinton as president,” he said. “I see an evolving Hillary Clinton and I would like to see a Hillary Clinton that reflects this new consensus that is emerging.”


While Zogby is readying for battle in advocating changes to the platform language on Israel, Gutierrez said there should be a way to achieve language that strongly supports Israel while also being more inclusive of the aspirations of the Palestinian people.


“We have to maintain a very close relationship with our dear friend and ally Israel, but does that mean we cannot be more inclusive? Does that mean we cannot be more reflective of the goals and ambitions of the Palestinian people?” Gutierrez asked rhetorically. “I don’t think one thing negates the other.”


In what was perhaps a direct shot at Zogby, Gutierrez went on to say that the platform’s final language will not be about “the values of activists” but of the Democratic Party as a whole.


“I’m going to look for a Democratic Party consensus that reflects, not the values of activists that are all of a sudden put on a committee but of the people,” he said.


Gutierrez also scoffed at the notion that Clinton supporters are somehow less progressive than Sanders’ supporters.


“It’s almost as though, well, if you are with Bernie Sanders you must be progressive and for change, and all the rest of us are just some, I don’t know, sellouts to Wall Street and to the establishment. That’s just not the case,” he said.


Gutierrez also sought to make the case that Clinton already has all but clinched the nomination.


“Let’s be clear, she has the nomination,” the Illinois Democrat told ABC News.


“Hillary Clinton is now 80 delegates away from wrapping it up,” he said. “There is no political scientist or anybody that has any credibility that doesn’t believe that Hillary Clinton is not going to have the number of delegates required to become the nominee.”


But Zogby has a different take, arguing that the race is far from over and that much work remains to be done to unify the party.


“Sen. Sanders has about 50 percent of the Democratic votes to date, Sec. Clinton has about 50 percent of the Democratic votes to date," Zogby said.


Gutierrez, a Latino and immigrant rights activist, went on to accuse Sanders of not supporting immigrants.


“In 2007, Hillary Clinton voted for comprehensive immigration reform when Bernie Sanders turned his back on immigrants and went to brag about it on Lou Dobbs' program,” he said. “That’s why people are for her, that’s why Latinos have supported her across this country and why I expect her to be triumphant in California.”


While the two Democratic campaigns may locked in a battle over issues, Zogby said the divisions that do exist pale in comparison to what he called an existential crisis in the Republican Party with Trump at the helm.


“I don’t think there is anything near the divisions on the Democratic side that currently exist on the Republican side, their crisis is existential,” Zogby said.

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A newly-released Hilary Clinton email confirmed that the Obama administration has deliberately provoked the civil war in Syria as the “best way to help Israel.” In an indication of her murderous and psychopathic nature, Clinton also wrote that it was the “right thing” to personally threaten Bashar Assad’s family with death.



Clinton-Syria-destruction.jpg



In the email, released by Wikileaks, then Secretary of State Clinton says that the “best way to help Israel” is to “use force” in Syria to overthrow the government.


The document was one of many unclassified by the US Department of State under case number F-2014-20439, Doc No. C05794498, following the uproar over Clinton’s private email server kept at her house while she served as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.


Although the Wikileaks transcript dates the email as December 31, 2000, this is an error on their part, as the contents of the email (in particular the reference to May 2012 talks between Iran and the west over its nuclear program in Istanbul) show that the email was in fact sent on December 31, 2012.


The email makes it clear that it has been US policy from the very beginning to violently overthrow the Syrian government—and specifically to do this because it is in Israel’s interests.



C05794498-1.jpg



“The best way to help Israel deal with Iran’s growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad,” Clinton forthrightly starts off by saying.


Even though all US intelligence reports had long dismissed Iran’s “atom bomb” program as a hoax (a conclusion supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency), Clinton continues to use these lies to “justify” destroying Syria in the name of Israel.



She specifically links Iran’s mythical atom bomb program to Syria because, she says, Iran’s “atom bomb” program threatens Israel’s “monopoly” on nuclear weapons in the Middle East.


If Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon, Clinton asserts, this would allow Syria (and other “adversaries of Israel” such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt) to “go nuclear as well,” all of which would threaten Israel’s interests.


Therefore, Clinton, says, Syria has to be destroyed.



Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s civil war may seem unconnected, but they are. What Israeli military leaders really worry about — but cannot talk about — is losing their nuclear monopoly.


An Iranian nuclear weapons capability would not only end that nuclear monopoly but could also prompt other adversaries, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to go nuclear as well. The result would be a precarious nuclear balance in which Israel could not respond to provocations with conventional military strikes on Syria and Lebanon, as it can today.


If Iran were to reach the threshold of a nuclear weapons state, Tehran would find it much easier to call on its allies in Syria and Hezbollah to strike Israel, knowing that its nuclear weapons would serve as a deterrent to Israel responding against Iran itself.



It is, Clinton continues, the “strategic relationship between Iran and the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria” that makes it possible for Iran to undermine Israel’s security.


This would not come about through a “direct attack,” Clinton admits, because “in the thirty years of hostility between Iran and Israel” this has never occurred, but through its alleged “proxies.”



The end of the Assad regime would end this dangerous alliance. Israel’s leadership understands well why defeating Assad is now in its interests.


Bringing down Assad would not only be a massive boon to Israel’s security, it would also ease Israel’s understandable fear of losing its nuclear monopoly.


Then, Israel and the United States might be able to develop a common view of when the Iranian program is so dangerous that military action could be warranted.



Clinton goes on to asset that directly threatening Bashar Assad “and his family” with violence is the “right thing” to do:



In short, the White House can ease the tension that has developed with Israel over Iran by doing the right thing in Syria.


With his life and his family at risk, only the threat or use of force will change the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s mind.



The email proves—as if any more proof was needed—that the US government has been the main sponsor of the growth of terrorism in the Middle East, and all in order to “protect” Israel.


It is also a sobering thought to consider that the “refugee” crisis which currently threatens to destroy Europe, was directly sparked off by this US government action as well, insofar as there are any genuine refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria.


In addition, over 250,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, which has spread to Iraq—all thanks to Clinton and the Obama administration backing the “rebels” and stoking the fires of war in Syria.


The real and disturbing possibility that a psychopath like Clinton—whose policy has inflicted death and misery upon millions of people—could become the next president of America is the most deeply shocking thought of all.


Clinton’s public assertion that, if elected president, she would “take the relationship with Israel to the next level,” would definitively mark her, and Israel, as the enemy of not just some Arab states in the Middle East, but of all peace-loving people on earth.

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Guest Mauro

http://newobserveronline.com/clinton-destroy-syria-israel/

A newly-released Hilary Clinton email confirmed that the Obama administration has deliberately provoked the civil war in Syria as the best way to help Israel. In an indication of her murderous and psychopathic nature, Clinton also wrote that it was the right thing to personally threaten Bashar Assads family with death.

Clinton-Syria-destruction.jpg

In the email, released by Wikileaks, then Secretary of State Clinton says that the best way to help Israel is to use force in Syria to overthrow the government.

The document was one of many unclassified by the US Department of State under case number F-2014-20439, Doc No. C05794498, following the uproar over Clintons private email server kept at her house while she served as Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.

Although the Wikileaks transcript dates the email as December 31, 2000, this is an error on their part, as the contents of the email (in particular the reference to May 2012 talks between Iran and the west over its nuclear program in Istanbul) show that the email was in fact sent on December 31, 2012.

The email makes it clear that it has been US policy from the very beginning to violently overthrow the Syrian governmentand specifically to do this because it is in Israels interests.

C05794498-1.jpg

The best way to help Israel deal with Irans growing nuclear capability is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad, Clinton forthrightly starts off by saying.

Even though all US intelligence reports had long dismissed Irans atom bomb program as a hoax (a conclusion supported by the International Atomic Energy Agency), Clinton continues to use these lies to justify destroying Syria in the name of Israel.

She specifically links Irans mythical atom bomb program to Syria because, she says, Irans atom bomb program threatens Israels monopoly on nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

If Iran were to acquire a nuclear weapon, Clinton asserts, this would allow Syria (and other adversaries of Israel such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt) to go nuclear as well, all of which would threaten Israels interests.

Therefore, Clinton, says, Syria has to be destroyed.

Irans nuclear program and Syrias civil war may seem unconnected, but they are. What Israeli military leaders really worry about but cannot talk about is losing their nuclear monopoly.

