Hillary Clinton, Saudi Arabia and "Foggy Bottom"
Last Thursday Bill Clinton disclosed his complete donor list of contributors to his foundation that funds his library and charitable work, in an effort to abate concerns of conflicts of interest should Senator Hillary Clinton be confirmed as President-elect Obama's Secretary of State.
Does it, or does it just raise additional and potentially disturbing issues? According to Bloomberg, the Clinton foundation collected at least $41 million from foreign nations. Leading the list of open-handed generosity was a donation of between $10 and $25 million from Saudi Arabia. And that of course is singularly worrisome as it raises the question of whether our putative Secretary of State would be, in any way, beholden to Saudi Arabia.
We have come to realize that Saudi donations and contributions both direct and indirect, have achieved insidious influence on the American Government extending from the price and supply of oil to U.S. policies toward the Persian Gulf states, Iran and Iraq. The incestuous relationship between the American government and Saudi Arabia, seeded by President George H.W. Bush and his appointees, has reached its apogee under the presidency of George W. Bush. During these years the nation has endured the embarrassment of having Prince Bandar, the Saudi Ambassador to Washington, treat the Oval Office as an annex of the Saudi Embassy.
The relationship with Saudi Arabia has had debilitating cost to the United States in lives and fortune. 9/11 came and went, and under President George W. Bush Saudi Arabia has never been held to account for the fact that the majority of hijackers who carried out their murderous attack were Saudis. Nor has there been a serious American policy of bringing to an end the billions of Saudi money from Saudi citizens and charities that are flooding Wahhabi schools and cultural centers in Pakistan and around the world, forming today's and tomorrow's extremists, while teaching young minds hatred of Shiites, Hindus, Christians and Jews. Not to speak of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan where Saudi Jihadists are part and parcel of the irredentist fabric of murder and pillage.
And then of course there is the issue of oil where Saudi Arabia, in its leadership role within OPEC, has led OPEC to the promised land of $147 barrel oil. This, while our administration continued to stock up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve irrespective of price or market perception, nor effectively initiating meaningful programs for alternative energy nor significantly reducing our fossil fuel consumption. And of course never seriously confronting the Saudis on their manipulative production and pricing policies, much to the pleasure of the administration's friends in the oil industry, and at enormous cost to the nation as a whole.
On December 17, 2008 the Financial Times would categorize Saudi Arabia's pricing influence within OPEC, and I quote, "Saudi Arabia's willingness to sacrifice market share should consolidate its power as the only country able to influence the price of oil and therefore the world's economic health."
A benign and cooperative American administration toward OPEC is key to the Saudis and their focused policies for ever higher oil prices. We are in effect the de facto protectors of their independence and we have extended that protection under an amenable Bush administration without any meaningful quid pro quo. Herein the State Department of the next administration will have to play a key role.
Senator Hillary Clinton is a personage of outstanding ability and extensive experience. If Bill Clinton's brush with the Saudis makes her more pious than the pope in encouraging arms length monitoring of Saudi issues and limiting Saudi access, so much the better. It is long past time that our relationship with Saudi Arabia be based on clear cut national interests and not clouded by Saudi access, influence, and personal relationships at the highest levels -- influence that is forever at the expense of this nation and its citizens and to the benefit of the Saudis and its royals. That has been the case these last eight years, and to some degree before. Can Hillary Clinton assure us that there will not be any Saudi preferential access to Foggy Bottom in spite of the myriad millions visited on the Clinton foundation? That there will be no preferential treatment given to that telephone call seeking to jump the line coming from Riyadh or the Saudi Embassy, even if its 3 A.M.?!
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Well, it sure would be great to have a rich counterbalancing force to offset the AIPAC occupation of our foreign policy.
Partyfore
Well said. How large is the population of the US?
Why must we rely on a small number of wealthy
families to be the employees of we the people?
The money from Saudi Arabia cannot be taken back, so Ms. Clinton has no obligation to do anything special for the Saudi family. And maybe it is the other direction for worry, perhaps the Saudi's owe something to the Clintons that will force a better relationship between the two nations.
FDR met with King "Saud" toward the close of the WW II. Churchill was not pleased. The issue of oil has clouded American judgment and ethics ever since that time. The concern expressed by King Saud was about Israel and the fact that many Europeans would be coming to Palestine.
