Hillary Goes Orwellian on Iraq

Hillary Clinton may fancy she opposes the war in Iraq, but she has a funny way of showing it. On Monday night in Austin, she had this to say about what the United States military has done over the past five years:

"We have given them the gift of freedom, the greatest gift you can give someone. Now it is really up to them to determine whether they will take that gift."

There was nothing accidental about this line. She delivered it in response to two Iraq veterans introduced at a town hall meeting at the Austin Convention Center by her friend and campaign surrogate Ted Danson. She liked the line enough that she delivered it again a couple of hours later, at a campaign-closing rally at a basketball arena in south Austin.

"The gift of freedom" is, of course, a curious way to describe an unprovoked invasion and occupation causing hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and leaving just about every aspect of life chaotic and fraught with daily dangers. To then lay responsibility for the mess on the Iraqis -- we did our bit, now you do yours -- is the worst kind of dishonesty, a complete abdication of moral principles. It's the sort of thing George Bush has said to justify his decision both to launch the invasion in the first place and then stay the course -- a course Hillary Clinton has spent many months telling primary and caucus voters she thinks was misconceived from the start.

Why, then, is she taking on the president's rhetorical tropes? Could it be she didn't -- and doesn't -- oppose the Iraq war quite as much as she's been letting on?

George Orwell rightly warned us about the way politicians use words like "freedom" when such usage begs more questions than it answers. "Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way," he wrote in his famous essay Politics and the English Language. "That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different."

Clinton's audience certainly thought that what she was doing was standing four-square behind the veterans. That was they way they took it, and applauded her accordingly. Perhaps, though, before they make their choices tomorrow, the voters of Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont should reread her words and ask themselves what the hell she really meant.

Comments

[cadawa]

Andrew,
What she really meant is that is representing the interests of the American Imperialists and the military industrial complex many of whom masquerade as Democrats.
If they applauded they are either ignorant as you suggest or preslected ala Bush and beneficiaries of disaster capitalism.
Sadly both low information voters and war profiteers are in sufficient number to make her candidacy viable.
I agree with you that Clinton is every bit a facile liar as the present occupant of the White House. As a member of congress who voted for the illegal invasion of Iraq and continues to support it, she is every bit as much a war criminal as Bush or Cheney. She has threatened Iran which is another war crime according to the Geneva Conventions.
If she wins or cheats herself into the White House, would we be the first, "first world" country to elect a war criminal as chief executive?
Anti-colonialist in Seattle.

[bmora]

Silly, rabbit. She freed them from their existence.

[transendentilist]

So when did a two term Senator gain the ability to declare war and order military invasions?? You know damn well who's war this is. And it isn't any democrat's. The Commander-In-Cheif ordered the invasion. The neo-cons planned it, packaged it and sold it to the American people, but now, all of a sudden it's Hillary's war??? Lies, lies and more lies. It's the height of sleaze for one democrat (obama) to accuse another democrat (hillary) of starting or ordering this war. It's dishonest and quite misleading. If obama is deliberately this misleading, as just a candidate, what will he mislead us about when he's in office??

[apduncan1]

She did once and she did it again by granting powers to GWB to go against Iran.

Wake up!!!

[joebaggadonuts]

The master of Orwell's language insights is Frank Luntz. Read his book, Words that Matter. Get some insight. Freedom, Liberation, these are words that sell. They are aspirational. They don't ask us to think, but to feel inspiration, aspiration, deep breathing, etc. And she says Obama is full of hot air. LOL.

[OwenScottIII]

I'm a psychologist who has worked extensively since 1981 with veterans suffering from PTSD. I trained with the best, individuals who occupy leading positions in the scientific community. I once checked into becoming a reserve military psychologist so that I could be called up in the event of a war; but I never heard back. Over the course of time I've worked with a few colonels, a number of junior officers, and numerous enlisted persons and NCOs. I haven't however worked with any flag officers, few of whom ever see action in the modern military. When I realized we truly were invading Iraq, I felt profound anguish, knowing that some 25% of the men and women we sent into combat would develop PTSD, that we would inflict trauma on countless Iraqis, that many on both sides would die, many more would be maimed for life, that for every person killed, maimed or traumatized ripples of impact would spread out through mothers and fathers, siblings, spouse, children, and friends. The damage this invasion has caused is ongoing and the cost goes far beyond the staggering amount of money the USA has poured into the abyss and will continue to pour as it drags on. "The gift of freedom" indeed.

