HRC and Rwanda: "Her Advocacy Left No Trace in the World"

Seems that Hillary Clinton has been doing a little resume-padding about her "experience" in foreign policy. In particular, Hillary's claim to have tried to stop the Rwandan genocide appears to be a crock. Says Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings: "If Hillary Clinton did press for military intervention in Rwanda, her advocacy left no trace in the world."

Is it any wonder that Samantha Power, who (literally) wrote the (Pulitzer-Prize-winning) book about Rwanda, had nasty things to say about Hillary Clinton? Having stood idly by when hundreds of thousands of people were murdered and her husband's administration was, in effect, helping the murderers, HRC is now claiming credit for actions she never took. Hilzoy calls this "grotesque." I could think of stronger words.

Comments

[timetraveler2039]

12:04 PM on 03/10/2008

It wasn't the semen-stained blue dress that turned my stomach as much as it was watching the bloated hacked up bodies floating down the rivers in Rwanda --I detest what the Clintons represent -- and see them as no different than Geo. Bush. Indifference to the suffering of Rwandans was criminal. Now watching them attempt to be Poster Child Prophets and Saviors of the World is even worse - a disgraceful sham. Of course, they wanted Ms. Powers gone! She reminded them of their evil disregard for humanity -- this campaign of hers is just a continuation of the horror show that was the Clintons. Never ever question why the rest of the world hates us -- it is the result of Bush/Clinton/Bush and their greedy lust for power. If the word "monster" fits -- wear it!!!!

[YankeeCanuck]

12:44 PM on 03/10/2008

I've read Ms. Powers' book. Thing is, she was quite fair-minded about reporting on the Rwandan genocide and the factors that made it difficult for Clinton to encourage action. She does not make any accusations, but reports on the events backed up with thorough research.

[pmag88]

06:48 AM on 03/10/2008

The whole world turned their back on Rwanda. There was a documentary about this from the Canadian perspective that showed various nations leaving one by one. The Canadians were the last to leave.

On the American side, for some peculiar reason there seems to be a squeamishness about using the word genocide and if something doesn't meet the exact criteria, then it isn't genocide and we don't go in. These were the facts about Rwanda and it is very well known.

On a similar note, after a few years when we finally did muster the guts to use the sacred term 'genocide' in describing what's happening in Darfur, we still haven't done much to stop the carnage. So where is the outrage amongst the whole of the world over this? I don’t know. Let’s blame it on the Clintons.

[YankeeCanuck]

12:48 PM on 03/10/2008

The fact is, we are loathe to call such actions genocide. And the foreign service is trained not to give the boss bad news.
For years, the Clinton adminstration called the actions in Bosnia and in Rwanda "tantamount to genocide" which they seemed to think did not require action. During Clinton's administration, a decision was made that even if genocide was determined, it did not mean that the US waas under any obligation to prevent or end it.

[uheardme]

06:07 AM on 03/10/2008

Clinton's 35 years of experience is a FAIRY TALE.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/08/wuspols108.xml

This woman keeps padding her resume. When will the media start to CLOSELY EXAMINE her claims of "experience".

[Horst]

10:50 AM on 03/10/2008

Let's face it, Mrs. Clinton feels that the Presidency is somehow owed to her.The woman has a monumental ego and will stop at nothing to achieve her goals. A patchwork of near-elderly feminists around the world will celebrate her candidacy but few others.

[Serene1]

03:12 AM on 03/10/2008

The best way to become a hero among Liberal bloggers - diss Hillary to anyone.
Till yesterday Samatha Powers was just another person of Team Obama. Today she is a hero because she called Hillary a monster at an international forum with some some dubious logic.

[LAJonathan]

12:27 PM on 03/10/2008

Your missing the point. There is no hero here, we just want the entire country to know the truth about our candidate and unfortunately, our own media isn't reporting it in a way that makes clear. Internationally, absolutely they are reporting honestly as they always do - here, not so much...Try an international news source originating in another country for one day and see how bored you get. That's because they are reporting news as opposed to sensational half truths.

[YankeeCanuck]

02:36 PM on 03/10/2008

My point, like yours, is that serena and most of the American public seems to operate on dualities: black/white, right/wrong, hero/monster. Anything else is too complicated. Having lived in Canada for years, I read their press, occasionally British and German and French news for world reportage. Different perspectives are interesting for those who want news like you, and boring for those who want sensationalism and hype. Let's just say that there are people who act heroically even in the everyday pursuit of their intellectual pursuits. Especially journalists like Ms. Power.

