Hillary Clinton's book, "Hard Choices"

Introduction

I just finished reading all 600 pages of Hillary Rodhan Clinton's latest book – Hard Choices. This essay concerns itself with my impressions of its content, though is not meant to be comprehensive.

Let's get these out of the way

There are a few points I'd like to address, front and center:

• President Obama was ordered to select HRC as his first Secretary of State – in fact, he had no input whatsoever concerning the rest of his cabinet nominees;

• HRC was aware, from the moment she'd lost the nomination, that she would be slated (due to strenuous, behind-the-scenes efforts by our Shadow Government) to become the Democratic presidential nominee after Obama had served two terms;

• The only way a Republican will be beat HRC in 2016 will be if that party makes such a great offer to the Shadow Government that they will allow for that possibility;

• HRC also knew, well before Obama spoke to her about this, that she would be picked as his Secretary of State with the specific goal of enhancing her chances of winning the presidency in 2016;

• Even though Hard Choices says that President Obama offered HRC another four years as Secretary of State, that was never in the cards; had she accepted, the risk was too great that another Benghazi type episode (or worse) might occur too close to the election for the public to easily forget it; also, HRC would need to devote her undivided attention to campaigning for the nomination;

• Hillary has been mentally preparing herself to become our next President and to do the bidding of our Shadow Government which is promoting her ascendency, ever since resigning as Secretary of State;

• Hillary Rodham Clinton will prove to be a useful tool to the secretive cabal which will so enthusiastically work to elect her;

• HRC will end up surpassing Bill Clinton in terms of one who has no moral compass or scruples when it comes to selfish self-promotion;

• How do I know all this? Deep mediation is the only answer I'll give.

What Hillary Rodham Clinton didn't say

Nowhere within Hard Choice's 600 pages were these two huge issues addressed:

• The U.S. Senate's filibuster rule;

• Article X of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as it might apply to Iran.

The filibuster: The filibuster rule is, in plain English, unconstitutional*. And for that reason alone, the US President should move against it. Hard Choices might not have been the most ideal venue in which to come down against the filibuster. But I really hope Hillary Clinton decides to immediately make this odious Senate rule a target, once she actually declares her candidacy for the presidency. I would like to see her go so far as to add her name to any lawsuit challenging this rule.

Hillary Clinton could have a lot of fun forcing her Republican opponents to defend this clearly unconstitutional bit of nonsense. But, truth be told, I suspect she is one of those who truly believes in maintaining the status quo as regards institutions. HRC just doesn't have it in her to challenge another branch of government over something which members of both parties have defended over the years, some of them even calling it “the soul of the Senate.”

Which says a lot about Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Article X of the NPT: Article X of the NPT allows any country that signed that treaty to withdraw from it and to build its own nuclear weapons if it should come to feel its own security warranted such a move. It's important to note that only the country in question gets to make such a security claim, not needing corroboration or permission from some higher authority. North Korea invoked Article X and so could Iran. I find it amazing that this Article X loophole isn't mentioned at all in either Hillary's book or by any of our pundits.

However, once Iran invokes Article X, we would be in violation of international law should we attack Iran's nuke facilities. And so would Israel if they would decide to go it alone with such an attack. And what would we do in that case, bomb Israel or move against them via a UN resolution authorizing the use of force?

Hillary had written, on page 420:

I also caused a bit of a stir in April 2008 when I warned Iran's leaders that if they launched a nuclear attack on Israel on my watch, the United States would retaliate and “we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Actually, Hillary Clinton wasn't the only candidate to use such forceful language against Iran. But she and the other candidates apparently failed to realize that Iran could have used their words as evidence that their national security was being threatened, and then proceeded to invoke Article X in order to start building their own nuclear arsenal.

I found HRC's wording to be kind of wishy-washy. Of course, “we would be able to totally obliterate them.” Why bother to state what we would be “able” to do? Ronald Reagan would never have put it that way. She could have said, “The United States would retaliate and we would totally obliterate them.” This might seem like a small point, but there are analysts out there working for the other side(s) who would conclude her leadership style would be tentative and decidedly “feminine,” but not in a Golda Meir kind of way.

I find it sad that Hillary would threaten (even if only by implication) to “totally obliterate” an entire nation for the folly of its leaders. A better approach would be to say, “We would demand the arrest of key Iranian leaders, including the Supreme Ayatollah, and their extradition to the custody of the appropriate international court. We would also insist on internationally-supervised elections within Iran in order to completely replace its elected government, barring any who currently hold office from running in that election. Any resistance to our conditions would trigger an ever-escalating military campaign by the United States to degrade Iran's military facilities.”

I wonder if President Hillary Clinton would decide to throw nukes at Iran if Iran were to throw one at Israel (say, at their Dimona nuclear facility) in retaliation for an Israeli preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran would be justified in responding militarily to such a strike, but lacks the ability to do so using conventional weapons. Using a nuke might be the only option Iran would have. What then, madam President?