An Iranian nuclear weapons capability would not only end that nuclear monopoly but could also prompt other adversaries, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to go nuclear as well. The result would be a precarious nuclear balance in which Israel could not respond to provocations with conventional military strikes on Syria and Lebanon, as it can today.

If Iran were to reach the threshold of a nuclear weapons state, Tehran would find it much easier to call on its allies in Syria and Hezbollah to strike Israel, knowing that its nuclear weapons would serve as a deterrent to Israel responding against Iran itself.

It is, Clinton continues, the strategic relationship between Iran and the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria that makes it possible for Iran to undermine Israels security.

This would not come about through a direct attack, Clinton admits, because in the thirty years of hostility between Iran and Israel this has never occurred, but through its alleged proxies.

The end of the Assad regime would end this dangerous alliance. Israels leadership understands well why defeating Assad is now in its interests.

Bringing down Assad would not only be a massive boon to Israels security, it would also ease Israels understandable fear of losing its nuclear monopoly.

Then, Israel and the United States might be able to develop a common view of when the Iranian program is so dangerous that military action could be warranted.

Clinton goes on to asset that directly threatening Bashar Assad and his family with violence is the right thing to do:

In short, the White House can ease the tension that has developed with Israel over Iran by doing the right thing in Syria.

With his life and his family at risk, only the threat or use of force will change the Syrian dictator Bashar Assads mind.

The email provesas if any more proof was neededthat the US government has been the main sponsor of the growth of terrorism in the Middle East, and all in order to protect Israel.

It is also a sobering thought to consider that the refugee crisis which currently threatens to destroy Europe, was directly sparked off by this US government action as well, insofar as there are any genuine refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria.

In addition, over 250,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict, which has spread to Iraqall thanks to Clinton and the Obama administration backing the rebels and stoking the fires of war in Syria.

The real and disturbing possibility that a psychopath like Clintonwhose policy has inflicted death and misery upon millions of peoplecould become the next president of America is the most deeply shocking thought of all.

Clintons public assertion that, if elected president, she would take the relationship with Israel to the next level, would definitively mark her, and Israel, as the enemy of not just some Arab states in the Middle East, but of all peace-loving people on earth.

Oh, god, not this again. Hillary didn't write it, it was sent to her.

Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/4bwydd/hillary_clinton_email_overthrow_assad_destroy/

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Corruption Is Catching Up to the Clintons and Their Associates It comes as no surprise that Hillary Clinton's closest allies are involved in a litany of ethics violations

Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign chair, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, is currently under investigation by the FBI and Department of Justice over questionable contributions to his 2013 campaign. According to a recent CNN report, the investigation—which has been going on for at least a year—calls into question Mr. McAuliffe’s service as a board member to the Clinton Global Initiative, a subsidiary of the Clinton Foundation. A $120,000 donation from a Chinese businessman, Wang Wenliang, made through U.S.-based businesses, raised red flags with investigators—along with several other donations, like the $2 million he gave the Clinton Foundation.

Governor McAuliffe is just one of several close associates to the Clintons currently under investigation for corruption. Ms. Clinton’s 2008 campaign co-chair, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is under immense pressure to resign thanks to her favoritism for Ms. Clinton throughout the Democratic primaries. Ms. Wasserman Schultz essentially tipped the scale against Senator Bernie Sanders, a violation of the impartiality her position at the DNC demands. Prominent Clinton supporter and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is also under review as part of an ongoing federal investigation into two businessmen with close ties to the mayor. The Podesta Group, implicated in the release of the Panama Papers, was founded by Tony Podesta and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief, John Podesta. Several other prominent donors to the Clinton Foundation have also been linked to the Panama Papers, and the Clinton Foundation itself has been frequently cited as a source of money laundering and exchanging political favors for large donations.

It comes as no surprise that Hillary Clinton’s closest associates are involved in a litany of ethics violations as corruption has been the modus operandi of Ms. Clinton’s campaign for the entire duration of the primaries. Hillary Clinton has publicly vocalized support for campaign finance reform, yet owes much of her success in the primaries to the current corrupt system, which enables her to fundraise unethically, bending and possibly breaking current campaign finance laws. The Hillary Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee between the Clinton campaign and the DNC, was recently revealed by Politico to be laundering money to the Clinton campaign to circumvent campaign finance laws. Mr. Sanders’ campaign has also highlighted additional violations and ethical breaches made by the Hillary Victory Fund.

