In my
first essay on Hillary Clinton’s new book Hard Choices, I analyzed some of her content, saying I would
analyze more at a later date. Today is that later date so here goes, though
first I want to provide this link to that earlier essay:
Analysis
of parts of Hard Choices
The following introduces quoted
material from HRC's book, followed by my comments. Remember to ask yourself, as
you read these words, “Is this the kind of person I want as my next President?”
Sources: Page x and
Page 33: Compare these two sentences:
Page x: "I worked to reorient
American foreign policy around what I call 'smart power.'"
Page 33: "This analysis led me
to embrace a concept known as smart power, which had been kicking around
Washington for a few years."
Comment:
The quote on page x makes it look
like Hillary invented smart power, when she says "around what I call
'smart power.'" But the quote on page 33 makes it clear that she didn't.
I can't tell you how many times I've
heard some lazy and indecisive supervisor tell me over the years, "work
smarter, not harder." That's practically a mantra in every workplace in
this country. So I don't see how Hillary gets any special credit for her claim
to have "worked to reorient American foreign policy around...'smart
power.'" Unless she's admitting that our national policy of appointing
Secretaries of State based on political considerations (which includes her own
appointment) somehow meant "smart power" wasn't a priority under her
non-professional predecessors.
Source: Page 31:
Lawrence Eagleburger, the first and
only career Foreign Service officer to serve as Secretary of State, joined me
for the fiftieth anniversary of the Department's Operations Center...
Comment:
All Secretaries of State should be
"career Foreign Service officer[s]." As I read Hillary's Hard
Choices, I couldn't get over how many State professionals Hillary had
at her disposal to make her look good. This whole charade reminded me of Dancing
with the Stars in its early days. The star was paired up with a
professional dancer whose sole job was to make the star look good. We are way
past the point when we can afford to appoint Secretaries of State in order to
make them look good enough to get elected President some day. We need
professionalism at the top. And it's not good enough to appoint someone like
Hillary Clinton who had a brief stint in the Senate and, as First Lady, got to
know a lot of foreign leaders socially.
Source: Page xii:
Everything that I have done and seen
has convinced me that America remains the “indispensable nation.”
Comment:
Two comments here:
(1) There is no such nation on earth
called "America," though I have proposed that we formally change the
name from the United States of America to America since the USA no longer
consists of states that have any vestige of sovereignty or any rights.
(2) The USA should step back from
its presumed role of most indispensable nation, since such an attitude is
nothing less than sheer hubris. Unless we ratchet down our insistence on
micromanaging everything, we'll only end up overtaxing ourselves and denying to
others the chance to more fully participate in running their own affairs on the
world stage.
Source: page 458-9:
The transitional governing body [the
subject of private negotiations, closed to the public] would include members of
both the government [of Syria] and the opposition chosen “on the basis of
mutual consent.”
[AND]
"I [HRC] offered "mutual
consent" as a way out because, in practice, there was no way Assad would
pass such a test; the opposition would never consent to him."
[AND]
"The press missed the intent
and plain meaning of 'mutual consent' and read it as an admission that Assad
could stay in power."
Comment:
Hillary's attempt to keep Assad out
of the transitional governing body by means of her "mutual consent"
device wouldn't have worked. While it's true the "opposition would never
consent to him," it's also true that the Syrian government could have
decided to withhold its consent from all members of the
opposition - unless they would consent (which they wouldn't) to the inclusion
of Assad. If all members of the opposition would have been excluded, then of
course a transitional governing body could not have been set up.
So Hillary bombed by offering
"mutual consent," which she thought was so clever.
As for "the press missed the
intent and plain meaning of 'mutual consent,'" that was Hillary's fault.
Since this was her idea and much hinged on its acceptance, it was up to her or
her agents to have briefed the press in advance on its "plain
meaning." It's not entirely a novel idea that governments have
"friendly and reliable" members of the press they can count on
educate the public as to meanings of terms supporting their negotiations with
other parties.
Source: Page 492:
But the Chinese were avoiding us.
Worse, we learned that Wen had called a "secret" meeting with the
Indians, Brazilians, and South Africans to stop, or at least dilute, the kind
of agreement the United States was seeking. When we couldn't find any of the
leaders of those countries, we knew something was amiss and sent out members of
our team to canvass the conference center. Eventually they discovered the
meeting's location.