Maybe Israel itself would be tempted to blow up Dimona and try to blame Iran, thereby triggering HRC's total obliteration option. Who knows?

Analysis of Hard Choices

The following introduces quoted material from HRC's book, followed by my comments. I will only handle certain quotes today; others will be the subject of future blog posts.

Source: page 3:

“...[Barack Obama and I] believed deeply in the basic bargain at the heart of the American Dream: No matter who you are or where you come from, if you work hard and play by the rules, you should have the opportunity to build a good life for yourself and your family.”

Comments:

I wish Hillary had written this instead:

“...[Barack Obama and I] believed deeply in the American Dream: No matter who you are or where you come from, if you work hard and play by the rules, you will be able to build a good life for yourself and your family unless cruel fate intervenes (for example, in the form of a crippling auto accident).”

Hillary's version is very lawyerly – well, that's what she is by profession - and downright disturbing. Her words are too circumspect – for instance, what does she mean by “you should have the opportunity?” “Play[ing] by the rules,” as HRC puts it, is supposed to automatically generate that “opportunity.” So “should have” really has nothing to do with it.

Also, there is no such thing as “the rules.” There are different rules depending on, in HRC's words, “who you are or where you come from.” In her own case, she played by a set of rules as Bill Clinton's wife that are quite different from the set of rules which a black single mom who dropped out of high school and lives in Detroit has to play by.

Source: page 15:

“[President Obama] went straight to the point...by asking me to serve as his Secretary of State. He...believed I was the best person – in his words, the only person – who could serve in that role at this moment in time...”

Comments:

Of course Obama thought HRC was “the only person” for this job, since that's exactly what the Shadow Government told him. HRC wasn't surprised by Obama's offer, since that same Shadow had already alerted her as to what was to come.

The very idea that HRC is “the only person” out of a population of 300 million Americans who could serve is ridiculous on its face.

Source: page 52:

“[Indonesian President] Yudhoyono had met twice with Burma's top general, the reclusive Than Shwe, and he told me that the junta might be willing to inch toward democracy if America and the international community helped them along.”

Comments:

What was meant by "might" and “helped them along?” Those questions were never answered in Hard Choices. Was the Burmese general fishing for American financial incentives? And what does “inch toward democracy” mean?

And even more profound: Why would Than Shwe be whispering in Yudhoyono's ear about reaching out to the world concerning democracy? Shwe is from a Buddhist nation that persecutes its Muslim minority and Yudhoyono is president of the world's most populous Muslim nation. That hardly seems to invite such whisperings in the ear.

If it's true that Yudhoyono "told me" what Than Shwe had said, maybe Hillary had violated a confidence by mentioning this in her book. If I was Yudhoyono, I don't think I'd want it widely known what this Muslim persecutor whispered in my ear.

 

Source: page 102:

“For years our government maintained a strict official policy of using only the name Burma, but eventually some began using the two names interchangeably. In this book, I use Burma, as I did at the time.”

Comments:

The official name of the country is Myanmar, as stated in that country's constitution. What's wrong with us that we have to insist otherwise? What's wrong with Hillary Clinton in this regard? How would we like it if foreign dignitaries started referring to us as The Great White Man's Paradise?

Source: page 316:

“A senior Israeli official once explained to me that for Israelis, the worst thing in the world is to be a freier, the Hebrew slang word for “sucker.” Israeli drivers would rather end up in the hospital than let someone cut them off on the highway, he told me.

Comments:

Why does Hillary speak of a senior “Israeli” official or “Israeli” drivers, when she means “Jewish?” There are citizens of Israel who are not Jewish, who should also be called “Israeli.” But this fine point seems to evade HRC.

Another fine point: HRC should have challenged this “senior Israeli official” by saying, “You can't possibly mean that being a freier is the 'worst thing in the world.' Wouldn't breaking the Lord's commandments be far worse? As for Jewish drivers being willing to end up in the hospital rather than being cut off in traffic, would they also be willing to risk the lives of innocent passengers in both vehicles rather than be cut off? Where does it stop, this fear of being a freier?”

Source: page 316 (compare these two sets of quotes):

“Bibi himself was once quoted as saying, “We are not freiers. We don't give without receiving.” I feared that in this light, our demands for a settlement freeze would not be well-received.”

and

“The strongest voice in favor of [making a demand for a settlement freeze] was Rahm Emanuel's...”

Comments:

What HRC failed to understand (at least publicly) was, Rahm Emanuel's job was to do what he could to scuttle any attempt by our government to advance a two-state solution to the Palestinian stalemate in the West Bank. Rahm was in favor of making a demand for a settlement freeze precisely because he knew how badly Netanyahu would react, which in turn would throw a monkey wrench into the peace process.

Source: page 150:

“If the Taliban could be persuaded or pressured to drop their ties to al Qaeda and reconcile with the government in Kabul, then peace would be possible and U.S. troops could safely come home.”

