How much responsibility does Hillary bear for the deaths of half a million Iraqi children?

This is a reasonable question and one that she should be able to deal with if she is a serious candidate.

She claims experience from being in office, even foreign policy experience. So she cannot entirely disavow responsibility for this issue. Surely she could have persuaded Bill to change his policy of Iraqi sanctions, right?

Read about how the US caused the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_sanctions


Much of Iraq’s economic infrastructure was damaged from lack of resources due to the sanctions. Iraq's ability for aggression was also destroyed. The purpose was to coerce the Iraqi government to cooperate with the United Nations, to initiate an improvement in Iraq's previously aggressive foreign policy, and reduce human rights abuses.

Critics of the sanctions say that over a million Iraqis, disproportionately children, died as a result of them, <6> although other researchers concluded that the total was lower. <4> <7> <8> UNICEF announced that 500,000 child deaths have occurred as a result of the sanctions.<9> The sanctions resulted in high rates of malnutrition, lack of medical supplies, and diseases from lack of clean water. Chlorine, was desperately needed to disinfect water supplies, but it was banned from the country due to the potential that it may be used as part of a chemical weapon. On May 10, 1996, Madeleine Albright (U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations at the time) appeared on 60 Minutes and was confronted with statistics of half a million children under five having died as a result of the sanctions. She replied "we think the price is worth it", though in her 2003 autobiography she wrote of her response (answering a loaded question): <10>

after being elected.

I remember all too well how so many people thought W was a nice guy in 2000.

Obama was not against Bush's war?
Obama never said Reagan's polices were bad?

How many times does one have to repeat that all he said was that of the (recent) presidents, JFK and RR changed the direction of the country? How many ways does it have to twist and turn in the wind of distortion, extension, distraction?

was OK'd by UN.

The attempt to smear Hillary with children's deaths makes less sense than blaming Nader for the war.

Not very pro-life of her, aye?

maybe she will outdo the Bushes?

Let's see, here's what the scorecard might look like:

Poppy Bush (Gulf war + 2 years UN sanctions against Iraq) = 175,000 + 100,000 or so.
W. Bush (Iraq "War") = Hmmm, tough one. I'll go with 300,000 = Bush Total: 575,000

Bill Clinton (8 years of sanctions) = 400,000
Hillary (Bomblets + shared responsibity for Iraq sanctions) = 100,000

Clinton Total = 500,000

Bush wins! But maybe Hil still has a chance?

That is the first line of your link. UN sanctions, not Bill Clinton sanctions; and certainly not first lady sanctions. What a stupid thread.

I keep forgetting who's admin it was because she takes credit for so much of it.

because the sanctions impoverished to the point where many women could not go to school.
Literacy rates dropped after they had been improving.
And no-one did anything about it. Where were the missions of mercy?

Which HRC's ole' buddy Madeline "it was worth it" Albright ADMITTEDLY didn't lose a moment's sleep over. :thumbsdown: But why should we be surprised about Albright's cold philosphy when Condi Rice was her father's FAVORITE student? :wow: :(

*cue "All in the (Bush-Clinton?) Family Theme Song"

:thumbsdown:

How many at birth? By 1? By 2? By 3? Causes of death? Do they actually list America and Hillary on the death certificates?

How many children broken down by age and sex died annually for ten years before the holocaust of Bill and Hill? Causes?

How many children were born each year in the ten years before and during the holocaust of Bill and Hill?

In countries that use war and starvation as a method to regulate population rather than birth control, I can well believe that many children die annually. But do I buy your numbers because you're selling them? They don't mean a thing the way you present them. And if you accepted them without a better breakdown, you have no critical thinking skills whatsoever.

From the dispute page of the article in the OP.

You don't seem to have any problem repeating it, though, and then making some convoluted "six degrees of separation" connection between Condi Rice and Hillary Clinton.

Too funny.

You say "it's not true" with no countering facts at your siposal. The very definition of a "knee jerk" reaction with no basis in reality!

You make me laugh my ass off.

http://www.casi.org.uk/info/garfield/dr-garfield.html.

500,000 is the most commonly accepted number.

:shrug:

...and realizes that her vote for the war was only to secure her Senate seat. And that is really awful.

