Iamwhomiam » Wed Nov 02, 2016 2:03 pm wrote:It is simply foolish to believe Gates. Clinton hasn't the miraculous powers too many here attribute to her, like her ability to go after Qaddafi, or that her word could overpower that of Gates, a lifer in intelligence and George Bush's Chief of the CIA, and his Secretary of Defense from 2006, pushing his and other more superior warhawk's agenda on into Obama's first term, ending that position only in 2011.
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I've been here for nearly ten years and I am shocked by learning only now that some do not understand what it is that the Secretary of State does, which is to diplomatically explain to other states the policies of the executive, as advised by intelligence and with the approval of Congress or their intelligence committees, and to persuade the state as to why it would be in their interest to be cooperative as the US exercises its, our policy of the moment.
The ultimate responsibility for every military and intelligence operation over the last 8 year rests with Obama. I hold him accountable for it, which is why I voted for Rocky Anderson in the 2012 election. Hillary Clinton, though, shares a large portion of the blame, not as the executive officer with the final decision, but as part of the board that influenced those decisions.
Listen, since her election to the senate in 2000, Hillary created a reputation as a hawk. She opted to serve on the Armed Services Committee and she went out of her way to build personal relationships with top generals (friendly and professional, alike). There's nothing wrong with that, especially if she was part of the Armed Services Committee, but it's another example of how she built herself a reputation as being military-friendly. After the attacks in NY (her state) of 2001, she staked her claim as being a Tough On Terror Democrat, eventually supporting the War in Iraq.
This was all part of her political strategy of winning the White House in 2008; to take away the common refrain about Democrats that they are A) soft on crime, and B) weak military leaders. Little did she realize that by the time Obama came into the picture that America would be sick of the Iraq War. She lost and got Sec State, instead.
But back to your point, which is that Secretary of States have very little influence over military affairs and even less actual power. Normally, I would agree, but that is not the reputation that Hillary built up for herself. For instance, before the CIA could initiate a drone strike, they had to run in through Hillary's State Department first. WHY?! There is no constitutional reason why this would be so, other than to make sure the strikes didn't hit some diplomatic target that the CIA wasn't aware of? Hillary and her office approved of hundreds of CIA drone strikes and contested only a small handful.
Emails between U.S. diplomats in Islamabad and State Department officials in Washington about whether to challenge specific U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan are at the center of a criminal probe involving Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The 2011 and 2012 emails were sent via the “low side” -government slang for a computer system for unclassified matters - as part of a secret arrangement that gave the State Department more of a voice in whether a CIA drone strike went ahead, according to congressional and law enforcement officials briefed on the FBI probe, the Journal said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clinton-emails-drone-strikes_us_575aa8c1e4b0e39a28ad47a3With Lybia, Obama dispatched Secretary Clinton to meet with the opposition leader, Mahmoud Jabril, who won the secretary over to the side of intervention. US Ambassador Rice had spend weeks rebuffing the British and French governments, telling them at one point "You are not going to drag us into your shitty war." Obama was hesitant. Gates was hesitant. Yet, Hillary came back from her meeting with Jabril and was convinced that US intervention was the right path. She wasn't the only high-ranking official to belive this. She was just on their side.
But now Mrs. Clinton did not directly push Mr. Obama to intervene in Libya. Nor did she make an impassioned moral case, according to several people in the room.
Instead, she described Mr. Jibril, the opposition leader, as impressive and reasonable. She conveyed her surprise that Arab leaders not only supported military action but, in some cases, were willing to participate. Mostly, though, she warned that the French and British would go ahead with airstrikes on their own, potentially requiring the United States to step in later if things went badly.
. . .
Mrs. Clinton’s account of a unified European-Arab front powerfully influenced Mr. Obama. “Because the president would never have done this thing on our own,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html?_r=1After the White House agreed to help the UK and France, we actually became the main advocate to the UN for full miltiary force. We pushed well beyond a No Fly Zone and were eventually granted a UN resolution that authorized allied forces to protect Lybian civilians "by any means neccessary". We used our diplomatic corp to secure a resolution for war.
Hillary Clinton is not soley responsible for Lybia, but it went her way, which reflects her decision-making process. She gloated later, "We came. We saw. He died."
So Hillary's State Department had approval power over the CIA's drone program. Weird, but true. Hillary also met with Lybia's opposition leader and came back to argue the case for intervention. Her opinion was valued. She had pull. Is Gates over-estimating her pull when he claims that Obama was 50-50 before she put her two cents in?
Maybe, but why hasn't Clinton refuted it? There have been multiple books and dozens of articles from major publications all touting Hillary's military expertise, her influence in the White House, and her willingness to flex American military muscle. She wrote a book of her own saying the exact same thing called "Hard Choices". She has had years of this kind of press, but where is her pushback? Where is her campaign rebutting the facts of her influence for Military action?
My point is that Hillary Cinton spent from 2001 - 2013 building up a reputation as a hawk, with no pushback.
This was her desired reputation. And now we're supposed to just forget about it? I don't think so.