[YankeeCanuck]

12:32 PM on 03/10/2008

Samantha Power was well-known to those who read and those interested in foreign policy. She's a foreign policy columnist at Time magazine, a professor at Harvard's JFK School of Government, was founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights, also ata Harvard. She has earned a National Magazine Award and the Pulitzer Prize for her book about genocide "Problem From Hell".
She was a hero for many years, repeatedly visiting places like Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sudan at great personal risk.
THen she spoke somewhat intemperately about HRC.
What is your point?

[Sloane7]

07:33 PM on 03/09/2008

This is an aspect of the Samantha Power story that no one seems to be covering and they should be. That the Clinton campaign was so eager to call for the resignation of Samantha Power over such an inconsequential comment when Power won a Pulitzer Prize by exposing the Clinton Administration's actions with regard to Rwanda is highly ironic.

[GLaB]

07:56 PM on 03/09/2008

"At an interagency teleconference in late April, SUSAN RICE, a rising star on the NSC who worked under Richard Clarke, stunned a few of the officials present when she asked, "If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] election?" Lieutenant Colonel Tony Marley remembers the incredulity of his colleagues at the State Department. "We could believe that people would wonder that," he says, "but not that they would actually voice it." Rice does not recall the incident but concedes, "If I said it, it was completely inappropriate, as well as irrelevant." "

SUSAN RICE is Obama's chief foreign policy advisor.

Can you guess who wrote those words?

[GLaB]

08:02 PM on 03/09/2008

"Now, with U.S. citizens safely home, the State Department chaired a daily interagency meeting, often by teleconference, designed to coordinate mid-level diplomatic and humanitarian responses. Cabinet-level officials focused on crises elsewhere. ANTHONY LAKE recalls, "I was obsessed with Haiti and Bosnia during that period, so Rwanda was, in William Shawcross's words, a 'sideshow,' but not even a sideshow—a no-show."

[nepat]

07:05 PM on 03/09/2008

The great irony of the Samantha Power resignation from the Obama campaign for calling Hillary a "monster" is that Hillary's campaign continues to employ a foreign policy adviser who actually IS a monster: Sandy Berger.

Sandy Berger was caught stealing classified documents from the National Archive (believed to include notes Bill Clinton had made about Osama bin Laden), arrested, and convicted on misdemeanor charges. And now he's on Hillary's payroll. Anything odd about this? Why no questions about Hillary's judgment in hiring this guy? Say what you will about Power's comment, it pales in comparison from actually ripping off your own government and attempting to thwart the process of history (he stole the docs prior to testifying before the 9/11 Commission).

[GLaB]

06:37 PM on 03/09/2008

... or was Susan Power's interview just another example of the Obama campaign saying things completely contrary to their real intents?

[GLaB]

06:36 PM on 03/09/2008

... and what does Susan Power have to say about SUSAN POWER who gave a video interview completely repudiating her "monster" statement and calling it "stupid?"

[YankeeCanuck]

12:34 PM on 03/10/2008

I think you mean Samantha Power.

[awb]

01:51 PM on 03/09/2008

how can we get the main stream media to start talking about this stuff

the sunday news shows make you want to scream

[MaureenS]

05:29 PM on 03/09/2008

The only way main stream media will start a. doing their home work and b. investigate stories before broadcasting them as truth is if we the viewers stop watching their programs. CNN, ABC and NBC revenue is base on viewers that translate into ratings. The internet is faster and sometimes more reliable then main stream media, it give access to the World information outside the US and it is becoming way more powerful then these main stream media, For example, Bill Clinton was in Canada fundraising for one of his charities the week the story broke accusing Senator Obama of giving the Canadian Government the wink wink regarding NAFTA, this was widely reported in the Canadian media but not on any US channels. I believe the only way to force main stream US media to stop acting like tabloids is to stop buying it, after all in a free economy there is always alternatives.

[YankeeCanuck]

12:37 PM on 03/10/2008

The Canadian press responded quite quickly and Canadian officials stated the Obama story was not true. Read it in the Canadian national paper, the Globe and Mail.

[EspressoAtNoon]

07:12 PM on 03/09/2008

That's why Hillary has been crying "unfair" about the media all along - to intimidate them from exposing her myth. She keeps crying "media is unfair", "media is unfair" and as she learned from Karl Rove - if you say something enough it will ultimately be treated as truth by the public.

So after all her crying if the media were to start exposing her mythological experience now, she will say "there they go again". It's like FoxNews - they spent so much time trying to prove to their viewers that all the other networks were liberally biased so that once critics started to pick apart FoxNews as propaganda then their viewers would just discount it all as "liberal bias" against the right.