From the dispute page:

"Presenting the 500,000 deaths as proven fact, and as facts entirely accepted by the U.N., is wrong."

I don't know better and I KNOW FOR SURE that YOU don't.

Pretty hard to miss "The neutrality of this article is disputed." considering that it's the first line of the page you linked.

Don't let that stop you from posting data that has no basis in fact. That's the pattern.

If it was really in dispute, it wouldn't have been accepted.

You are making shit up now and looking silly.

I am going with the numbers available.

If you dispute them, find numbers from another agency.

Those numbers are from UNICEF for God's sake!

UNICEF! You are arguing with UNICEF, not with me.

"The two most reliable scientific studies on sanctions in Iraq are the 1999 report "Morbidity and Mortality Among Iraqi Children," by Columbia University's Richard Garfield, and "Sanctions and Childhood Mortality in Iraq," a May 2000 article by Mohamed Ali and Iqbal Shah in The Lancet. Garfield, an expert on the public-health impact of sanctions, conducted a comparative analysis of the more than two dozen major studies that have analyzed malnutrition and mortality figures in Iraq during the past decade. He estimated the most likely number of excess deaths among children under five years of age from 1990 through March 1998 to be 227,000. Garfield's analysis showed child mortality rates double those of the previous decade."

from

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011203/cortright
A Hard Look at Iraq Sanctions

sometimes i amaze myself about what i remember...

But even if we play that game... Get my point?

200,000 dead children under the age of 5 is still a lot of tiny, stick-like fingers poking at you in your deepest guilt-saoked nightmares -if you have the capacity for feeling that kind of emotion, that is.

and she's nothing, but nothing, to stop the genocide. Worse than nothing. She trots around tossing out PNAC terra soundbytes and endorsing torture. So the answer is, yes she is a murderer, just like her pathetic stooge of a husband.

but did they discuss rwanda and iraq? we will never know.

was NOT involved in ANY semblance of diplomacy or any other "tense" foreign relation type negotiations.

Dammit <stomping feet> HRC was in the WH and it counts because Bill tells us so! :crazy:

somethings are best left unsaid

but if she claims she had experience then she has to accept the good and bad.

if something in the Clinton years it was good and it's part of her "35 years of experience" and "making change".

if something in the Clinton years was bad then they default to "she was just the first lady".

A lot of people know no bounds upon their own hypocritical statements.

I win!

you and i are not supposed to notice that it does work both ways

They were even bigger "Agents of Change" than Reagan!!

Cause she is running on her husband's record!

And like it or not, it is a lot of baggage!

You cannot claim experience from something and at the same time claim that you were not involved.

The Repukes will bat her around like a fucking tennis ball in the GE.

She was only married to the guy giving the orders.

She's as guilty of those deaths to about the same ephemeral extent as the "pResidential experience" she claims she accrued because she was married to Slick Willie...

Taking that further, I knew a long, long time ago I would not reward any of the dipshits that voted YES on the IWR with my vote. Don't get me started on Kyl-Lieberman.

I like your style. The truth stings sometimes but it is important that it be heard.

Accountability 2008. Be there. ;)

After today's sham of a discussion about non-issues, I felt that we needed a dose of reality with all the spin.

This is who we are on the verge of electing to represent us.

T-R-U-T-H!

"Murder will out."

-Shakespeare (Hamlet)

Don't give them Pubs a Pass.

After Vietnam, many of us teenagers promised ourselves, "Never again!" Like Obama, I was against the Iraqi invasion from the very start. But that is of small comfort. We must get out of the Middle East asap.

WE ALL (all thoughtful Americans) bear "the burden" of our Nation going mad under The BushBotBorg. :(

It wasn't JUST sanctions. We bombed and bombed and bombed.

retributive/punitive sorties in enforcement of the no-fly zone."

What do you think of Chomsky as a linguist. Specifically with the slippery slope definition of language that he kept coming up with to make it so narrow as to only apply to humans?

than anyone else alive, or anyone else who has ever lived. That said, he's full of shit in many places (yeah, and my BS totally lets me call out the living God of my field ;)).