“The financial disclosure reports on file with the Federal Election Commission indicate that the joint committee invested millions in low-dollar, online fundraising and advertising that solely benefits the Clinton campaign,” states a press release from Mr. Sanders‘ campaign. “The Sanders campaign ‘is particularly concerned that these extremely large-dollar individual contributions have been used by the Hillary Victory Fund to pay for more than $7.8 million in direct mail efforts and over $8.6 million in online advertising’ according to the letter to the DNC. Both outlays benefit the Clinton presidential campaign “by generating low-dollar contributions that flow only to HFA [Hillary for America] rather than to the DNC or any of the participating state party committees.”

In an interview with Think Progress, two campaign finance experts emphasized that what the Hillary Victory Fund has done is unprecedented and should be illegal.

“Their argument is usually that it helps the party generally, but the practical and legal reality is that it benefits Hillary Clinton. You just don’t expect this kind of thing to happen in the primaries,” Larry Noble, with the Campaign Legal Center, told Think Progress. The article noted that this type of fundraising has only been legal since 2014, when the Supreme Court, in the McCutcheon v. FEC ruling, revoked what legal protections in campaign finance law remained after the 2011 Citizens United ruling.

The Democratic National Committee has completely disregarded the democratic process by colluding with the Clinton campaign to simultaneously raise funds for itself while helping Hillary Clinton secure the presidential nomination. The Party should be pushing to reform campaign finance law—not embracing policies that allow wealthy individuals and corporations to buy off elections. While a few members of Congress push to get big money out of politics—most notably Bernie Sanders—the Democratic leadership has only strengthened its ties to wealthy and corporate donors who have hijacked the party for their own interests over the progressive agenda held by voters identifying as Democrats.

http://observer.com/2016/05/corruption-is-catching-up-to-the-clintons-and-their-associates/

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Hillary Clinton and the Syrian Bloodbath

In the Milwaukee debate, Hillary Clinton took pride in her role in a recent UN Security Council resolution on a Syrian ceasefire:

But I would add this. You know, the Security Council finally got around to adopting a resolution. At the core of that resolution is an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva, which set forth a cease-fire and moving toward a political resolution, trying to bring the parties at stake in Syria together.

This is the kind of compulsive misrepresentation that makes Clinton unfit to be President. Clinton’s role in Syria has been to help instigate and prolong the Syrian bloodbath, not to bring it to a close.

In 2012, Clinton was the obstacle, not the solution, to a ceasefire being negotiated by UN Special Envoy Kofi Annan. It was US intransigence - Clinton’s intransigence - that led to the failure of Annan’s peace efforts in the spring of 2012, a point well known among diplomats. Despite Clinton’s insinuation in the Milwaukee debate, there was (of course) no 2012 ceasefire, only escalating carnage. Clinton bears heavy responsibility for that carnage, which has by now displaced more than 10 million Syrians and left more than 250,000 dead.

As every knowledgeable observer understands, the Syrian War is not mostly about Bashar al-Assad, or even about Syria itself. It is mostly a proxy war, about Iran. And the bloodbath is doubly tragic and misguided for that reason.

Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the leading Sunni powers in the Middle East, view Iran, the leading Shia power, as a regional rival for power and influence. Right-wing Israelis view Iran as an implacable foe that controls Hezbollah, a Shi’a militant group operating in Lebanon, a border state of Israel. Thus, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel have all clamored to remove Iran’s influence in Syria.

This idea is incredibly naïve. Iran has been around as a regional power for a long time—in fact, for about 2,700 years. And Shia Islam is not going away. There is no way, and no reason, to “defeat” Iran. The regional powers need to forge a geopolitical equilibrium that recognizes the mutual and balancing roles of the Gulf Arabs, Turkey, and Iran. And Israeli right-wingers are naïve, and deeply ignorant of history, to regard Iran as their implacable foe, especially when that mistaken view pushes Israel to side with Sunni jihadists.

Yet Clinton did not pursue that route. Instead she joined Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and right-wing Israelis to try to isolate, even defeat, Iran. In 2010, she supported secret negotiations between Israel and Syria to attempt to wrest Syria from Iran’s influence. Those talks failed. Then the CIA and Clinton pressed successfully for Plan B: to overthrow Assad.

When the unrest of the Arab Spring broke out in early 2011, the CIA and the anti-Iran front of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey saw an opportunity to topple Assad quickly and thereby to gain a geopolitical victory. Clinton became the leading proponent of the CIA-led effort at Syrian regime change.

In early 2011, Turkey and Saudi Arabia leveraged local protests against Assad to try to foment conditions for his ouster. By the spring of 2011, the CIA and the US allies were organizing an armed insurrection against the regime. On August 18, 2011, the US Government made public its position: “Assad must go.”

Since then and until the recent fragile UN Security Council accord, the US has refused to agree to any ceasefire unless Assad is first deposed. The US policy—under Clinton and until recently—has been: regime change first, ceasefire after. After all, it’s only Syrians who are dying. Annan’s peace efforts were sunk by the United States’ unbending insistence that U.S.-led regime change must precede or at least accompany a ceasefire. As the Nation editors put it in August 2012:

The US demand that Assad be removed and sanctions be imposed before negotiations could seriously begin, along with the refusal to include Iran in the process, doomed [Annan’s] mission.

Clinton has been much more than a bit player in the Syrian crisis. Her diplomat Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi was killed as he was running a CIA operation to ship Libyan heavy weapons to Syria. Clinton herself took the lead role in organizing the so-called “Friends of Syria” to back the CIA-led insurgency.

The U.S. policy was a massive, horrific failure. Assad did not go, and was not defeated. Russia came to his support. Iran came to his support. The mercenaries sent in to overthrow him were themselves radical jihadists with their own agendas. The chaos opened the way for the Islamic State, building on disaffected Iraqi Army leaders (deposed by the US in 2003), on captured U.S. weaponry, and on the considerable backing by Saudi funds. If the truth were fully known, the multiple scandals involved would surely rival Watergate in shaking the foundations of the US establishment.

The hubris of the United States in this approach seems to know no bounds. The tactic of CIA-led regime change is so deeply enmeshed as a “normal” instrument of U.S. foreign policy that it is hardly noticed by the U.S. public or media. Overthrowing another government is against the U.N. charter and international law. But what are such niceties among friends?

This instrument of U.S. foreign policy has not only been in stark violation of international law but has also been a massive and repeated failure. Rather than a single, quick, and decisive coup d’état resolving a US foreign policy problem, each CIA-led regime change has been, almost inevitably, a prelude to a bloodbath. How could it be otherwise? Other societies don’t like their countries to be manipulated by U.S. covert operations.

Removing a leader, even if done “successfully,” doesn’t solve any underlying geopolitical problems, much less ecological, social, or economic ones. A coup d’etat invites a civil war, the kind that now wracks Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. It invites a hostile international response, such as Russia’s backing of its Syrian ally in the face of the CIA-led operations. The record of misery caused by covert CIA operations literally fills volumes at this point. What surprise, then, the Clinton acknowledges Henry Kissinger as a mentor and guide?

And where is the establishment media in this debacle? The New York Times finally covered a bit of this story last month in describing the CIA-Saudi connection, in which Saudi funds are used to pay for CIA operations in order to make an end-run around Congress and the American people. The story ran once and was dropped. Yet the Saudi funding of CIA operations is the same basic tactic used by Ronald Reagan and Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s (with Iranian arms sales used to fund CIA-led covert operations in Central America without consent or oversight by the American people).

Clinton herself has never shown the least reservation or scruples in deploying this instrument of U.S. foreign policy. Her record of avid support for US-led regime change includes (but is not limited to) the US bombing of Belgrade in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Iraq War in 2003, the Honduran coup in 2009, the killing of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, and the CIA-coordinated insurrection against Assad from 2011 until today.

It takes great presidential leadership to resist CIA misadventures. Presidents get along by going along with arms contractors, generals, and CIA operatives. They thereby also protect themselves from political attack by hardline right-wingers. They succeed by exulting in U.S. military might, not restraining it. Many historians believe that JFK was assassinated as a result of his peace overtures to the Soviet Union, overture he made against the objections of hardline rightwing opposition in the CIA and other parts of the U.S. government.

Hillary Clinton has never shown an iota of bravery, or even of comprehension, in facing down the CIA. She has been the CIA’s relentless supporter, and has exulted in showing her toughness by supporting every one of its misguided operations. The failures, of course, are relentlessly hidden from view. Clinton is a danger to global peace. She has much to answer for regarding the disaster in Syria.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/hillary-clinton-and-the-s_b_9231190.html

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Hillary Clinton’s dodgy answers on Honduras coup

As I have written before, Hillary Clinton has a lot to answer for with regard to her record as Secretary of State under the Obama administration, particularly in Haiti and Honduras, two countries that are still reeling from U.S. intervention into their affairs. At the last Democratic debate, Bernie Sanders brought up the epidemic of violence in Honduras that has forced many unaccompanied minors to flee, but stopped short of bringing up Clinton’s role in the 2009 coup in Honduras that removed the democratically elected Manuel Zelaya and helped lead to a new era of repression and lawlessness.

However, Bernie Sanders yet again missed a chance to press Clinton on her foreign policy at last week’s debate. (To be fair, yet again, the debate moderators failed to bring up U.S. policy in any countries aside from the usual topics of Syria, Iraq and Libya.) At Thursday’s debate in New York, Sanders brought up regime change, but yet again missed a chance to grill Clinton on her record.

The only major outlet last week that questioned Hillary on her role in regime change outside of the Middle East was the New York Daily News. Toward the end of an interview with the paper’s editorial board, Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez pressed Clinton specifically on her decisions during the coup in Honduras, and if she had any “concerns about her role in the aftermath of the coup.” Clinton replied:

Well, let me again try to put this in context. The legislature, the national legislature in Honduras and the national judiciary actually followed the law in removing President Zelaya. Now I didn’t like the way it looked or the way they did it but they had a very strong argument that they had followed the constitution and the legal precedence. And as you know, they really undercut their argument by spiriting him out of the country in his pajamas, where they sent the military to take him out of his bed and get him out of the country. So this began as a very mixed and difficult situation.

If the United States government declares a coup, you immediately have to shut off all aid including humanitarian aid, the Agency for International Development aid, the support that we were providing at that time for a lot of very poor people, and that triggers a legal necessity. There’s no way to get around it. So our assessment was, we will just make the situation worse by punishing the Honduran people if we declare a coup and we immediately have to stop all aid for the people, but we should slow walk and try to stop anything that the government could take advantage of without calling it a coup.

In other words, Clinton had no problem with the forced removal of a democratically elected leader of a country; she only took issue with the fact that things got a little messier than she would have liked. In her glib response, Clinton never elaborates on what the “strong arguments” were that justified the United States not calling the ouster a coup, despite the fact that various governments around the world, as well as the United Nations, condemned Zelaya’s ouster as a coup and called for his restoration as president. Dana Frank, a professor of history and expert on U.S. relations with Honduras called it “chilling that a leading presidential candidate would say this was not a coup . . . . She’s baldly lying when she says [the United States] never called it a coup.” Indeed, President Obama himself said soon after, “We believe the coup was not legal, and that President Zelaya remains the president of Honduras, the democratically elected leader of the country.” By November 2009, the United States had backtracked on its position and focused on pushing for elections, but the claim that it didn’t call it a coup is simply not true.

As for Clinton’s contention that the reluctance to cut aid boiled down to concern for poor Hondurans, U.S. actions in the wake of coups in countries that have strong ties to America may cast doubt on that claim. As Max Fisher noted in 2013 when the United States kept the aid flowing to Egypt despite a coup, America has a pretty shaky record of cutting off assistance after an ouster of a democratically elected leader, frequently preferring to preserve aid to U.S. military allies. In Honduras it did suspend some foreign assistance at first, and revoked the visas of key figures in the government. But Honduras has long been a recipient of generous U.S. aid — nearly $96 million, with around 11 million going to military and counter-narcotics initiatives — and Honduran security forces receive training and equipment from the U.S. government, both in bilateral aid, and as part of the Central America Regional Security Initiative. As the United States has requested more aid to Honduran security forces, the Honduran police has been increasingly militarized, including growing human rights abuses. According to Reuters, Honduran soldiers were accused of being involved in nine murders, 20 cases of torture and 30 illegal detentions between 2012 and 2014. The military was also accused of abuses in the protests following the 2009 coup.