Comment:
The next few paragraphs describe how
Obama and Hillary crashed this meeting, with Hillary triumphantly concluding
with:
"Are you
ready?" said President Obama, flashing a big grin. Now the real
negotiations could begin.
The "real negotiations?"
Sometimes certain parties decide to caucus privately before deciding to resume
participation with the larger group. Those private caucuses are just as
important as the other negotiations leading to the final agreement. And yet we
decided to act in a high-handed and arrogant manner by butting in where we had
not been invited.
The participants in this secret
meeting included Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and South African
President Jacob Zuma. I would have loved for the Chinese Premier to have yelled
at Obama and Hillary:
"How dare you violate the
privacy of our caucus. Get the fucking hell out of here, both of you
clowns!"
Source: Page 334:
The unrest had begun with a single
heartbreaking incident on December 17, 2010. A twenty-six-year-old Tunisian man
name Mohamed Bouazizi was selling fruit from a small cart in Sidi Bouzid...
Bouazizi did not have an official permit to sell his produce, and on that day
he had an altercation with a female police officer that left him humiliated and
desperate. Later that day he set himself on fire in front of the local
government offices.
Comment:
You know, if Hillary Clinton was going
to bother to cite this incident, she should have had the decency to get her
facts straight. There's a decent summary on Wikipedia at this link (see the
section entitled "Confiscation of wares and self-immolation"):
Hillary doesn't bother to tell us
that Bouazizi had gone into debt to buy $200 worth of produce which the cops
then confiscated. So that left him with nothing to sell, his family to feed,
and a $200 debt to repay. But, no, Hillary couldn't be bothered to share that
much with us - which is a matter of widely-available general knowledge. She
wanted to make it seem that he killed himself because "he had an
altercation with a female police officer that left him humiliated and
desperate."
This is from the linked Wikipedia
article, which paints a more complete picture:
QUOTE:
Bouazizi, angered by the confrontation,[25]
ran to the governor's office to complain[19] and to ask for his scales
back.[26] The governor refused to see or listen to him, even after Bouazizi was
quoted as saying "If you don't see me, I'll burn myself."[19]
Bouazizi acquired a can of gasoline from a nearby gas station and returned to
the governor's office. While standing in the middle of traffic, he shouted,
"How do you expect me to make a living?"[26] He then doused and set
himself alight with a match at 11:30 a.m. local time, less than an hour after
the altercation.[19]
:UNQUOTE.
Source: Pages 352:
When I became Secretary I developed
personal relationships with Gulf leaders both individually and as a group
through the Gulf Cooperation Council...
Comment:
You can't develop "personal relationships"
with anyone "as [part of] a group." And you can't do so within the
context of a four-year stint as Secretary of State during which you're
attending to other affairs of state.
Source: Page 529:
After the earthquake that leveled much of Haiti on January 12, 2010:
But two days after the earthquake
Cheryl spoke with Haiti's President Rene Preval, and he told her that the only
outsider that he trusted was me. "I need Hillary," he said. "I
need her. And no one else." It was a reminder of how important personal
relationships can be, even at the highest levels of diplomacy and government.
Comment:
I don't know if President Preval had
really said those things. But Hillary's inclusion of these remarks seems too
self-serving for my taste. And also, not a very good example of the "smart
power" she had touted earlier in her book. When one person becomes so
indispensable, then that person runs the risk of being too much in demand and
not able to get much done as a result.
Hillary's last sentence is a
laugher. Of course everybody would love to have a direct connection to people
like HRC who are in a position to galvanize tremendous support. But, tell me,
how does having such "important personal relationships" help the
United States of America, except to cost us a lot of money (as if that's of any
help to the USA)? I'll be the first to admit that such an "important
personal relationship" in the final analysis helped President Preval and
his people. But...
Source: Page 597 (which begins a section called “Acknowledgements”):
I'm indebted to everyone who helped
me through four years at the State Department and more than a year of writing
and editing. And the easiest choice I made was to ask Dan Schwerin, Ethan
Gelber, and Ted Widmer to become my book team. I could not have been more
fortunate as we labored day and night.
Comment:
Uh, huh. And did you share with
these people any of the royalties you earned from this book? Or are they
counting on you to appoint them to some higher post within your administration
should you get elected as President? You know, one hand washes the other. But…that’s
the old politics, isn’t it? And not really very smart power at all.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Steven Searle, just another member of the
Virtual Samgha of the Lotus and
former candidate for US President (in 2008 & 2012)
Contact
me
at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment