The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    The Phone is Ringing

    By A Guy Called LULU on Sun, 12/22/2013 - 11:08pm |

    The phone is ringing and Hillary is not deaf.
    I would like to believe that anyone with two brain cells working, and also a working conscience, would want the negotiations with Iran to achieve a successful agreement that avoids war. But, what I do believe is what is obvious, there are powerful individuals and groups within the U.S and our allied countries which are working hard to prevent that outcome and they might very well be successful.

    Wishing for, and then looking for, some positive contribution towards a successful deal by Clinton I could not find even moderately supportive words, much less strong support by our most recent Secretary of State and possibly our next President.


     There are a great many reasons that Hillary should speak now in support of peace with Iran. But where is she?
    Taking every reasonable step to avoid war with Iran might very well be the most important thing on our national agenda.
     Clinton is hoping to be our next president. Should we have to wait for the next debates to hear what she thinks should be done now? Shouldn't she have a position and be showing some leadership now?

     Hillary Clinton is a smart person and a powerful politician. It would be ridiculous to believe she is not thinking strategically about the presidential run and making tactical decisions on this issue. So far she has chosen to stay uninvolved and that can only be because whatever she says publicly could upset some of her harder-line supporters and complicate her run. Is Clinton's not taking any side the same as taking the neocon side? Sort of like a Democrat not voting at all is a vote for the Republicans? This is too important an issue and her position on the world stage should not allow her to duck. But, there really is a lot of sniping going on trying to kill any deal and  this time, so far, she really is running with her head down. It is time for anyone who hopes for Obama to reach a successful outcome on the Iran nuclear deal to ask: It is 3AM, where is Hillary? Why doesn't she pick up the phone?

    Comments

    Sorry, election's 3 years away, and all she'll get now if she speaks up is a bunch of bitching about "entitled", "interfering with Obama", "inevitable", "aggressive", "not serious about security", "überhawk", "liar", as well as pigeon-holing whatever comment she makes to piss off any and all possible constituencies, especially Jewish Americans I imagine. Conservatives are already waiting for sound bites.

    Remember the rather non-controversial statement she made in 2008 - Clinton affirmed that she would warn Iran’s leaders that “their use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States.” Gee, duh, yes, we have nuclear weapons as deterrent, and verbally positioning that way before a budding nuclear power or other superpower gets uppity has been our strategy for say 68 years now.

    Why exactly are we waiting for Hillary? It's been obvious that Iran doesn't have much of a nuclear program - most "facts" are trumped up by our neocons, and her modus has always been diplomatic talks, even with North Korea. So we know what she thinks, and even if not, who cares? Iran nukes is overhyped.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 12/23/2013 - 4:57am

    Swampland at Time writes:

    "Six years later, Obama’s Iran policy has the potential to reshape the Middle East and define his legacy. If it proves a success, historians might compare it to Richard Nixon’s breakthrough with China. 

    Uggh, what cloying nonsense. A deal with a 1 billion person fully deployed nuclear superpower that had swallowed Tibet & East Turkestan, had backed/supplied our enemies in 2 tough traditional Asian land wars and attacked India; vs. a country with some uranium and centrifuges....

    I hate people. We must be fucking bored to be trumping up such minutia into a crisis.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 12/23/2013 - 5:13am

    Yeah, you are right. The answer to virtually every rhetorical question about a politician has the same answer: Politics.
     I will be okay with Obama being seen to have something about his legacy which is actually a hard won success and rightfully seen as a major accomplishment even if it does not rise to the level of Nixon's rapprochement with China, something the Republicans would never have allowed to work if initiated by a Democrat.

     Yes, the danger of Iranian nukes is over-hyped but I do not believe that the potential of disaster resulting from the non-diplomatic solution, politics by other means, is hype.

     Hillary has given a lot of hawkish lip service to create the meme that she is tough enough to be a world leader. If she is too cowardly or too cynically ambitious and protective of her own personal situation to lend support now to a peaceful solution when that support might make the critical difference, that refusal to act should be remembered in the near future when she is touting herself as the best person to lead our country going forward in what will then be a more dangerous world. In my opinion it will be proof positive that she has disqualified herself and, to me, that disqualification would be the case even if she appeared to be the lesser of two evils.
     


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 12/23/2013 - 8:35am

    Like Hillary supporting peace will turn Republicans into peacenicks and stop their criticism?

