Hillary to Troops: Support for War Fading
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Saturday, Nov. 29, 2003 10:18 a.m. EST
In a demoralizing message to U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq, visiting New York Sen. Hillary Clinton told them that Americans back home are growing increasingly skeptical of President Bush's decision to send them into battle.
Describing two meetings with GIs over turkey dinners in Baghdad, Sen. Clinton told reporters later that soldiers wanted to know "how the people at home feel about what we are doing."
Clinton said she told the troops, "Americans are wholeheartedly proud of what you are doing but there are many questions at home about the [Bush] administration's policies."
She also suggested that the U.S. could eventually lose the war in Iraq, contending, "We have to exert all of our efforts militarily, but the outcome is not assured."
Despite her sour pronouncements, the former first lady insisted that the soldiers were just as glad to see her as they were President Bush, whose surprise visit less than 24 hours earlier was greeted with standing ovations.
"It's a positive for the commander in chief to visit troops in the field," Clinton told reporters, adding, "the troops [also] seemed to appreciate seeing myself."
Speaking from a secure location just over the Kuwaiti border, Mrs. Clinton launched one verbal salvo after another at the White House, arguing that Bush officials had been "obsessed" with getting Saddam Hussein and saying the perception blinded them to the difficulties of deposing his regime.
"The Pentagon tried to make do with as few troops as possible, as light a footprint as they could get away with," Clinton said. "Now we're playing catchup. ... Unfortunately, I don't think they fully appreciated the conditions we would encounter."
The top Democrat also reprised her charge that the White House is being less than candid when it comes to apprising the American people of the costs of the war.
"The obstacles and problems here are much greater than the administration usually admits to," she said, adding, "Everybody has to be honest."
Editor's note:
Hillary has a bold plan to capture the White House – Click Here Now>Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
2004 Elections
Bush Administration
Sen. Hillary Clinton
Hillary in Frantic Bid to Outdo Bush in Baghdad
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Friday, Nov. 28, 2003 10:54 a.m. EST
Upstaged by President Bush's amazing Thanksgiving Day visit with U.S. troops in Baghdad, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton seemed frantic on Friday to meet with more soldiers than Bush had seen during his appearance at the city's airport-turned-military base and to be seen doing so in less-protected circumstances.
"At the moment, she is on a visit with a military division outside the security zone," Clinton's spokeswoman told Agence France-Press Friday afternoon, Iraq time.
Earlier in the day Clinton "had lunch with troops from her home state in the dining hall at [Saddam Hussein's former] palace," the press aide said.
Though there were no reports of the former first lady being greeted with the kind of standing ovations generated by the Bush visit, the Clinton flack did her best to paint a picture of an enthusiastic welcome for her boss, telling reporters, "She was walking through the hall [of the palace] and people were coming up to her."
Before lunch with American soldiers, the top Democrat met with senior officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority, including U.S. administrator Paul Bremer, whose surprise introduction of Bush yesterday had soldiers leaping to their feet in amazement.
The scene had to rankle the former first lady.
Her own trip to Afghanistan yesterday was dramatically overshadowed by the president's bombshell visit. And even though the Bush trip wasn't known when Clinton met with soldiers in Afghanistan, her own lackluster reception was something of a public relations disaster.
"I think they're more excited about [meeting] Geraldo," coalition spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty told the Boston Globe, referring to the Fox News Channel correspondent who covered Clinton's visit with the troops at Bagram Air base.
With European press accounts describing Sen. Clinton as Bush's "undeclared Democratic opponent," she seemed determined to repair the damage, embarking on her whirlwind tour of Baghdad in an apparent bid to show that she was at least as big a military morale booster as the president.
"We are running a little bit behind schedule," Clinton's spokeswoman explained at one point. "She may then have time to meet with more U.S. troops."
Editor's note:
Hillary has a bold plan to capture the White House – Click Here NowRead more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
George W. Bush
Middle East
Saddam Hussein/Iraq
2004 Elections
Sen. Hillary Clinton
War on TerrorismLieberman Defends Hillary for Demoralizing Comments to Troops
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Sunday, Nov. 30, 2003 1:01 p.m. EST
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Joseph Lieberman defended Sen. Hillary Clinton on Sunday after she made politically toxic comments predicting possible U.S. failure in Iraq during what was supposed to be a morale-boosting visit to the troops on Friday.