Comments:

Why should the Taliban wish to “reconcile with the government in Kabul?” That government is from the Northern Alliance which the Taliban had defeated in order to itself become the government of Afghanistan. The only reason the Northern Alliance is in charge today is due to the intervention of U.S. forces. So why would the Taliban wish to partner with those whom they'd defeated well over a decade ago? Why would the Taliban, which is winning this war, care to enter into a coalition for the sole purpose of allowing the United States to save face by claiming they prevented the Taliban from reclaiming its right to govern?

Source: page 151:

“There was good reason to believe that many low-level Taliban fighters were not particularly ideological. They were farmers or villagers who joined the insurgency because it offered a steady income and respect in a country wracked by poverty and corruption.”

Comments:

Those low-level Taliban fighters might not be “particularly ideological,” but they are painfully aware of the great damage wrought by the United States on their country and of the corrupt administration in Kabul (propped up by the Americans) which has not won the hearts and minds of the general population.

I find it offensive that Hillary and others are so dismissive of those “farmers and villagers who joined the insurgency,” claiming they did so in order to obtain a paycheck. All armies pay their soldiers, so why should the Taliban be disrespected because they accept pay for their services? America's soldiers accept pay and yet no one calls them mercenaries even though some of them truly are mercenaries.

Source: page 370:

“But Qaddafi's troops were now a hundred miles from [the rebel stronghold of] Benghazi and closing fast. We were looking at a humanitarian catastrophe, with untold thousands at risk of being killed.” [NOTE: Those “untold thousands” were rebels who had taken up arms against Qaddafi, so they weren't exactly innocent civilians caught in a cross-fire.]

Comments:

We made much of the so-called threats against civilians, going so far as to seek UN backing for “the authority to use 'all necessary measures' to protect civilians.” But as Qaddafi himself put it: “He [Qaddafi] pledged to go house by house looking for 'traitors'...” That doesn't sound like a blanket threat to go after all of Benghazi's citizens. In fact, it sounds like a reasonable dragnet. However, I can see a desperate rebel force resisting this dragnet by using those innocent civilians as a human shield to ward off Qaddafi's forces.

Now, who's sounding like the bad guy here – Qaddafi or the US-backed rebels? By the way, those rebels were US-backed for at least a decade in terms of them being in sleeper cells organized and armed by the CIA. When the CIA gave the signal to rise up against Qaddafi, they were surprised at how well his military responded. Same thing occurred in Syria, with the sleeper cells we had operating there. The CIA gave the word to rise up, thinking Assad would be quickly defeated. We guessed wrong on that one, as well as in Libya.

But you will never hear anything like this from Hillary Rodham Clinton, who much prefers to toe the party line concerning threats to civilians.

Source: page 417:

“The country's monarch, the Shah [of Iran], owed his throne to a 1953 coup supported by the Eisenhower Administration against a democratically elected government thought to be sympathetic to Communism.”

Comments:

Let's clarify two things right away: Our “support” involved active participation by the CIA. And Communism had nothing to do with our decision – it was the Iranian move to nationalize British petroleum facilities that was decisive.

In fact, this is the first time I've read any hint from any source that we feared Iran was sliding into the Communist camp. As is well known by now, Communism didn't have a chance in any country with a strong Islamic background – these two worldviews were simply incompatible. Besides, there was no way that a proud country like Iran, with its strong and long-standing history of sovereignty and empire, would have decided to become a vassal state within the USSR's orbit.

If Hillary really believes that Communism had anything to do with our coup in 1953, I'm forced to ask, “What else is she woefully unaware of?”

Source: page 580:

“...I should deliver the speech in Geneva, at the headquarters of the UN Human Rights Council. If my goal was to firmly place LGBT rights within the international community's framework of human rights, there was no better place to do it.”

Comments:

I read Hillary's speech on-line in its entirety – and nowhere within it was the issue of religious taboo addressed. I've read claims that the Jewish and Christian theologies could perhaps be flexible (maybe, just maybe, God didn't really think of gays as an abomination). But the Islamic prohibitions are many and emphatic. Many Muslims look upon American lifestyles as decadent, and will see our attempt to support LGBT rights as being against God's will. And that will only win more supporters who are willing to militarily oppose us.

Some people might think Hillary had innocently bitten off more than she could chew. She had already made major efforts on behalf of women's rights. Maybe throwing down the gauntlet on behalf of the LGBT community was an example of overreach. However, I think her real goal was to antagonize the Muslims, especially in Africa, so they'd become more radicalized against us. As they become more extreme and active against their local governments, President Hillary Rodham Clinton would be poised to put boots on the ground in order to help them maintain law and order.

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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

Footnote:

unconstitutional* : This link shows how the filibuster rule violates Article V and Amendments V and XVII of the Constitution:

http://ind4prez2012.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-filibuster-rule-revisited-part-1.html