In the New York Daily News interview, Clinton claimed that Honduras could have descended into more bloodshed, even going so far as to say that the country could have descended into a civil war “terrifying in its loss of life.”

What Hillary fails to mention is that bloodshed reigns supreme in Honduras today, not only in terms of its astronomically high murder rate, but also for activists, LGBT persons, journalists and indigenous leaders. At least 174 LGBT persons have been killed in Honduras since 2009. According to Global Witness, 101 environmental activists were murdered between 2010 and 2014, including Berta Cáceres, a fearless environmentalist who fought for indigenous land rights and who was assassinated in her home in March. In 2014, Cáceres called out Clinton for her role in the 2009 coup, saying, “We’re coming out of a coup that we can’t put behind us. We can’t reverse it. It just kept going. And after, there was the issue of the elections. The same Hillary Clinton, in her book, ‘Hard Choices,’ practically said what was going to happen in Honduras. This demonstrates the meddling of North Americans in our country.” (As Roque Planas of the Huffington Post pointed out, while Clinton discussed her role in the hardcover of edition of ‘Hard Choices’, the paperback edition of ‘Hard Choices cut out the discussion of the Honduras coup entirely)

Clinton could have used the Daily News’s question as an opportunity to call upon the Honduran government to do its utmost to bring Cáceres’s killers to justice, as well as the killers of Nelson Garcia, another environmentalist who was murdered in Honduras just days after Cáceres. Instead, Clinton’s silence spoke volumes.

As Honduras and other Central American countries continue to grapple with corruption and violence, the presidential race is as good a time as any to reexamine U.S. policy toward the region. Clinton’s questionable record as secretary of state will invariably influence her polices toward Honduras and the region if she is the next president. Clinton’s dodgy answers on her role in Honduras should alarm anyone concerned with human rights and stability in Honduras, Central America and around the world.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/04/19/hillary-clintons-dodgy-answers-on-honduras-coup/

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Guest Mauro

The articles are beyond laughable. The lack of understanding when it comes to foreign relations, not to mention basic world history on the part of Bernie Bros is astounding.

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Guest Mauro

The articles are beyond laughable. The lack of understanding when it comes to foreign relations, not to mention lack of knowledge when it comes to the subject of basic world history on the part of Bernie Bros is astounding.

Fuck israel

Why am I not surprised to see to this comment?

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dick2-660x330.jpg


Rubio: I’m Sorry For Mocking Trump’s Dick [VIDEO]


CNN reports:


Marco Rubio apologized privately to Donald Trump in person backstage before a Republican debate for crude remarks he made about Trump’s appearance, the Florida senator said in an exclusive CNN interview. The former presidential candidate, who has grudgingly said he will support Trump in November, also admitted a series of mistakes that he says eventually bedeviled his campaign.


Chief among those, Rubio has said, was belittling Trump for the size of his hands in the leadup to Super Tuesday, which he has publicly said he regrets. But Rubio went further when speaking with Tapper. “I actually told Donald — one of the debates, I forget which one — I apologized to him for that,” Rubio said. “I said, ‘You know, I’m sorry that I said that. It’s not who I am and I shouldn’t have done it.’ I didn’t say it in front of the cameras, I didn’t want any political benefit.”





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The articles are beyond laughable. The lack of understanding when it comes to foreign relations, not to mention basic world history on the part of Bernie Bros is astounding.

You're fucking stupid. You rebut everything by saying we don't know. :rolleyes:

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The articles are beyond laughable. The lack of understanding when it comes to foreign relations, not to mention basic world history on the part of Bernie Bros is astounding.

He seems to have enough understanding of foreign relations and world history to me. anyone at this point who still thinks that removing the Syrian regime is "for the people of Syria because Assad is a tyrant" is simply ignorant. THAT is laughable.

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He seems to have enough understanding of foreign relations and world history to me. anyone at this point who still thinks that removing the Syrian regime is "for the people of Syria because Assad is a tyrant" is simply ignorant. THAT is laughable.

Amen-reaction-gif.gif

I've been saying it for years and people are always making fun of me here. Calling me psycho. I don't give a shit.

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