    I just can't imagine who the fence-sitters are that she will move.

    "when that support might make the critical difference" - huge "might" here - Obama & Kerry are invested in the process, there's a 6-month accord agreed to in Geneva - what exactly could Hillary say that would change anything? It's all about multi-party discussions and stepping stones in a roadmap, no? It's up to Rouhani's actions, and Obama's administration not to be pushed into a corner by conservatives (i.e. where whatever Iran does, they get ruled as not complying)

    (note: the "partial" enrichment was a trial balloon floated by Hillary 2 years ago. Should she toot her own horn? That's gotten her far in the past. NOT.)


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 12/23/2013 - 8:57am

    I see your point, but mutatis mutandis, it's true.

     


    by Peter Schwartz on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 11:32am

    As the ex-Sec. of  State of the same administration who might run for president, I think it would be appropriate if she said that no one should be saying anything while negotiations are still going on.

    And she could add that that would go especially for someone like her, who knows a lot about all the parties and agendas involved.  That a Senator or Congressperson that knows nothing 'bout nothing but what the lobbyists tell him or her might bloviate one way or another without much effect one way or another, because he or she actually doesn't know the actuality of what's going on in the negotiations, and most parties involved will realize they are just bloviating an ideological position. But someone like her shouldn't be saying, because it's much more likely it might be taken the wrong way (as say, inside information) by one or another party involved and screw something up.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 12/23/2013 - 2:25pm

    I am not wanting or expecting Clinton to delve into specifics or details of what the final agreement should look like, numbers of centrifuges or percentage of enrichment for instance, but to give public support for the process of negotiating itself to counter those who are attacking the very process in order to prevent any agreement.

    The following was composed before you added your second paragraph.  

    Different politicians hold different spots on the stage. Hillary's is usually in the spotlight. She can be fairly seen as having been running for President since she was the First Lady of Arkansas. Her supporters can honestly argue that she has not just experience but the most experience directly relevant to being President of any other candidate at the time they asked us to vote for them. She should be particularly qualified to speak to the subject of the negotiations. She must have virtually all the objective information the President has but also the experience of studying and of meeting first person with so many of the principles.
      Now we circle back to the [assumed] fact that she wants to be the next President. I say that that obligates her to continue to serve the current President and thus our country on this extremely important matter. She doesn't get a time out. That is because she is in the position she is in. If the outcome of the negotiations are important to the country then she is in a position to lend valuable service to her country by helping them be seen by the public as a good thing to persue compared to any alternative.  She is in position to do that right now. Today. The need for support is right now, Today.
     That is, of course, if she does support the President in this and she does believe it would be a good thing for the country if he is successful.

    "As the ex-Sec. of  State of the same administration who might run for president, I think it would be appropriate if she said that no one should be saying anything while negotiations are still going on."

     I disagree. Even if I did agreed with you as to what should be appropriate, I would point out the obvious, people are saying things while the negotiations are going on. Powerful people. People who want the talks to fail. I want to see those people rebutted by powerful people that want the talks to succeed.


     
      


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 12/23/2013 - 3:48pm

    Hillary is still quiet regarding negotiations with Iran. Surely she has said something about them somewhere but if it was significant I would have expected her view to get some coverage and then some feedback. But, maybe I just missed it. She has, though, come out publicly and by her own volition with opinions on Ukraine and the cause of all the troubles there which, apparently, she thinks is Putin.

    Some Clinton backers suggested she made the provocative comparison to give herself protection from expected right-wing attacks on her for having participated in the “reset” of U.S. policy toward Russia in 2009. She also was putting space between herself and President Barack Obama’s quiet effort to cooperate with Putin to resolve crises with Iran and Syria. [Emphasis added]

    Democrats might want to contemplate how a President Hillary Clinton would handle that proverbial “3 a.m. phone call,” perhaps one with conflicting information about a chemical weapons attack in Syria or muddled suspicions that Iran is moving toward a nuclear bomb or reports that Russia is using its military to resist a right-wing coup in neighboring Ukraine.

    Would she unthinkingly adopt the hawkish neocon position as she often did as U.S. senator and as Secretary of State? Would she wait for the “fog of war” to lift or simply plunge ahead with flame-throwing rhetoric that could make a delicate situation worse?

    http://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/07/the-we-hate-putin-group-think/

    This article is about more than just Clinton and is more opinion based on connecting dots than it is news. I say that because virtually all the dots Parry connects have been in plain sight for a long time. One thing I forgot to bookmark and will try to find later if I have time is a video showing protesters in Ukraine getting shot and though I do not consider it to be definitive it certainly appears that some are getting shot from behind while facing government troops in front of them.

