Heard Around the Hillary-Sphere

In addition to the Sunday Evening Photo Bomb, I am going to add a daily round-up of Hillary Clinton news outside my coverage of her bilaterals, trilaterals, speeches and Town Halls.

So here we go, the first installment of Heard Around the Hillary-Sphere:

Props to Secretary Clinton for not missing a thing- here is her statement to the people of the Bahamas on their Independence Day:

On behalf of the United States, I would like to extend my warm congratulations to the people of The Bahamas as they celebrate their thirty-sixth anniversary of independence. I hope this summer’s Junkanoo festivities were worthy of the occasion, and I congratulate the participants of this year’s competition.

We appreciate the strong partnership we enjoy with The Bahamas in areas ranging from law enforcement cooperation to energy security to environmental protection. I hope our shared commitment to democracy and peace continues to join our nations together in friendship.

And on the journalists imprisoned in North Korea:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday said “everyone is very sorry” about an incident that resulted in North Korea detaining two U.S. journalists on accusations of illegally entering the country.
She also repeated the hope initially expressed by the State Department on Thursday that the two be granted amnesty, which was the first time that the U.S. government had acknowledged the possibility the two women committed an offense.

Laura Ling and Euna Lee of the U.S. media group Current TV, were arrested in March near the China-North Korea border while reporting on the trafficking of women. They were convicted of “great crimes” in June and sentenced to 12 years hard labor.

Asked about the case by a State Department worker, Clinton sighed and said: “The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened.

“What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible,” she said.

Lisa Ling told Sacramento, California, NBC affiliate KCRA that her sister Laura told her by telephone on Tuesday that she and colleague Lee had violated North Korean law and needed help from the U.S. government to secure amnesty.
Before Thursday, the State Department had called for their release on humanitarian grounds and had not acknowledged the possibility of any wrongdoing.

Then there is this highly critical and skewed [in my opinion] commentary on Secretary Clinton and Pres. Obama’s mid-east strategy:

In every administration, a point comes when the secretary of state either will assert him/herself and define U.S. Middle East policy, or allow the Arabists in the State Department to seize the agenda and set it on a path that misplaces attention on the Palestinian issue and seeks to solve it by one-sided pressure on Israel. The test has come early in the Obama administration, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears to have failed by adopting the illogical view that the Palestinian issue must be solved, or the Arab world will not cooperate in the effort to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Clinton’s statement that Arab officials “believe that Israel’s willingness to reenter into discussions with the Palestinian Authority strengthens them in being able to deal with Iran” was prompted by misleading reports from Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was going to insist that the Iranian issue be resolved before pursuing peace talks with the Palestinians. In fact, Netanyahu has made clear that he is prepared to negotiate with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, but that the Iranian threat is the overarching concern for his government.

[snip]

ear of Iran has grown, especially as Arab states have become more skeptical that the international community will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. One indication of regional anxiety is that at least 12 countries either have announced plans to explore atomic energy or signed nuclear cooperation agreements. Only the naive would believe they all suddenly decided that they need to generate nuclear power.

Our Arab allies desperately want us to take measures to stop Iran’s drive for regional hegemony. Unlike the Arabists at the State Department, they are clear-eyed enough to recognize that the Palestinian issue will not be solved before the danger from Iran reaches critical mass.

Clinton apparently is so anxious to show fealty to her department, however, that she is feeding the obsession with the Palestinian issue at the expense of broader U.S. interests. In doing so, she is following the missteps of her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, who caved in to the Arabists and persisted in a quixotic, last-minute quest for peace that predictably achieved the same result as the prior 60 years of State Department-inspired peace initiatives – failure. A major consequence was to convince the Arab states that George W. Bush had lost his nerve and was unwilling to confront Iran.

Ok, in my opinion there is so much wrong with the above that I don’t know where to begin. I could probably begin by saying the use of the term “Arabist” is being used in a derogatory manner and as a result, I find it difficult to take the commentary seriously in terms of being any sort of rational discussion of the reality of the prospects for mid-east peace. I can’t stand anti-semitism and I can’t stand anti-Arab sentiment either, no matter how subtle.

I left a lengthy comment in response at the website where the commentary is posted and as of yet, (about 3 hours later) it still isn’t showing up on the site so perhaps it was censored out? Who knows. Anyway, here is the comment [more or less] I left at the website:

“I am wondering who all these “Arabists” at the State Dept are? And please don’t say “George Mitchell”. You refer to “Arabists” in the plural so I assume there must be *legions* of them so I look forward to hearing who all these people are.

Secretary Clinton has a long history of pro-Israel advocacy and to simply paint her as some tool of a secret “Arabist” agenda, is just as offensive as claiming this or that administration is the tool of AIPAC with a secret zionist agenda.

Military and security experts warn that attacking Iran will destabilize the Mid-East in a way that could make the Iraq War look like child’s play. Another preemptive military attack on a Muslim nation could understandably look like a) a violation of international law and b) an attempt by the US and Israel to not only prevent a nuclear weapons program but much like with Iraq, to create a new bases for military operations in the region and get a much-desired hand on Iran’s oil.

Question-Could it possibly be that Israel started a nuclear arms race in the mid-east and what are the consequences of that? I am in no way implying Israel does not have the right to defend itself nor am I implying that very serious threats to it don’t exist. That said, the 800lb gorilla in the middle of the room is the taboo topic of Israel’s own nuclear arsenal.

The US invaded Iraq under the pretense of prevent the “imminent threat” posed by Saddam’s alleged nuclear weapons program, but gee, no such program continued to exist because although Saddam intermittently kicked weapons inspectors out of the country, the IAEA was able throughout the late 80’s and early 90’s to essentially thwart Saddam’s nuclear ambitions. But we invaded anyway and created a volatile situation in the Mid-East and provided a *wonderful* recruiting tool for Musliim extremists. What short and long term effects do you think would present themselves if we preemptively attacked Iran’s alleged nuclear sites? It would likely alienate the few friends the US and Israel have in the region (like Jordan, Egypt) and escalate into full-blown war.”

Ok, onward and upward.

A refreshingly positive assessment in the WaPo, of Secretary Clinton and President Obama’s strategy to bring about the end of the crisis in Central America (ie. with ousted Honduran President M. Zelaya):

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are on the verge of achieving their own coup in Honduras and advancing American interests with a deftness not seen from Washington in many years.

The president’s reference to Honduras during his trip to Moscow reflects how the small Central American country is but a pawn as the administration pushes the reset button globally and in the hemisphere.

Justice may not be totally served in Honduras, but the country is likely to end up better off anyway.

[snip]

Clinton, meanwhile, working quietly with Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and other moderate countries, has brought the two opposing Honduran camps together in a mediation with one of the grand old men of Latin America, Costa Rican Oscar Arias, a Nobel Peace laureate.

There is now genuine movement toward a peaceful resolution of the crisis.

The United States, long seen as a bully in the region, is suddenly being seen as respectful and wise. The flummoxed Chávez could only come up with a patently hilarious formula in which the “Yankee empire” was still the villain in Honduras but Obama may not be responsible because he is “more like a prisoner of the empire.” [emphasis added]

Heh. Nice try Chavez, but your efforts to triangulate the US have failed, miserably.