[Nofoolhere]

Thank you. I stand corrected, but re the publisher being MSM, I observe that profit can sometimes trump ideology, especially where an esoteric book is likely to safely blow by the majority electorate who need to be informed by it.

[Giordano Bruno]

The irony of course is that in "giving freedom" we lost our own. The price of freedom, is not sacrifice, it is freedom itself. Bush should think about the following quote, "...They hate us for the freedom we used to have before I suspended it." Giordy

[greenpaz]

How about those people who said we were liberating the people of Iraq and then saying "Wwe're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here." Yes, here is your freedom, Iraqi people. Now DUCK!

[Nofoolhere]

Once again I will insist: IT’S THE CORPORATIONS STUPID!! The secret corporate cabal, the same one that is bully determined to dissolve our borders into a “North American Union,” has conspired with the corporatist operators in Canada to blow up this NAFTA incident against Obama the day the before voting. There is a horror unfolding while a naive, apathetic and dumbed down electorate ignorantly allows it to work its will. If you must experience fear, at least let it be a valid fear..
If you really want to understand what is happening in the United States, and experience a valid fear, read the following incredible book: Klein, Naomi, 2007, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, NY: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, LLC. This resource describes the recent economic history of the ruthless and predatory Chicago school of economics that has ascended and triumphed over the Keynesian School of developmental capitalism during the last half of the 20th Century. Their success has forced the nations of the southern cone of South America into one dictatorship after another, beginning with the CIA’s overthrow of Chili’s socialist Salvador Allende as replaced by the ruthless US operated puppet regime of dictator General Augusto Pinochet. .
Now that evil is the outcome intended for our nation by the corporate owned and operated right wing. Once you see the pattern reveled by the outstanding scholarship behind Klein’s book, the history of the Bush administration suddenly makes terrible sense. Hillary Clinton’s clandestine goals are revealed. You haven’t heard anything about this relevant and timely book on the MSM, have you? You won’t.

[apduncan1]

It is sad... the one being pushed is Greenspan's nonsense.

[HLMerkin]

Henry Holt and Company, LLC is part of the MSM.
It was reviewed in the New York Times. I believe it was Amy Goodman who hosted a dialogue between Klein and Greenspan. The information to come to these conclusions is out there. Nobody is keeping this from us.

[Nofoolhere]

Thank you. I stand corrected, but re the publisher being MSM, I observe that profit can sometimes trump ideology, especially where an esoteric book is likely to safely blow by the majority electorate who need to be informed by it.

[Myrrhis]

May I float an analogy?

Freedom is like physical fitness. Sure, you can give someone a gym membership, buy them equipment etc. but invading their home and making the changes YOU think need to be made, whilst trashing the place in the process . . . well, it's just not going to be productive.

You can't gift freedom anymore than you can gift physical fitness. You can support and cajole, but, in the end, it is an independent decision, not yours.

We knew this going in, too. What screwed the whole process was what we were unwilling to do: truly let Iraqis decide for themselves. Had we done that, early enough, when there was still all that positive fervor, we might have seen Iraqis making different decisions, and we would have staved off, or at least reduced, the effect of the counter insurgency whose main contention is that we don't belong there. It would not have excused our invasion, but it might have rescued the proported goal of our being there in the first place, to some degree.

What stuns me is that this is not rocket science. Even without looking at historical precedents one can predict this. Yet our lawmakers chose to ignore it.

[MyThought]

Doesn't matter how the memo was found - it EXISTED. This is nick picking.

[Myrrhis]

It might be considered "nit" picking (as in focusing on something very small) except that . . it's not.

