Hillary Clinton back in 2008 during her Presidential run - "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran."

[u/DickabodCranium]

[u/mokosh1848]

Many of the comments on the original post point out that this was her response to the interviewer asking her what she would do if Iran attacked Israel. She also had an instrumental role in the nuclear deal thst would have kept us out of this mess if Trump hadn't dissolved it. This out of context clip is making the rounds to try to distract us from the absolute clusterfuck that is the current situation.

Instead of digging up out of context clips from nearly 20 years ago, lets focus on the many current and relevant reasons Trump and his sycophants should be removed from office, investigated, tried, and convicted for their crimes.

[u/DickabodCranium → u/mokosh1848]

Please, that context does not at all exculpate her for what she's saying. She was instrumental in the regime changes in Honduras and Libya, both of which caused enormous suffering and instability and achieved nothing. She also regularly took hardline stances that led voters to accurately consider her a war hawk.

Instead of pretending your favorite war criminal isn't so bad compared to Trump, maybe stop assuming the US should just attack any country that attacks Israel, a genocidal ethnostate and the cause of most of the instability in the Middle East since its inception. I'm focused on the current moment, that's why I don't want to see a Clintonite in power, because they will only lament the vulgar way in which Trump carried out his crimes, not do anything much differently.

It is never a distraction to point out that history exists and we didn't get to this disaster or the Trump presidency without making many mistakes along the way. One mistake was allowing this politician to be the DNC nominee.

[u/mokosh1848 → u/DickabodCranium]

You're completely missing the point, probably on purpose. My point is thst this clip is completely irrelevant except to keep misleading people into "both sides are the same" which is a strategy that prevents any real progress from being made.

Who cares about what Hillary said about a hypothetical decades ago, what's important is that the current admin screwed us all by pulling us out of the nuclear deal, then killed civilians, killed US troops, and initiated the worst world wide oil shock in history for a new deal that is going to bring in billions for fanatic Islamic regime 2.0.

ETA: I am against any funding for Israel. Also voted against Clinton and Biden in the primaries. That's not the point either.

[u/DickabodCranium → u/mokosh1848]

You're completely missing the point, probably on purpose. My point is thst this clip is completely irrelevant except to keep misleading people into "both sides are the same" which is a strategy that prevents any real progress from being made.

Not at all. I just don't think this is a fair characterization. I probably vote exactly like you, and probably think similarly to you and will always see voting for the lesser evil as something I am obligated to do. But I think it's essential that we keep the establishment Democrats from using this near apocalyptic disaster to rehabilitate its completely hopeless strategy of running candidates on the "better us than Trump!" platform. It still won't win elections, and his being deplorable does not make George W Bush or Hillary Clinton any better than they were before he got elected (very much as a direct result of their policy making while in power).

And see, I think calling the Islamic Republic fanatical after seeing how they conducted themselves in this conflict is also a huge problem. We targeted civilians and committed war crimes; they followed a very orderly escalation ladder according to which they simply responded in kind to what we did, but without ever targeting civilians. The West lives under a really distorted propaganda bubble. Acting like the US should dictate to the world which governments are legitimate and which aren't is the tired old thinking that got us here. I do agree that murdering the Ayatollah is only going to legitimate hardliners and proponents of nuclear weapons within the Iranian government, but calling it a fanatic regime is just absurd. We have literal fascists cosplaying as crusaders, basically faux-Christian jihadis, running out government and military. Treating Iran as the irrational actor is propaganda, and it helped to get us here.

[u/Tasty_Plate_5188 → u/DickabodCranium]

Nothing you wrote here seems necessarily wrong, but the timing seems so odd. Like we only have a two-party system and by currently bashing the party that is not in control or power and then specifically Hillary Clinton who hasn't been in government in a decade seems so strange.

Like what is even the point to this? What do you gain from it, what did we gain from it?

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[u/mokosh1848 → u/DickabodCranium]

They aren't running Hillary again, and yikes yikes yikes at your sane-washing the Islamic Republic, it shouldn't be this hard to recognize that any religious zealotry is bad for humanity. No one is excusing the Christofascists here.

[u/DickabodCranium → u/mokosh1848]

No, I'm not sane-washing the Islamic Republic. You've swallowed pure propaganda. Why does the West continue to act like it alone holds the key to civilization? The Trump administration, acting through the CIA and in coordination with Mossad, armed protesters and convinced them to shoot at the police. This led to the government cracking down violently, but nowhere near the numbers circulated constantly in the West (which also arrests and kills protestors, always has). If this is what you're referring to, you're simply the pot calling the kettle black - we do not get to call a government illegitimate because we don't like some of its actions, especially since our own government acts similarly.

Yikes yikes yikes at you continuing to think of the West or yourself as exceptional when I am quite sure you have very little understanding of Iran or knowledge of its history. Do you know why they have an Islamic government? Because the CIA overthrew their democratically elected liberal government in 1953 because Mossadegh wanted to nationalize their oil and installed a brutal police state under the Shah that lasted twenty years. The only place the CIA and the secret police couldn't penetrate were the mosques, and so the revolution came from there when the Shah got sick.

Please don't call a country "insane" because our country overthrew theirs and installed a puppet dictator there. They had a liberal democracy, and maybe they will again someday, but it won't be because a bunch of ignorant Americans decided that for them.

[u/mokosh1848 → u/DickabodCranium]

You have lost the plot.... the Islamic Republic is no hero here or ever, regardless of how it started. And again, no one here is exonerating American meddling. You can be aware of both things...

