Clinton On Iran Attack: "Totally Obliterate Them"

ABC :

Clinton further displayed tough talk in an interview airing on Good Morning America Tuesday, ABC News' Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next ten years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Read the whole story: ABC

Comments

[Rog49Thomas]

I guess I missed something.

This is the election for the presidency of the USA, isn't it?

[Podewumun]

Hard to tell anymore, isn't it?

[Rog49Thomas]

No, not hard at all.

And hasn't been for a long time.

[who38]

Maybe she's planning a move to Tel Aviv. Wouldn't that be nice?

[Leskenoi]

George Lowe, who wrote about the cold war and nuclear deterrence in the 60's, has an interesting reaction to Hillary's remarks about Iran lately. He thinks they have some connection to Douglas Coe and "the Family," a right wing religious group Hillary belongs to.

See:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/20/102642/719/954/499420

On Hillary's connection to Coe and "the Family," see also Barbara Ehrenreich's "Hillary's Nasty Pastorate": http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich

What has struck me most about Clinton's references to Truman lately is that she may have the ambition of creating a new doctrine of "containment" in the ME (I would have called it the "Bush Doctrine," or maybe the Liberman Doctrine, before Hillary's recent expostulations, but now I suppose we should refer to it as the "Hillary Doctrine"), which would limit alleged Iranian expansionism and influence in the ME by threatening it with nuclear annihilation.

As several pundits have been saying, it is absurd that Hillary thinks she can unilaterally redefine American nuclear doctrine this way, but what it may show is her ambition to be another "war president" like Bush even if she likes to invoke Democratic war presidents like Roosevelt, Truman, and Kennedy in her rhetoric. It also points to the continuity in policy we could expect toward "containing" Iran from Bush's imperial presidency to a Hillary presidency, a policy which would further detabilize the Middle East (if that is possible, which it is).

[hu.man]

Really bad choice of words "obliterate". She just lost all of Middle East. This will reverberate in the region.

No such thing as "Iranian expansionism". The Iranians are having trouble feeding their own people. Everything is rationed and if government didn't provide food ration coupons to the population, they will literally cook the leadership for their next meal. In one of largest oil producing nations in the world, Iran is also rationing gasoline. People are limited to 4 gallons a week at subsidized prices. It is a total mess.

Petrodollars are keeping that government in power, nothing else. The best thing that can happen to the bankrupt regime in Tehran is an external attack. It will unify the people and give them some cause to fight. Iranians are fiercely nationalistic and steadfastly cling to their cultural identity. There are also so many expatriates here in US and I am not so sure how they will react to an attack by U.S.

Hillary seems to be way out of her league. Without the 'Clinton' marquee she would be a less than average politician with little chance of attracting much attention.

[bobdob]

This is great. We worried that Bush would attack Iran. Now we learn the HIllary would attack them too. You know what I say? I say F*CK Israel. Seriously. We owe them nothing. Let 'em take care of themselves.

[awcbuddy8]

More of that heart-warming liberal mantra.

[brainlego]

It actually costs american lives, and Israel CAN defend itself.

[guntotinganglion]

Just remember, the future's so bright, we're all gonna need welders goggles to protect from the flash. All of these crazy politicians today are driving toward a nuclear war of some kind. If Bushemada doesn't manage to pull it off before his reign of terror ends, it will be Hillary, or Obama, or McCain for sure. Hell, we've spent trillions on these weapons systems over the last 70 years...time to find out if they're as good as their PR! I think that's how Bushemada thinks...this is a toy in his toy box that everyone says he can't play with, but damnit, he wants to play with it and he's the President so he gets to do whatever he wants. Since we are already the first nation to use weapons of mass murder, we can no longer pursue that moniker, but if they're crazy enough, we could be the first to use thermonuclear weapons against, oh, say Iran for instance! Wouldn't that be fun! Got a problem with a small number of people in the government? Take the modern warfare way out...kill the entire population that had nothing to do with any of it...just minding their own business when god's own bomb swept them away.

I grew up in the 50's and already faced nuclear annihilation throughout my youth, and now the war mongers are bringing the threats back out and dusting them off and starting an entirely new paradigm of warfare, acceptable use of nukes.

[SignifyingMonkey]

This is totally irresponsible pandering bullshit from Hillary Clinton. She knows they have no such nuclear weapons because she is aware of the recent National Intelligence Estimate that summarized sixteen intel agencies' findings, a NIE that Bush refuses to acknowledge because it busts his game of propaganda and his rationale for going to war with Iran.

Frankly, this puts Clinton in the same warmongering class with Bush and Cheney.

[GunneraGirl]

Thank you for saying this. This woman is totally unbalanced and is majorly freaking me out!

[bobdob]

Hillary Clinton is an evil human being, and her followers are deluded lemmings. Consider all she asks you to abandon in your support for her: You must write off many of the greatest Democrats alive today, you must embrace violence and retaliation, and you must put her candidacy before the good of the Democratic Party. Oh, and you must abandon your rational mind because you must believe that she can win, when in fact she can't.