Bush and BAE (British Armament Company) had "sweet deals" with the Saudis because of the oil. No "spreading democracy" concerns were even considered. Clinton continued the "balancing act" between the Saudis and Israel.
Politics is about balancing concerns about resources for the industrial nation we have become. Conflicts of interest are the rule, not the exception. I see no democracy in this nor humanitarian concerns, just a "practical deal with the devil."
I would prefer that the US keep out of the Middle East and all other parts of the globe and deal with our own domestic problems. Clinton is involved with the Caspian Sea oil, too. If you spouse is making money on such deals and that disqualifies you, then many other Senators and Congressmen would need to resign at once. Business as usual will be the ultimate result until "real ethics" come to Washington.
This is a problem.
Hillary Clinton plays absolutely no role in the Clinton Foundation - how do you equate her job with what her husband does?
Now, if you are saying that a conflict of interest can arise through spousal connections also, then where is the post the raises questions about Tom Daschle's wife, who is a lobbyist?
Hillary has told us for 20 years that she and Bill Clinton are partners, close advisors to each other in EVERY DECISION made. Hillary claimed to have the experience of a president based on being First LADY. If what the Clintons have told us is true, Bill will be Hillary's closest cofidant and advisor when she is Secretary of State. Now it is in Hillary's interest to claim she is completly independent of Bill.
The Clintons are a team and DEEPLY conflicted. HIllary recently forgave $13 million she and Bill loaned to her presidential campaign. And most of that "loan" turned GIFT came to the Clintons from huge "speaking and consulting fees" Bill accepted from international business interests. Were those millions really illegal campaign contributions funnelled through the Clinton's personal bank account. Has the FEC looked at it Where are the public audits of the Clinton Foundation? Has the IRS examined its books?
I am all for excluding Tom Daschle based on his wife's lobbying. But, in fairness, she is not a former president of the United States selling inflleunce for mega millions. Get real.
I hate to say this, but it come down to us, the American People.
The temptation is too great even for Hillary.
Without the strong voices of the American People it will be business as usual.
http://november5.org/
No matter what happens, the Saudi influence on the new administration will be tears in the ocean compared to its malign relations with the Bush cabal, about which too little has been said by too many. Now that such concerns have shrunk, it's not surprising to see folks jump up to decry the Saudi's possible persuasiveness-- the problem has become small enough they might be tempted to imagine it's manageable.
The only defense anyone can make of the Clintons is to say the Bushes are worse. That's not change. We need to put the Clintons and the Bushes and their style of politics behind us.
It's up to Obama to prove he's better than Dubya; it isn't up to the left to prove BO is just as bad.
The foundation serves the world. If that's offensive, OK, but I sure don't get it.
Please post a link to an independent third party evaluation of the work of the Clinton Foundation. It has a large public relations ( "spin') operation, but have its books every been audited? Has any responsibile source every verified its claims? It seems to be lots of exageration, typical of the Clintons.
"Can Hillary Clinton assure us that there will not be any Saudi preferential access to Foggy Bottom" I suppose she could, but obviously that's not the plan.
Ray; asking cogent questions in regard to American national security and policy implementation will only get you identified as a "Hillary hater...!"
Beware of where, you tread...
Well let's see... the Bush family accepted $1,000,000,000 (yes, one billion dollars) from the Saudi royal family. Then, on 9/11, they accepted a half billion dollars from the Bin Laden family.
It's no wonder OBL was never caught.
So my point is... why all of a sudden do these pundits think a tiny sum of money going to (GASP!!!) a Clinton is going to sway foreign policy, but the fact that $1.5 billion went to the Bush family from Saudi Arabia is not even worth bringing up, or acknowledging.
Gotta love the "viewpoint" of these foreign policy "experts". We call it concern trolling.
So your defense of Hillary Clinton is that she is no worse than the Bushes?
Those who endure infestations of fleas & other parasites will tell us of simbiotic relationships constantly. These flea bitten folk will learn to resist the urge to scratch as their fleas feed on them as they speak to others of the many benefits of simbiotic relationships. You get 0 street cred is you scratch while speaking of simbiotic relations as desirable.
Do they sell flea powder at DC drug stores? It ought to be a steady seller.
With the records made public, I am sure that Hillary is well aware that she will be watched in regards to the biggest foreign donors to the library and will conduct herself accordingly.
Even without the records, I just don't see Hillary putting access ahead of her pride in doing a good job.
She puts alot of weight in her doing very well and makes excellence in a job well done her priority.
