Categories
Uncategorized

Hillary Clinton on the Last Resort

Crooks and Liars does a good job of contrasting Hillary Clinton’s speech on the floor of the Senate in 2002, voting in favour of the Iraq resolution and what she’s saying now about that vote which she has never recanted and never will:

Crooks and Liars » Hillary Clinton Defends her 2002 Iraq War Vote — through Attack

Senator Clinton briefly outlined why she voted as she did, that her vote was not one for preemptive war but for further UN weapons inspections, and that she had President Bush’s personal assurances that all avenues would be taken to prevent war, war as an option only of last resort.

Specifically, she said,”mine was not a vote for war . . ” As though you get to vote for different things than everybody else does. Everybody voted on the same resolution.

Well, OK, anyone who reads this website knows I’m not a big supporter of Hillary. But for chrissakes, this really needs to be said: if you say you didn’t know we were going to war, you’re either a fool or a liar.

Because we all knew, didn’t we? There was never a doubt in my mind that George Bush and Dick Cheney had every intention of going to war, and neither was there any such misapprehension in any of my non-politician, non-Washington friends, Right or Left. Even the least-interested person I knew was aware of what was happening and that we were going to war.

And after that, she and Barack Obama’s voting records remained roughly the same on the war: both voted to fund the war time and time again. She insists that if he was as sure of his convictions against the war, he shouldn’t have funded it. I say that if she was as sure that she only wanted war as a last result – and if indeed she was surprised by the result of her vote – she was under equal obligation to do the same.

But she didn’t. And now she questions Obama’s judgment.

By Tommy Belknap

Owner, developer, editor of DragonFlyEye.Net, Tom Belknap is also a freelance journalist for The 585 lifestyle magazine. He lives in the Rochester area with his wife and son.