Asked if Sen. Clinton was wrong to voice such a pessimistic sentiment from the war zone, Sen. Lieberman told "Fox News Sunday," "In the most technical sense that we're in a war now in which, in the last month, we have lost more American soldiers than we have in any other month since the actual war began ... in a technical sense, victory is not assured."
However, the Connecticut Democrat was quick to add: "But I will say this, there is no substitute for victory here. We must pull together across party lines here in the United States and we have to pull together with the rest of the world in a way President Bush has not been able to accomplish."
During a radio interview in Kuwait on Friday, broadcast just miles from the Iraq war front lines, Sen. Clinton warned, "We have to exert all of our efforts militarily, but the outcome is not assured."
She also admitted to telling U.S. troops directly earlier in the day that support for the war was starting to erode, explaining that Americans were raising "many questions at home about the [Bush] administration's policies."
While Sen. Lieberman was not asked about Mrs. Clinton's decision to criticize the commander in chief to troops stationed in a war zone, MSNBC commentator Bill Press said Hillary was right to blast Bush to GIs in Iraq.
"She said, 'Well, everybody supports the troops, but there's still a lot of questions about the policy.' And there are," Press told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg on Sunday.
"I mean, you can't hide it," the former "Buchanan & Press" host added. "Bush's trip, great as it was, didn't change anything in the sense that there are still a lot of serious questions about this war."
Editor's note:
Hillary has a bold plan to capture the White House – Click Here NowRead more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
Saddam Hussein/Iraq
Sen. Hillary ClintonWere Hillary's Words Treasonous?
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Geoff Metcalf
Monday, Dec. 1, 2003Treason doth never prosper, what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason. – Sir John Harington
The Thanksgiving Day presidential visit to the troops in Baghdad was a brilliant finesse. Although the mean-spirited, petty, partisan assaults were inevitable, the scope of the whining is still flummoxing.
Howard Kurtz (from the Washington Post) had a hissy fit over the president lying to the press. (See: Media Gripes: Bush Lied About Iraq Troop Visit.)
Huh? The "lie" was a function of security that any reasonable person can understand. The myriad of other presidential lies should bother Kurtz more – such as those concerning the sinking of the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, James Forestall, the JFK assassination, Vince Foster, Waco and the Branch Davidian mess, Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City, TWA Flight 800, Area 51, Bill Clinton et al.
Hey, prior to the Mogadishu disaster, official policy was to deny (lie about) the existence of Delta Force.
Lady Macbeth (Sen. Hillary Clinton) was apparently miffed over her Afghanistan/Iraq sojourn with Sen. Jack Reed being overshadowed by the President’s Baghdad lunch. The result of which, apparently, has compelled her to provide aid and comfort to the enemy as payback.
Hillary actually told our troops that "the outcome [of the war] is not assured," and her comment that we "must stay the course" in both Afghanistan and Iraq is insufficient mitigation for her other egregious comments.
Some have argued that the two Democrat senators actually provided AID & COMFORT to the ENEMY. It is arguable how significant the intelligence they offered was ... lawyers can (and probably will) argue whether it is criminal.
According to Section 2381 of U.S. Code Title 18, “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.” [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/18/parts/i/chapters/115/toc.html]
Demoralizing American troops and encouraging enemies to continue the battle is not what U.S. senators ought to be doing. Telling our armed forces in a combat zone, "... there are many questions at home about the administration's policies," should qualify for a ‘walk to the woodshed’. That ‘Congressional Immunity’ policy only works for dumb stuff said on the floor of Congress.
Al Jazeera was obviously jazzed by her rhetoric. [http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A72E913B-8E34-4F5E-8380-1215D17D3C36.htm]
- She said more troops, preferably an international force, were needed in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
- "We are fighting an enemy which has a lot of impact by relatively small numbers and we've got to provide security throughout large countries. That's not easy with the force numbers that we have.”
Will someone please slap her?
Telling the bad guys they are being effective because they have “a lot of impact by relatively small numbers” is monumentally foolish.
