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Why There Should Be Dem. Pres. Primaries in '16: Hillary Clinton's Two Foreign-Policy Catastrophes

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Eric Zuesse

 

The State Department failed to act. On 2 February 2013, the Washington Post bannered  "Alleged Terrorism Ties Foil Some Afghan Interpreters' U.S. Visa Hopes,"  and Kevin Sieff in Kabul reported that, "As the American military draws down its forces in Afghanistan and more than 6,000 Afghan interpreters seek U.S. visas, the problem is threatening to obstruct the applications of Afghans who risked their lives to serve the U.S. government." What kind of lesson is this teaching to interpreters and other local employees of the U.S. missions in unstable foreign countries? Helping the U.S. could be terminally dangerous.

 

Finally, it should also be noted that Hillary's record as the chief administrator at the State Department was also poor. The State Department's own  Accountability Review Board Report on Benghazi Attack  said: "In the months leading up to September 11, 2012, security in Benghazi was not recognized and implemented as a "shared responsibility' in Washington, resulting in stove-piped discussions and decisions on policy and security. Key decisions ... or non-decisions in Washington, such as the failure to establish standards for Benghazi and to meet them, or the lack of a cohesive staffing plan, essentially set up Benghazi." That's failure at the very top. It's not in Libya. It's not even in Africa. It's in "Washington."

 

Who, at the State Department in "Washington," had "buck stops here" authority and power? Hillary Clinton.

 

Republicans are obsessed with the Benghazi failure, because it reflects negatively upon her but not on themselves. However, Hillary's real and important failures reflected negatively upon Republicans also, because these failures culminated actually Republican foreign-policy objectives, and dashed Democratic (and democratic) policy-objectives. This is why Republicans focus instead upon Hillary's Benghazi mess. And it's also why there need to be Democratic Presidential primaries in 2016.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010,  and of  CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that (more...)
 
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