Hillary is a mental disease. She is a corruption of everything you formerly believed in. She has brainwashed you. You are in need of deprogramming.

[guntotinganglion]

i just am amazed at the idiotic discussion of someone in the middle east getting nuclear weapons...and starting an arms race in the middle east. Someone there has had nuclear weapons for decades, and has refused to acknowledge them, or take part in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. And it ain't Iran, or Iraq, or Saudi Arabia, or Syria, or Lebanon. As everyone knows, it's ISRAEL. They're the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and if anyone is driving an arms race toward a nuclear future, it is them! But no US politician will touch this one, because their so kow towed by Israel and the APAC lobby. Why do we so blindly support Israel, and are not allowed to even ask questions without facing accusations of being anti-semitic? Why are they untouchable? And why does Huffpost censor topics like this....

[saram]

Dear Lord.

Somebody keep this woman away from the button!!!

[GunneraGirl]

Someone, PLEASE, adjust this woman's medication!!!! She's scaring me!

[MissT]

And this after she called Barack naive because he said he would attack Pakistan if he had credible information of Osama bin Ladins whereabouts in that country. That's Osama bin Ladin, the guy who actually attacked us and is still out there even after all we have done in Iraq of all places.

[bobdob]

He didn't say he would attack Pakistan. He said he would attack Bin Laden. Hillary said she would get permission first. Hillary is stupid as hell.

[cdnnewsjunky]

Clever girl! She manages to work in WMD's and Iran into the same sentence.

[SignifyingMonkey]

Now let's see how stupid the people of Pennsylvania really are when the polls open.

[qwr]

Let's put this into perspective: Clinton said this about a non-existent threat. A hypothetical, and she brought up the specter of the death of millions. Please, my fellow Americans, we cannot let this happen: no Hillary, no McCain. Nothing will change. This might echo the campaign slogan of Obama, but this is not about Obama. No Hillary, no McCain.

[ssmit98]

God she scares me

{:O

[IntelligentDesign]

She scares God.

[wndrwrthg]

Satan is worried about the competition.

[desmirl]

So what happens if, after Hillary's totally insane statement, Putin says, "If you obliterate Iran, we attack you with nuclear missiles against which you cannot defend?" Is that how she wants human life on this planet to end? Insane people are out of the asylums and we've let them get control of the microphones.

[cdnnewsjunky]

Don't have to sweat those Soviet nukes! If Hillary can dream-up Iranian weapons of mass destruction that don't exist, she can just as easily dream up a missle defense shield that doesn't exist .

[SignifyingMonkey]

Problem is that nuclear radiation can more than likely penetrate her dream.

[elcojonu]

Vlad doesn't even have to go that far.
He can say: You attack our neighbor Iran, we attack your neighbor Mexico; think about it and let me know.
She's just huffin 'n puffin for her masters; it's what they wanna hear.

[desmirl]

Talk about Looney Tunes! She is a whacked-out senior citizen. Maybe it's early Alzheimers. Now I'm more afraid of her nuttiness than John McBombBombIran's.

[IntelligentDesign]

I'm starting to think that they all belong to a secret order, and that they are in the midst of an amazing race to be the first to reach one million killed, victor becomes ruler in the new world order - try as he might, Bush is apparently going to fall just short.

[qwr]

I'm not sure about that. I actually think he's going to make. Part of what is so disgusting is that there seems to be some reluctance to properly number the civilian deaths. We should all be outraged about this. We should know what we are doing. If you take the high estimates, Bush has already passed a million.

[bobdob]

You wouldn't be wrong:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich

[guntotinganglion]

I happen to believe Bush has already exceeded the million mark. Remember, we don't do body counts, so we don't know what the fuck we're talking about when we make claims of this or that number. I choose to believe the high end, because of the sheer malevolent chaos this bastard is responsible for. 1.2 million was the estimated high end about a year ago now...so add another 100 or 200 thousand to that. Johns Hopkins in what, 2004 was it, estimated a low of around 350K and a high of around 900K innocent civilians dead. That was a peer reviewed study, as was the more recent one (the name of which eludes me) that claimed a high of 1.2 million. Either way, the Iraq Body Count is a fantasy...most of the deaths in Iraq haven't been carefully counted, and thus the criteria for the IBC by definition is low. They only quote absolutely verified deaths, and they're at around 90K now.

To me, Bushemada is now a proud member in good standing in the "I killed a million innocent civilians club". I'm sure his mother is very proud.

[GunneraGirl]

I don't think that scenario is too far off.

[qwr]

Can you imagine this? I don't want another President who would use words like, "totally obliterate," regardless of any policy. A President should not say things like this. Only the infantile GWB says things like this. And you know, Clinton is just as infantile. How utterly stupid.

[cdnnewsjunky]

Ya, total obliteration is so Draconian. She should have said if Iran attacks Israel with non existent weapons of mass destruction, then we will use or non existent "axis of evil bomb" to partially obliterate them. Sorta takes the rattle out of the sabre!