QUESTION: Thank you. My name is (inaudible). I am from (inaudible). My question is that the war in terrorism – there’s not been much progress after the Obama Administration, you know, came in, because the Gitmo is still there and your troops are still in Iraq, and, you know, you’re sending 48,000 more troops in Afghanistan. So it’s very hard to believe that the U.S. policy in regards to Pakistan – the war on terrorism – is going to be changed. But don’t you think that hampers the democracy, because now the U.S. is forcing Pakistan to take actions which, on the other hand, we might not be willing to take? (Applause.)
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, really, the United States supports the decisions that are made by Pakistan, and I think it was the Pakistan Government, the democratically elected government, and the Pakistan military who decided that it was intolerable for terrorist organizations to be seizing large chunks of territory of your country. I mean, that’s a decision for Pakistan to make. Because certainly, when President Obama became president shortly after that – he hadn’t been in office very long – it became clear that the terrorists were moving out of Swat into Buner and people were alarmed in Pakistan.
And I don’t know any country that can stand by and look at a force of terrorists intimidating people and taking over large parts of your territory, particularly when that force is often guided by, directed by, and funded by outside foreign influence. But that’s up to Pakistan. I mean, if you want to see your territory shrink, that’s your choice. But I don’t think that’s the right choice. In fact, I think that’s a very self-destructive choice. So when the government and the military of Pakistan said, look, we’ve tried to get along with these people, we have signed agreements with them, we have said that we would tolerate a certain level of autonomy, but they didn’t stop. They kept coming. The bombs kept coming. The killings kept coming. The intimidation kept going.
How can you be the head of a country or a country’s military and allow that to happen? That would be as though on our Canadian border there were terrorists who were coming across the border and we let them have Washington and then we let them have Montana and then we said, well, you know, not very many people live in the Dakotas, they’re not near Chicago or New York. You can’t do that.
So I can tell you how we would respond, exactly the same way as your government responded. And we admire that. Because this is a fight that has to be won. And you know here in Lahore you are not immune. No institution is immune, not the military, not the intelligence service, not universities, not even cricket teams. So how do you let that go on and not respond?
My late father used to have a saying which, when I was a little girl, I never understood. He said, “You know, if you let the nose of the camel in the tent, pretty soon you’re living with two humps.” Well, that’s what was going on. Slowly but insidiously, you were losing territory. And your government – the writ of government was being undermined. No government, no country, especially a country like Pakistan – born with the idea of independent and autonomy and self-determination – can allow foreign influences that ally themselves with those who would undermine the Pakistani way of life to be given any space. So I think that your government and your military are doing exactly the right thing for your country. (Applause.)
Hillary Clinton is in Pakistan. The above is from a town hall she held in Lahore, Pakistan today. The link will allow you to read the transcript and, some time tomorrow, they may add video at the link.
I like Hillary, I know Hillary and I think she would have been an amazing president. But that's not the issue. The issue is an ongoing illegal war in Iraq that has not ended.
Hillary gave a nice response in terms of goodwill. You'll notice she ignored the Iraq War. She needs to be pressured on that issue because she's a member of the Cabinet. And it's great that the points made could be made by someone in Pakistan. Read the transcript and see how much about Pakistan's current issues you know. You may know a great deal. But, as usual, other countries know a lot more about the US than US citizens tend to know about them (and include me in that). Hillary needs to be pressured like that in the US.
And, hopefully, unlike the alleged 'left' in this country, the Pakistan audience would have asked the same question of Barack. But in this country, in the US, you have people on the 'left' who rip Hillary apart as if she was the president. She's Secretary of State. Anything you call her out on, you should be calling Barack out on at least ten times over because he is the president.
Instead he gets fussed over and people invent conspiracy theories of him being blackmailed into doing things he doesn't want to do. We're not talking about what the media dismissively snorts "pajama bloggers" at, we're talking about one of the media's own, we're talking about Danny Schechter, for example, who worked at ABC and at CNN. And he has repeatedly stated that Barack's being blackmailed.
At some point, if you want to live in the real world, you have to grow up. That means goodbye to fairy tales and grasping that most people are not heroes -- that even those who make it to heroic stature are only that in some instances. Now their simplistic views of the world were in full force in 2008 as they created Barack -- re-created him -- into the political virgin as opposed to the Whore of Chicago (which is what he was). And their simplistic view required that Princess Barack have an evil queen out to murder him -- enter all their sick fantasies about Hillary.
Princess Barack was a fairy tale.
Barack Obama is a man who inhabits the Oval Office and holds the title of President of the United States which allows him to do whatever he wants. The only one he's answerable to is the people. (He's supposed to also be answerable to Congress but they're too busy fawning.) He does what he wants to do. And what he wants to do is keep screwing over the American people. He wants to be Bush III. Thatmight not be how he vocalized it if you asked him and caught him in an honest moment; however, that is what his actions indicate.
And that is what you judge a person by: Their actions.
That is confusing to the Cult of St. Barack because he had no actions to judge by. He never accomplished a damn thing. He wasn't even a senior partner in a law firm despite being a 'practicing' lawyer and over the age of 40. How sad is that?
And he's not going to accomplish anything that the country needs until demands are made on him. In Pakistan, Hillary held a town hall and she was asked some tough questions (some -- like Iraq -- she avoided, others she answered). I have no doubts that she'd be treated similarly in the United States but let's not kid that Barack would be. Never protested by CodeStink.
He's gotten a pass. His whole life. And he's not going to work for the American people as long as he gets a pass. He's not even going to end the illegal war as long as he's given a pass. It's time for the adult-children to take a long nap if they're unable to face reality. There are three wars going on (Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan) and there's no time for adults to waste babying themselves and lulling themselves into a deep (political) sleep with a bunch of fairy tales.
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4351. Tonight? 4353.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
i hate the war
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