If, as people are suggesting, the memo was fabricated as part of a process set in motion by Bill Clinton, then the oh-so-convinient timing of it's release clearly demonstrate a reprehensible attempt at campaign entrapment, especially since the memo CANNOT be seen in the context in which it was produced, since those discussions were not a matter of record.

[MyThought]

Good grief, when is the Hillary bashing going to stop. It's getting boring and tiresome. Enough already.

No wonder 70% of Americans don't think the media/writers are in touch with the American people.

[AndrewInToronto]

Surely there is a difference between "bashing" and "accountab­ility." I recall very well the exchange which occurred during the last debate during which Clinton was exposed to her public record on NAFTA, for instance, by the moderator. Her response? As he was reciting a list of statements she had made, she was talking over the moderator trying to silence him -- a no-no in such a debating forum.

Have we not seen what a presidency which does not value accountability or transparency can do to a nation? Do the American people need four more years of that?

[balance]

I think everyone has missed the bigger point on the Iraq Invasion.

McCain's camp & the GOP has always said that now that we're in Iraq, we might as well forget about the past. Just forget. Just forget. Just let it go.

Many Democrats speaking in the MSM say that it was a bad decision on the part of Bush Jr, but don't go any further.

Bipartisanship is good. But still, the bigger point has been completely missed. What was the lesson on Iraq -- YES, it was a bad decision. But what was the overall lesson?

Bush Jr & Cheney should be impeached. It's not about revenge or sour grapes. It's about sending a message to future Presidents. It's about setting a precident because of a precident.

Obama and anti-Hillary supporters, and the MSM aren't laying the responsbility on Bush Jr, they're blaming Senator Clinton. Remember that after 911, everyone was shocked, and wanted to unfiy behind our President. In came Bush Jr who demanded that everyone fall in line behind him. "Either you're with ME or you are against US." Bush Jr. came in and exploited 911, and used it to call for bipartisanship, and abused patriotism for this Iraq-War agenda.

Senator Clinton is being wrongly used as the proxy for our forbidden outrage and frustrated need to rebuke Bush Jr. The proof is that the MSM and democrats are more openly personally derisive towards Senator Clinton than Bush Jr.

If the POTUS is not rebuked or punished for starting a war of aggression, based upon lies, distortions, exaggerations, for exteme selective readings of the truth, for upon gross incompetence, and for betraying the trust of the American people, then what sort of PRECIDENT are we setting for the future?

[JimR]

I reject your false choice. Lots of blame to go around here.

Yes, Bush should be held accountable. But so should the lawmakers who blindly followed his drumbeat to war because they didn't have the political courage to stand up to him.

[KidMeNot]

HRC is running against Obama in the Democratic primary. There is a clear choice between the two on the issue of Iraq. HRC talk about both experience and taking responsibility. I think it is fair to be outraged over her vote to authorize the war, and the fact that she does not apologize for it.

[presto]

Do more research and reading.

http://www.thecityedition.com/Pages/Archive/Winter08/PDFfiles/2008Election.pdf

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-wilson/obamas-hollow-judgment_b_89441.html

[balance]

The authorization for the use of military force included the following caveat:

"PRESIDENTIAL DETERMINAT­ION.—In connection with the
exercise of the authority granted in subsection (a) to use force
the President shall, prior to such exercise or as soon thereafter
as may be feasible, but no later than 48 hours after exercising
such authority, make available to the Speaker of the House of
Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his
determination that—
(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic
or other peaceful means alone either (A) will not adequately
protect the national security of the United States against the
continuing threat posed by Iraq or (B) is not likely to lead
to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council
resolutions regarding Iraq;"

Bush Jr had a variety of options, given the option to use military force -- he could have used air strikes to limit the exposure of risk to our troops (which is what Bill Clinton did).

In 2002, terrorists killed 3000 New Yorkers. Senator Clinton (D-NY) rightly had to be concerned about further strikes against New York City -- a prime target. The issue of guarding against WMD's was paramount. Saddam had a history of wanting to develop WMD's. The right course of action was to INSPECT, _NOT_ INVASION.

