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Why Hillary Should Never Be President

Meditations - From Martin LeFevre in California

Why Hillary Should Never Be President

Let him have his delusion, history will denounce George W. Bush for the US/UK invasion of Iraq, which has killed tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, and made refugees out of millions more.

But history will also denounce Bill Clinton for knowingly and willfully prohibiting not only the US government but also the United Nations from acting to stop the genocide in Rwanda. That moral bankruptcy set the stage for Bush Junior.

The question facing the American people is whether we will put an end to the Bush-Clinton era, or we’ll opt for an illusory, nostalgic return to the comparatively halcyon ‘90’s.

Though she wasn’t part of policy discussions in the White House “Situation Room,” Hillary Clinton is also culpable for the Clinton Administration’s criminal negligence with regard to the Rwandan genocide. During Bill’s eight years in office, Hillary was in the unique position of being both outside the pressure cooker of power, and inside Bill’s deepest thinking on the issues.

As Africa Action said in releasing declassified US government documents detailing how US policymakers chose to be "bystanders" during the genocide that decimated Rwanda, “contrary to later public statements, the US lobbied the UN for a total withdrawal of UN forces in Rwanda in April 1994.”

After engineering Gulf War I, Bush Senior’s guilt-laden debacle in Somalia gave rise to the Clinton Administration’s foot-dragging in Bosnia, which in turn gave rise to the Rwandan genocide, which in a perverse but undeniable line, allows the slow-motion genocide in Darfur to go on. The Bush Administration even called it genocide, yet the United States, ‘the sole remaining superpower,’ continues to misuse its power in the world and do nothing, while blaming the UN for inaction!

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Bill Clinton often said that the American people were getting a ‘two-fer’ with Hillary—a two for the price of one presidency. Now Hillary is selling her candidacy the same way, running a campaign straight out of Bill’s playbook. They can’t have it both ways. Either we would be getting Bill back with Hillary up front; or it was a dual presidency in the ‘90’s and will be again if Hillary wins.

“No one wants to sit by and see mass killing. It’s going on every day! Thousands of people are dying every day…our presence there is not stopping it. And there is no potential opportunity I can imagine where it could. This is a [Rwandan] problem — we cannot save the [Rwandans] from themselves.” Substituting ‘Rwandans’ for ‘Iraqis,’ that’s what Hillary said in March of this year.

Hillary knew what was going on, had the President’s ear, and said nothing in 1994. If she’s going to run her candidacy as a ‘two for one,’ as Bill did with her, then it follows that she bears responsibility for this shameful chapter in American foreign policy.

Given the havoc and horror the Bush Administration unleashed in Iraq, the American people have a responsibility for what happens there now. Barack Obama takes the same view as Hillary about actual and probable ethnic cleansing/genocide in Iraq, and it’s wrong. America’s devolving, de facto police action should be put under UN authority.

Many American feminists say ‘Hillary isn’t perfect, but we’ve voted for an awful lot of men, and none of them were perfect…you [men] had your turn; now it’s ours.’ Wasn’t one of the goals of feminism choosing the best person for the job?

Bill and Hillary cannot be separated. After serving in the cad’s shadow for decades, Hillary will not triumph. If the Democrats nominate the ‘lawyer-like’ Hillary, who sings the middle class blues from Bill’s songbook, they will probably hand the White House to the Republicans again. Perhaps that’s as it should be. Given the hole that the Repubs have dug for America in domestic and foreign policy, buckets of poop should fall on their laps when the chickens come home to roost.

But comeuppance makes a bitter cup of tea for anyone. And besides, the urgent necessity is for America to turn the corner, not to make sure the bastards (Republicans or men in general) get theirs.

No matter what happens, ‘American leadership’ is history. We cannot regain what the Clintons and the Bushes squandered. Those who build their lives on a hyped place called hope are destined for dejection.

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- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.

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