What about international PERCEPTIONS of conflict of interest. Strong ethicial standards say no actions that could be perceived as conflict of interest. Hillary would have to recuse herself from everything the State Department to meet that standard. She should not be SoS.
AS to the role of SOS, HRC is praised by Gen. Petraeus as being the most knowledgeable of all Senators. She has served on the Armed Services Committee, and is lauded by both Dems and Reps for her masterly grasp of foreign policy detail. She is known and loved worldwide. I have all the faith in the world in her abilities.
To the poster who alludes to "lying with dogs and getting fleas"...in reference to Hillary, all I can say, is you must have had blinders on if you didn't see the bow wows on your side, so I guess you're saying........
Also, to the poster alluding to why Hillary isn't the Pres. elect... keep this in mind: If all voters who had "wanted" to vote, could have voted and counted, Hillary won! If rural voters counted as much as urban voters, again, HRC won. According to exit polls, HRC most likely would have won by a larger margin the BO did.
The reason BO picked the cabinet members he did is because he is smart enough to know he doesn't know, and he needs them. HRC brought me around to vote for BO, but, make no mistake, I was and am, an ardent Hillary supporter.
wrong. Hillary was projected to beat mccain by 10 and Obama was projected to beat him by 20.
While I don't think bashing Clinton is helpful because she is a democrat and has done good work, I also don't buy into the Hillary is god thinking.
In reality she lost and she lost because she ran a bad campaign. period. end of story. Obama was the better candidate and ran a better campaign.
As a result Hillary ended up as SofS and that is not exactly peanuts.
I was a supporter of Obama's since he said he was thinking about running. And he was my senator as well.
And while we spent the primaries trashing each other's candidate, they have been over since June. Isn't it time to put it to rest and give each one their due and move on?
lafrance...
I was merely responding to an earlier poster who bashed Hillary.
But, since you elaborated, I must reply. You are not accurately responding to my post. Exit polls did indeed portend better for Hillary than for Obama, for what it's worth.
Yes, I will give credit to BO for getting young people fired up, and convincing them to tap their credit cards for him. He did run an impressive campaign, but he is still fortunate two states weren't counted, which would have almost certainly changed the outcome. In addition, from the end of Feb. forward, HRC beat BO handily on far less money, meaning she righted the ship, and ran an awesome campaign going away, for what its worth.
It is time to put it to rest, but I will still respond when a poster bashes Hillary without "knowing" her, only knowing an image that has been bottled and sold of her.
Hillary 's "mastery of foreign policy detail" lead her to vote for war with Iraq, and authority for Bush to attack Iran. She is not admired in the Senate, but deeply distrusted as a showboater and opportunist. She is known in the world only as Mrs. Bill Clinton, continuing to ride on the back of her famous husband.
Hillary Clinton is about HIllary Clinton. We need to put the selfish Bushes and Clintons behind us.
partyofone....
On Meet The Press, BO praised Bush's handling of the war, and also admitted he didn't know how he would have voted if he had been in the Senate, so why don't you stop with the "she voted for the war" redundancy!!! Maybe you know more then Gen. Petraeus, SOS Baker, Kissinger, Rice, Albright, but they all seem to admire and respect Sen. Clinton's knowledge and work ethic. She is most definitely admired in the Senate.
"Hillary Clinton is about Hillary Clinton." Oh, here we go again with the "she's too ambitious" crap!! BO was the most ambitious politician I have ever seen. There's never been a Presidential candidate who wasn't extremely ambitious!! It comes with the territory. Hillary has been involved in human rights and children's rights even before she met Bill Clinton. I'll bet most people don't know the "real" Hillary. Most don't know that when a staffer of hers became gravely ill, Hillary practically "lived" in the hospital, and when she couldn't be there, she never let a day go by without speaking to her. She has a humanity and a passion/compassion for the sick, wounded, impoverished that truly astounds me, as most politicians would be jaded by now. Hillary certainly has her faults, but I'd put her integrity up against any of them. Try putting any other national political figure under the same microscope Hillary has been under for years ad nauseum.
partyofone
Right on. Let's move beyond Bushes and Clintons.
And C. Kennedy as well. We need NEW people
with 21Century ideas who have not been in the
system and view it as their lifetime job.
The more different ideas that reverse some
paradigms we have lived with 180 degrees is what
this country needs right now.
Same oh, same oh is not an answer.
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