I think his schemata are extraordinarily powerful. I also think they're often practically useless. Most specifically, they aren't predicative of errors, nor are they useful for explaining human language development. His ideas of capital-L Language were groundbreaking (and in many ways predicted later developments in neuroscience) but, well...there's no neural analogue to most of the processes he posits, and many Chomskyist linguists seem (to me) more engaged in CYA to preserve the elegance of his theories than in actually attempting to explain human language.

However, I believe that language is--as far as we can tell--a purely human phenomenon. Other animals certainly have intelligence, and certain species very likely have self-awareness. However, their understanding of language seems to be heavily restricted--they understand signs/words/symbols, and understand them as abstractions of concrete objects or experiences. They can then use those symbols to convey experiences to others, or requests. However, that is the extent of their usage. It is unclear whether a chimp signing "juice" is doing so because they are forming a request, or rather because they have learned that when they make that sign to a person, juice is sometimes brought.

Now, there is some evidence of creative use of signs--say, combining "water bird" in reference to a duck. However, such evidence is scant, and there are numerous garbage signs produced; it's impossible to know what is a brilliant insight and what is happenstance.

Finally, though, my reasoning for excluding other animals from language. It's the same reason I believe Chomsky's theories are flawed, ironically--the wiring of the brain. Human language is not a process of general cognition; it takes place almost entirely in the left temporal lobe, using Wernicke's and Broca's areas. Lesions to those areas will permanently destroy speech abilities while leaving cognition otherwise intact. While patients might "learn" a few words, they will be learning them in much the same way chimpanzees do: slowly, with great difficulty, haltingly, with frequent errors, and seldom.

As far as I know, other animals do not possess the specialized language structures humans do, much as humans do not possess the navigational abilities of birds. As such, I'd say that while animals are often intelligent and capable of learning some degree of speech, they do not possess language.

I am a bit of an amateur primatologist and it seems clear to me that the chimps are capable of being creative with language in the way you described with your "water bird" example. Many such examples exist.

And crushing sanctions and a humiliating no-fly zone for 8 years while we pretty much bombed them continually.

take Personal Responsibility for any DAMN THING, but I'm saddened FOR my beloved country that our Intelligence Agencies and the Military are being abused - creating a culture of moral depravity. The foregoing is NOT the America that I love ... I want us to make amends ... as a nation and serve more humanitarian aims.

Yes, I feel responsible even though I was against this invasion from the beginning. Perhaps also because I'm a liberal catholic (way far from a model one), I can feel guilty about almost anything. :blush:

But seriously, we must take all these senseless deaths PERSONALLY so that we can find the strength to help change our culture to something that we can be proud of.

If Hillary wins, she will have to deal with this and much more.

Since she IS the inevitable candidate, this is a good chance for you all to hone your talking points amongst ourselves!

Come on, it'll be good for you! Step up to the plate.

"A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"

--Shakespeare's Macbeth

I read the title and didn't read the post

Hate me as some do, I am honest

I thought I was responding to something else

I jumped the gun here

Sorry

For examples, see the OP.

We Americans have been murdering Iraqis pretty much without pause since 1990.

Obama said the word "Reagan" and did not spit on his grave, almost as if we progressives could admit to having something to learn from the political advances conservatives have made in the past 30 years. Heresy!

I just wanted to put that fact out there. You ask a very thought-provoking question that I don't have an answer to right now.

Not that I excuse them because of that. But Americans are partly to blame for being on the wrong side of the issue. Politicians are spineless cowards and they will either follow the money and the polls.

and I would hope that our next President would do that as quickly and safely as is possible.

But they don't want to "lose" the war. It is likely we will see the next President (if they are a Democrat) balancing those two.

Governing is pretty much a calculation of what you have to do to be re-elected. That calculation involves some progressive things and some not so progressive things if you are a Democrat. Either way, it leaves you with very little room to do things just because you want to do them.

Now, granted, there are ways to govern to the left and still be re-elected, but you have to change the equation. Paul Wellstone voted to the left of his constituents on many issues but in the process amassed an army of dedicated supporters behind him. Also, he really fought hard for his constituents and so if they didn't agree with him on every issue, they would still vote for him because they knew that they had an advocate for the issues that were most important to them.

But you can't just govern to the left and hope that voters come around to your position or just hope that voters reward you for taking a principled stand. That's how you get tossed out on your ass.