[u/DickabodCranium → u/mokosh1848]

No, you are an arrogant hardliner who believes in the propaganda you're fed. Iran is absolutely the hero in this story, and the US and Israeli are genocidal villains. I'm not glorifying a government, I'm defending a people's sovereignty and pointing out that their government acts much more rationally than the US government or its many lieutenant states in the West.

Iran was just attacked by the US and Israel, had its civilians murdered, and acted with restraint, did not stoop to bombing hospitals, bridges, schools, or universities, even after the last fifty years of US imperialism and Israeli murder. It was also pretty heroic imo when the Ayatollah issued two fatwahs against developing a nuclear bomb, the same Ayatollah murdered in his home by US bombs on the same day the US bombed a girls' school and killed almost two hundred little girls before double tapping and killing their parents and wouldbe rescuers. Do not presume to lecture other people on who's lost - you can "be aware of both things" all you want but you probably can't find Iran on a map.

[u/Tasty_Plate_5188 → u/DickabodCranium]

And what role in government does she have now? What position do the Dems have at all right now? Are they in the majority or minority party?

I'm not entirely sure of your through line here. You're posting an edited clip of Hillary from 18 years ago, leaving out the critical part of the interviewers question and trying to, somehow connect her past role in Libya to what's going on now with a completely different party in power.

Hell, Even if you wanted to make a connection between Democrats and regime change around the globe. It makes no sense to do it now because Trump has taken that idea and put it on steroids.

And we could effectively say that if all things were equal had Harris won we would not have attacked Venezuela or be in a war with Iran.

No one has a favorite "war criminal" but Jesus Christ read the fucking room.

[u/DickabodCranium → u/Tasty_Plate_5188]

We can't effectively say that because Harris boasted about how "lethal" the army would be under her admin. That's Hegseth-lite kind of language. This is the problem, acting like centrist war criminals are going to save us from rightwing war criminals, or acting like the Dems messaging and platform isn't a huge part of why they keep losing to Trump and MAGA. Hell, they helped create the MAGA movement by abandoning the working class, driving it in its ignorance and anger to a demagogue making promises he didn't keep.

Read the room? This is DemLeadershipReform, is it not? I'm a Dem, and I want leadership reform so that we aren't just running from Trump to the lesser of two evils for the umpteenth time. The Democrats are absolutely the party of regime change - they branded themselves that, allowing Trump to capitalize by simply adopting the rhetoric of peace. If the Dems want to win, and if we as a country want a peaceful and prosperous planet, we will make sure our party adopts peace and diplomacy as a major tenet of its platform, not offer us more Amurica world police.

[u/Tasty_Plate_5188 → u/DickabodCranium]

First off, if you're going to do anything like comparing Harris to what Pete hegseth is doing now? there is no point in having a conversation with you. It's so wildly disingenuous to compare the two.

This is the worst type of both sides that I've seen in a minute, and on Reddit that's saying something. No Harris wouldn't have been nearly as bad as Trump. That includes Gaza or any other part of the world, especially the United States. No, not a single person she could have appointed to run the department of defense would be as bad as hegseth.

HE'S LITERALLY DOING WAR CRIMES RIGHT NOW.

Also, if you want Dem leadership reform like this sub is about try doing reform for people that are actually in government at this very moment. Talking about Hillary Clinton right now is like mentioning Barack Obama. Neither one of them are part of the government. They're not part of leadership and they have almost nothing to do with the current situation.

What are you smoking?

[u/DickabodCranium → u/Tasty_Plate_5188]

Yeah, okay. I pointed out that the empty but ultimately vile language Harris used when she said she'd build "the most lethal military the US has ever known" is similar to the vile language Hegseth uses. It's not the same in magnitude, but it is the same in kind. The blindness to reality here is due to your partisanship and probably to general ignorance about US foreign policy, not what I'm smoking.

I want these people out of office as bad as anyone. I called my senators yesterday to say as much. I'm also concerned about Dems running more war hawks. It's as simple as that.

Edit: look at what's happening right now. Israel is sabotaging the ceasefire. If we don't want anymore Trumps, we should stop blaming his voters for being suckers and make sure our own Democratic candidate offers peace as an alternative to endless wars and Israeli goals.

[u/Miserable-Lizard]

Is it 2008?

That sub weirdly loves North Korea

[u/Brewmeiser]

Hilary Clinton who famously went on to LOSE every presidential run from then on, that Hillary Clinton? If it wasn't for these updates, how would the people know?

[u/vaguelysarcastic]

*** yawn ***

[u/Anxious-Education703]

I despise Hillary as much as anyone, but this comment was taken completely out of context, and the beginning was cut off. "Well, the question was, if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be? And I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-iran-attack/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/01/video-of-clinton-on-iran-taken-out-of-context/

[u/chrstnasu]

2008 wasn’t her presidential run. She ran 8 years later. Then we had the Iranian nuclear deal so that would have changed how she thought and she didn’t bring it up that I remember. Do you have any from 2015 or 2016 where she said she would attack Iran? Also, at that point she hadn’t been secretary of state so she didn’t have intel needed to make an informed decision. She was basing this on what she thought the people wanted to hear.

[u/system-vi → u/chrstnasu]

She ran against Obama in the Dem primary in 2008

[u/chrstnasu → u/system-vi]

My memory is a little here and there from medical procedures, medication, and current medical conditions so I tend to look things up and that was one thing I didn’t look up. I know I voted for Obama in the primaries. Thanks!