Sen. Reed said the U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan had critical shortages of specialized troops such as military police, civil affairs and psychological operations troops. Shame on you, Jack! YOU ought to know better (Reed was an Army officer).
The morale of the troops, Clinton said, "is very high," but she said the military personnel with whom she spoke in meetings and during "two turkey dinners" wanted to know "how the people at home feel about what we are doing."
"Americans are wholeheartedly proud of what you are doing, " Clinton said she replied, "but there are many questions at home about the [Bush] administration's policies."
Both Clinton and Reed claim the expense and political weight in administering Iraq would be made easier with the U.N.'s imprimatur of legitimacy and U.N. help in transferring power to Iraqis.
"I'm a big believer that we ought to internationalize this, but it will take a big change in our administration's thinking," the former first lady said. "I don't see that it's forthcoming."
You damnbetcha it’s not forthcoming. Unlike the previous "co-presidents," this president understands the lessons learned from Bosnia, Rwanda, Mogadishu and the serial terrorist attacks President Clinton responded to with only bluster. THIS president is a leader who understands the imperative of "Lead, follow or get out of the way."
The ‘United Nothing’ is a dysfunctional bureaucratic accident waiting to happen. It has proven itself to be the personification of incompetence and corruption.
Albert Camus once observed, "Integrity has no need of rules." The converse is also true: The degree of integrity is inversely proportional to the number and complexities of rules and bureaucracy.
Editor's note:
"Treason" - Ann Coulter exposes the anti-American left: Click here now for special offer
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
HILLARY'S BADWILL TOUR
December 2, 2003 -- SEN. Hillary Rodham Clinton has just returned from a badwill tour of Iraq, seeking to use the façade of saluting the troops and sharing their Thanksgiving to undermine the political support for their mission.
Using Iraq as a pulpit, she attacked Bush for having been "obsessed with Saddam Hussein for more than a decade." If only her husband had shared that obsession, Saddam would not have been permitted to rearm with oil revenues that President Clinton let him have and freed from inspectors that the Clinton administration let him kick out.
It is fine for a U.S. senator to go to Iraq to see for herself what the conditions are over there. It is even OK to get the taxpayers to foot the bill for the trip on military aircraft. She is, after all, a member of the Armed Services Committee in the Senate.
What is not OK is to attack the president while you are there or to use your visit as a platform to criticize the war effort and the Pentagon. There is plenty of opportunity for that after one is home, out of earshot of the troops who must fight this war.
The classy thing for Hillary to have done would have been to go to Iraq, say nothing but supportive things to the troops, make a point of avoiding criticism of Bush - and then unloose a salvo on arriving home.
Hillary doubtless went to Iraq because she figured Bush would be at home eating turkey and she enjoyed the idea of the contrast. But when the president upstaged her, she shouldn't have ventured out and used the visit to attack the war effort as she was visiting it.
The senator told the troops that while "Americans are proud" of them, "many question the administration's policies." Being told that you might die in a war that is under attack by people back home must be a great stimulant to combat morale. How sensitive of her to have shared that particular message with men and women who must face death to execute these policies.
She also made sure to plant doubts among the troops about the ability of their commanders, saying that "the obstacles and problems are much greater than the administration usually admits to."
With Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for a friend, American soldiers don't need any more enemies.
The core of Sen. Clinton's argument, echoed by her pet poodle, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), is a call for more troops for Iraq. "The Pentagon tried to make do with as few troops as possible," Clinton said, "as light a footprint as they could get away with. Now we're playing Catch-up." Sen. Reed, who voted against the war resolution, now wants to send even more troops as well.
Democrats are determined to make the political cost of this war more onerous and burdensome on the Republican president. By harping on the need for more manpower, they build the pressure with each combat death. If the Democrats can sell the proposition that more troops are needed, they can force Bush to move toward conscription to fill the ranks.
Fortunately, Hillary's visit was drowned out by Bush's voyage to Baghdad. The liberal media tried to couple the two visits. The New York Times' headline was "Hail to the Chief; Hail to the Senator." But the visits are hardly comparable. Bush's was designed to raise morale, Hillary's to raise objections.
Bush sought to assure the troops of the united support of the people. Hillary wanted them to know that many people objected to what they are trying to do.
Bush's message was that we will persevere in the face of terrorism. Hillary's was that this war was due to one man's "obsession."