     

     

     


    by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 8:34am

    As a Clinton, whatever she says or doesn't say will be used against her.

    There's a good chance another Gennifer Flowers reunion is coming up to discuss how many new old friends Hillary's killed, and whether she slept with Putin and/or the Ayatollah, and other pertinent pieces of our foreign policy puzzle. That no foreign policy "professional" was damaged for advocating war in Iraq or continuation in Afghanistan, while she's carried the brunt of guilt for voting for inspections as a minority member of Senate gives about all the background we need for this. Well, that and Sarah Palin being a foreign policy analyst for Fox.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 03/07/2014 - 10:06am

    Clinton's Top Selling Point in 2016: First Female President

    Top negatives are not being qualified; continuing Obama's agenda

    by Frank Newport

    PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans say the best or most positive thing about a possible Hillary Clinton presidency -- if she were to run and be elected in 2016 -- would be her serving as the first female president in the nation's history. Other positives mentioned by at least 5% of Americans are her experience, that she would bring about change from the previous two administrations, that she would adhere to a Democratic agenda, and that she would be the best choice.

    http://www.gallup.com/poll/168041/clinton-top-selling-point-2016-first-f...

    More About Hillary Clinton's 'Deafening Silence'

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/more-about-hillary-clinto_b_49...

    And more directly to my point in this blog

    Hillary Clinton's Two Foreign-Policy Catastrophes

     http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/hillary-clintons-two-fore_1_b_...

     Sorry, cannot produce a live link to the final article at Huffpost but copy and paste works. That article is the one I think most worth reading.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 03/22/2014 - 2:23pm

     I would like to point out that, during the early years of Obama’s administration, when some here at Dagblog expressed disappointment at his policies based on their disillusionment of their expectations he had created by his brilliant campaign, it was pointed out by others that we should have known what we were getting. The evidence/information was readily available before the election is what we were correctly, I now believe, told.
     In my blog above I ask whether, if Clinton did not oppose the Neocon position, it would be affectively the same as supporting the Neocon position. I will not attempt at this time to artfully express my contempt for Neocons. I take it as a given that most here at Dag would agree that the Neocons were a powerful force in formulating a disastrous foreign policy and some have expressed wonder as to why they are given any credence today since they have been wrong on virtually every major policy position they have taken. Often criminally wrong if it is criminal to advocate and/or implement the committing of crimes. I’m thinking of illegal wars, torture, misguided sanctions, stupidity, etc.
     Now the Neocons are reappearing as respected voices. Well, truth is they never went away, but admitting to the brand was at least a bit out of style for a while. A fawning piece at the NYTs is both an example of and a reason for that resurgence. What is notable to me and pertinent to this post is that Robert Kagan says there, in affect, that Hillary is Neocon enough for him. The evidence that he is accurate in that assessment is readily available. If she runs as expected we should know what we are getting when we vote for her. What we will be getting, it appears, is the lesser evil Neocon.  It requires some mental juggling to defend Obama against his Neocon critics and then be prepared to defend Hillary when she acts like one even if she still avoids being branded as one.

     Kagan held a foreign policy advisory position as a Clinton appointee. Here is some analysis of his positions.

    http://mondoweiss.net/2014/06/neoconservatism-vindicated-fawning.html

     


    by Anonymous LULU (not verified) on Tue, 06/17/2014 - 1:05pm

    I reject your framing that chooses neocon as the standard and considers anything that doesn't reject all neocon positions as lesser evil neocon. By that standard Obama would be considered a lesser evil neocon for his wide spread use of drone assassinations and Lybia bombing campaign. I don't see either Obama or Hillary as neocon lite.

    That being said I agree that Hillary is more hawkish than Obama and will likely have a more robust and interventionist foreign policy. I doubt that that comes as a surprise to any one who's been paying attention. Its been clear for years.


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 06/17/2014 - 4:01pm

    I agree that not all hawks and interventionists are Neocons, some are Democrats, there are lots of names. The thing is, at the end of the day if she makes the same decisions that a Neocon would make, then regardless whatever name might be put on her geopolitical philosophy, it will be a distinction without a difference.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Tue, 06/17/2014 - 8:48pm