[walley]

11:39 AM on 03/09/2008

Clinton keeps saying that Obama does not have the experience to be Commander In Chief. I would like to know exactly what experience she has that makes her qualified to hold the post? What experience did her husband; either of the Bushes, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon or Johnson have to command our armed forces? She can come up with more crap than a barn full of bulls and what she has to say smells about the same.

[GDliberal]

10:03 AM on 03/09/2008

The clinton and the bushes both have their own dictionaries and their own versions of history. The question "How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide" is not something that I would think the clintons would want people to remember.

[winterline]

09:50 AM on 03/09/2008

Clinton ignored Rwanda and the Canadian peacekeeper general Romeo Dallaire who begged for help amidst the slaughter and was turned down: One of the worst cases of poor judgment in recent history with heartbreaking consequences.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-cooper/clinton-genocide-and-a-c_b_90436.html

And then another huge case of poor judgement: those who authorized war in Iraq.

[upstander18]

03:01 PM on 03/09/2008

I couldn't agree with you more!!! I read his book ''Shake Hands with the Devil'' and it opened my eyes to Rwanda and the tragedy this country indured becuase of our ignorance and of the apathy Bill Clinton showed. Shit!! It pisses me off that Hillary takes credit for saying she tried to advocate intervention during the genocide!! NO YOU DIDN'T, YOU MORON!!!!! WTF???

[MPeter]

08:53 AM on 03/09/2008

Hillary is a true monstress. She has not only lied about Rwanda, she has inflated her role in China during the women's conference. You should see her doublespeak. While she ridicules Senator Obama for his 2002 speech, she never misses a chance to point out that her speech in Beijing where she said 'women's rights are human rights' is sufficient evidence of her foreign policy experience. Then she goes on to say that traveling 'on behalf of our country to more than 80 countries' is foreign policy experience! In this experience, she includes the ridiculous photo-op in Thailand where she and Chelsea took a ride on an elephant. She not only pads, she lies and lies and lies. She is shameless.

[OwenScottIII]

12:02 PM on 03/09/2008

The experience question is Hillary's true Achilles heel. She is the one whose claim to experience consists of one speech. After selling out the Democratic Party by saying that only she and McCain have the requisite experience to be Commander-in-Chief, Sen. Clinton has set up the table to be run by Sen Obama who can now take the cue and put the eight ball in the corner pocket.

[uheardme]

06:09 AM on 03/10/2008

She has set herself up for McCain to talk honestly about her "experience". Of course, que the white feminists who will claim any discussion about her "experience" is sexist.

[Countess]

08:44 AM on 03/09/2008

Hillary will not stand idly by when it comes to slaughtering children. She is actively promoting cluster bombs so we can kill more of them. She has a very forward looking foreign policy which not only includes more cluster bombs but more takeovers of foreign countries which will not just bankrupt the United States and insure the deaths of more innocent children.

[skidz12]

07:55 AM on 03/09/2008

Clinton supporter's do you really trust her? Do you really want to give your hard earned money to someone who has 5 million of her own money laying around and refuses to disclose where it came from? In hard economic times does it make sense to give up your money to the person telling you she will fix everything while simultaneously and without shame publicly pleaing for donations to her web campaign? When is the last time you heard Obama in an interview or debate on national TV hype up and plug his website and beg for donations? Hasn't happened because he doesn't need to, because his movement is real and his supporters are no sheep. Without being desperate he has shattered every fundraising record in history. I literally feel sorry and sick in my stomach knowing you people are kind enough to send your money to the Clinton's while they pretend to need it. Wake up folks it's over, don't give those crooks anymore of your money. The superdelegates will never choose her over Obama now because this is America and everything comes down to $$$. He is now the single most powerfull money raiser in the Democratic party even bigger than Bill himself. That means more than anything else to them because that means that new money makes the democratic party as a whole that much stronger in all the down ticket elections that lead to house and senate majorities which is exactly what they are chasing. If Hillary can't manage to do it fair and square by the numbers she's done. The math say's she's got less than a shot in hell.

[Amydan48]

12:26 PM on 03/09/2008

I agree, wake up America. We not only need a leader for America, but someone who has built up the democratic party with innovative $ucce$$ful change and new people. Obama is looking out for everyone and Billary is looking out for Billary. She doesn't care if she destroys the democratic party and the gains already made. A united party will get out the vote in November and win, but a broken party will be defeated by McCain. Look at the big picuture America.