Sen. Clinton will do anything she can to attract attention and, where possible, divert it from the Democrats who are really running for president. But this trip, at this time, in this manner, in that place was wrong politically and morally.
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Copyright 2003 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.Hillary who?
Peter Lemiska
November 30, 2003If our American soldiers in Baghdad were shocked and awed by the President's surprise Thanksgiving Day visit, Senator Clinton must have been absolutely dumbstruck.
The carefully orchestrated news coverage of her visits to Afghanistan and Iraq — the speeches, the sound bites, the photo ops — all of it was buried beneath a mountain of media reports on the President's surprise trip to Baghdad.
Can anyone imagine her frustration? Spending a few days away from her Chappaqua digs to chow down with the grunts in the field is one thing. But to do it without any measurable media coverage — that's something else entirely.
She announced her trip well enough in advance to generate some media attention, but that all evaporated when the real story broke.
It was on Thanksgiving Day, after the President was out of harm's way, that the world learned about his visit. And the world could not turn away from the story.
The news reports saturated the airwaves and internet news sites. Friday's newspapers were filled with accounts of his trip.
Of particular interest was Friday's edition of the European and Pacific Stars and Stripes, which ran a front-page story on the President's visit.
Senator Clinton's visit to Afghanistan was not even mentioned — anywhere in the publication.
And it was not just the extraordinary security measures that made the President's trip so compelling. Anyone who saw the troops' reaction to his appearance understands why so many of us were glued to the TV.
Their spontaneous, frenzied reception and the President's emotional response could never have been orchestrated. The emotion-charged atmosphere of that event rendered irrelevant any questions about his motives. The enthusiasm was real, and it left no doubt in anyone's mind that our fighting men and women not only accept President Bush as Commander-in-Chief, but wholeheartedly embrace him as a genuine leader.
And he accomplished exactly what a leader has to do. He inspired and rallied the troops. In fact, except for the most callous cynic, most Americans who saw the taped speech were filled with inspiration and pride.
The event also showed us one reason he is so revered by our armed forces. For no one who watched it or read the subsequent accounts can doubt the President's affection for those troops or his sincerity. The emotions that welled up inside of him were genuine — they were not scripted.
On the other hand, we have what's-her-name.
Why was her trip such an underwhelming PR failure? How is it that, compared to the President's reception in Baghdad, her welcome at Bagram Air Base was lukewarm, at best? As several observers reportedly noted, the troops seemed more excited about the turkey on their plates.
There are a couple of possible explanations for their indifference towards this particular U.S. Senator and former first lady. Some might say that those feelings were forged during the last administration, when Bill Clinton did everything in his power to transform our military from a formidable fighting force to a socially engineered, and ill-equipped humanitarian organization.
Or it may just be that they have never gotten over his administration's utter disdain for anyone in uniform.
Or maybe those service men and women were just more perceptive than Senator Clinton anticipated. Maybe they just didn't want to be used in a campaign advertisement or otherwise exploited by a shrewd, calculating politician.
For it seems that wherever there is misery or hardship, there's Senator Clinton and a camera crew. And while she frantically makes the rounds, most of us know that there is but one cause near and dear to her heart — her own political success.
Whatever the reason for the snub, she should take comfort in the fact that things could have been worse — much worse. Imagine the catastrophic results if those troops were free to voice their true feelings — the way those other American heroes did after she elbowed her way into that 9/11 benefit in New York. What she should have learned when those NYC police and fireman booed her off stage, is that most of us have no trouble recognizing the difference between honest compassion and political maneuvering.
In retrospect, she was lucky in Afghanistan. After all, no press is infinitely better than bad press.
Peter Lemiska is a freelance writer and former Senior Special Agent of the U.S. Secret Service. He has a BA degree in psychology.
Having spent more than 28 years in government, including eight years in the Air Force, he is deeply concerned about various issues affecting our society, particularly ethics in government.
Peter has lived abroad at various times for more than seven years, and had the opportunity to learn Italian. More importantly, his extensive worldwide travel has given him a broad perspective on American politics.
You can see more of Peter's opinion pieces at opinioneditorials.com.
© Copyright 2003 by Peter Lemiska
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/lemiska/031130
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