That is why I think it is so crucial that Obama is reaching out to young people. Young people have less money and are more socially liberal than their older counterparts. The more young people that vote, the more to the left we can govern.

After she had her ass handed to her in her last and final attempt to live up to her youthful ideals (namely the Health Care fix she promised in 1992), she quicly realized theat you have to play ball to get to the top. And she always wanted to get there.

So... poltical expediency is precisely what she is made up of.

Good luck with that "Change" thing if she wins.

Most Americans do want health care reform and the Clintons thought that they could get it done and thus they campaigned on it and attempted it. Had it actually succeeded, Bill would've had a much easier time getting re-elected and would've had a much greater legacy.

Unfortunately, Americans are sheep and they bought into the Harry and Louise ads in an instant. It didn't help that they chose to go about it by working within the system instead of trying to win by popular appeal. But the politicians ultimately reacted to popular opinion, once popular opinion was changed by the health care industry.

divide the number of dead children by the number of votes for the war in both parties of congress.


I am guessing ... oh.... 30,000 or so give or take a few.

:nopity:

You don't care at all about those children. Nor does anyone else among the bourgeois Left who weeps crocodile tears over the children of Iraq. For years, they have flaunted their conscience like cleavage, while polishing their reputations as radical thinkers.

"Surely she could have persuaded Bill to change his policy of Iraqi sanctions, right?"

Just Bill's? You say Bill Clinton alone was responsible for the deaths caused by the sanctions? What about the Congress, George H. W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Parliament, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Nations, and Saddam Hussein?

I might be wrong. You might care deeply. But then, you might know about Clinton's efforts to increase humanitarian aid, not simply his failures. You would have some idea about the details of the sanctions. About the fights in Congress, Parliament, the UN General Assembly and Security Council. Stuff that was even on the TV news every night.

You might at least know when the sanctions were put into place.

But you don't. Because it's not really about the children at all; it's all about your candidate.

It's about a sectarian political beauty pageant. A primary election within a single political party in the United States of America.

Half a million children died, and children are dying still, but there's a candidate to smear, and an election to win.

--p!

This is totally "in character" of many who proudly identify with the Clintonian DLC whose taken our Democratic Party to the bat shit insane corporate right. Yes, blame us "bourgeois Left" for being people who TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for the fact that we, including the DLC's "fading rock star" Bill Clinton, must continue to strive for change.

Personally? I've done all I can that a non-millionaire can do to influence my legislators. Don't dismiss me with insults, as IF, being humanitarian and acting in "a liberal manner" is something that DEMOCRATS should be ashamed of.

The right wing of our democratic party (the DLC), is sounding more and more like "the RNC" since Hill and Bill left the Executive Branch.

IMO, it's just plain "wrong" for fellow Democrats to default to *blaming others* (look everywhere but inward) instead of ALSO taking responsibility for one's own failings. The foregoing behavior is NOT "a weakness" but an demonstration of "maturity."

But hell, it's seemingly NEVER any damn responsibility for The Clintons because they are "victims" of the vast right wing conspiracy. IMO, the foregoing meme is getting both old and tired. :thumbsdown:

I think these intra- and inter- party partisan battles are are FAUX play-time waltzes for the true *power elite* of our country. I think that our country's political system only recognizes those with lots of that "mean green" as WORTHY to have a voice in our government. WE MUST do what we can to persevere and continue to counter the greedy players who don't give a shit about either homeless veterans NOR genocide via Cluster Bombs.

Your implication that I do not care for the lives of dead Iraqi children is a disgusting insult that tells much more about you than it does about me.

Why the fuck would I care more about my "candidate" than I would about the lives of half a million children!!!?

You sicken me with your snide implication!

I suppose that is what Hillary supporters are willing to do though. Smear, smear, smear so that they NEVER have to address the real questions. Very nice.

You'll still have to deal with it in the GE.

to consider. :scared:

We must continue to convey to our political leaders --->

"Armageddon is NOT an Exit Strategy." :crazy:

Ask Albright.
Better yet,
ask Hillary.

After all they have been through with the war, they still talk about those sanctions.

Imagine YOUR 5 year old dying of malnutrition or malaria or cholera or some other third world disease.

And what was it for? What did it achieve?

Maybe I should start a new thread on that: "What did the Clinton's Iraq Sanctions Achieve?"