The right course was to make sure WMD's weren't being pursued, and the inspectors were being effective. The threat of force has been used for years to make Saddam allow inspection. The inspectors, such Blix & Ritter, insisted to Bush Jr, that WMD's were probably not there. (Years of pressure and inspection worked to cut away Saddam's WMD plans.) Bush Jr then withdrew the inspectors and started the mother of all botched invasions. Bush Jr, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld hold all responsiblity for the consequent, needless deaths of thousands, and the wrecking of our economy due to the immense cost of the war.

[balance]

Whoops, I meant 2001 up there, not 2002. I was thinking of the year of the Iraq Resolution when I was typing.

My mistake, and apologies for my fast typing. I should get back to my day job...

Clinton/Obama 2008. Whoo-hoo!

[LawDem]

Whoa whoa whoa...let­'s not revise history, ok? U.N. Security Council Res. 1441 (2002) clearly states that the inspectors were NOT being effective ("Iraq has repeatedly obstructed immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access to sites designated by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), failed to cooperate fully and unconditio­nally...")­. I am vehemently opposed to the war in Iraq, but the facts prior to invasion were not as you framed them. I think the fundamental problem with the U.S. invasion was that it was predicated on seriously dubious intelligence that Colin Powell candidly admitted in 2004 to Tim Russert on Meet the Press was at times "deliberately misleading­." That the "evidence" of WMDs was so tenuous was exactly why our allies were so staunchly opposed to unilateral action. But make no mistake about it, Saddam had been non-compliant with numerous resolutions for over a decade and the inspections were not yielding anything of value.

[in4success]

hillary is a neo-con, lieberman-esque mole and a hardcore hawk. she has no intention on pulling out of iraq . . . . or NAFTA...in fact, her campaign were the ones that orchestrated the leak from canada's conservative PM's cabinet . . . why? because they've been "projecting" their own corruption onto obama.

[idabamaho]

Yes. The gift of Freedom, I can hear those words coming straight out of George W. Bush's mouth during a speach at the Heritage Foundation. Hillary is a Neo-con. The Hillary supporters are the same democrats who sent W to his second term. She's a huckster who will split the party. She has to after taking millions in defense industry donation. More than any other candidate including McCain.

[stoprollingover]

Look up Bill Clinton's relationship with heiress and Canadian MP Belinda Stronach who has vast contacts in the Canadian government. The request for a meeting originated with the Canadian consulate and the "memo" conveniently surfaced on Monday. The day before the Ohio primary where all the controversy over NAFTA is taking place. How convenient for Hillary that the memo "surfaced" yesterday.

[lawyeredup]

Excuses! Excuses!! Excuses!!!. We talked by the Bush administration not taking responsibility for anything; we might be seeing the same with the Obama camp even before they get there. I believed we should heed the sign.

[S1m0n]

Stronach had nothing at all to do with it; she's out of politics and burned her bridges with Harper by crossing the floor to the Liberal Party after getting fed up with Harper treating her like a bimbo. This leak is coming straight out of the office of the Prime Minister, who is a notorious control freak.

However, he won't be with us long; he just got caught on tape making what appears to be a confession in an felony bribery case.

[Macready]

thank you in4success . . . totally agree

[westwind]

On the Iraq War and the Unitary Executive, Hillary Clinton is far closer to George Bush and the neocons than most Democrats would like to admit. Having seen the presidency at close quarters, she would have liked Bill to have had a little more of the unbridled power Bush and Cheney claim for themselves, and she of course wants the same for her own proposed presidential term.

The fact that she has been unable to unequivocally declare her Iraq War vote to be a mistake is not because it's difficult to criticize the war without undermining the troops - it's because she liked this war from the beginning, but as a nominal Democrat has to put up a facade of opposition, lest she be tarred as a Republican. I think most rational people are starting to see the ugly truth.

[apduncan1]

I bet the Iraq occupation is lining her pocket.

[GDliberal]

I wonder if Queen hillary is asked about all the deaths that have occured to bring this "gift of freedom" she will try and mirror what madeleine albright once said childrens deaths being worth something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK_QshS2EW8