Hillary Clinton: Experience in watching genocide ignored or just lying in wait?

Christopher Hitchens launched a scathing attack on Hillary Clinton for her economy with the truth regarding a trip to Bosnia in 1996:

“She’s being punished, not for one episode of ‘mis-speaking’, but a whole record of dishonesty. In Bosnian terms it’s more disgraceful than many remember. In 1992, Bill Clinton ran against George Bush Snr promising to help the Bosnians survive genocide — then repeatedly went back on his word. (Locals dubbed the emergency graveyard dug on a Sarajevo soccer field ‘The Clinton Cemetery’.)”

In essence Clinton alleged that she had made the trip to Bosnia, considered too dangerous for husband president Bill Clinton, and landed amid sniper fire from which she had to take evasive action. She later claimed, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that she had misspoke herself.

Swiftboats II — The Hillary Clinton Saga?

Times of London columnist Gerard Baker observes:

“The Bosnia misspeak, unnecessary as it was, revealed much, however. It helped to expose a much bigger untruth Mrs Clinton has been peddling throughout the Democratic primary campaign — that her time in the White House means she has the necessary foreign policy experience to be president.

“First ladies don’t acquire real foreign policy experience. We know that Mrs Clinton did not, as she claimed, play a large role in the Northern Ireland peace process; that she was not, as she claimed, a key voice in counsels on the Balkans; and that she did not even have security clearance in the White House for the most sensitive of conversations about national security.”

What is of significance to me is the fact that while she was the first lady her husband was fiddling while Bosnia was burning. Of even more significance, from an African perspective, was her husband’s refusal to intervene in Rwanda despite being fully aware of the genocide that was taking place there.

In Rory Carroll’s article for the Guardian in March 2004, he confirms that the release of formerly classified documents show the level of Bill Clinton’s awareness.

Let’s put this into some sort of perspective — Hillary Clinton is not your average first lady — she’s a career politician. Accordingly, even though she may not have had full security clearance, as Gerard Baker says, she keeps herself fully posted on current affairs, which includes events taking place around the world.

It would be very interesting to hear her take on the events in Bosnia and Rwanda in light of the fact that she was first lady while they were taking place. What, for example, would she do to avoid a repeat of inaction during these kinds of genocides, in light of her policies on intervention and her “experience” of watching them being ignored, while her husband was in office?

As we know, Bill Clinton apologised to Rwandans for his failure to intervene in the form of a lie. He claimed ignorance of the events, which we know was not true. Regarding Bosnia, Hillary herself, as we have seen, seems to have a very distorted memory — where she recalls ducking sniper fire, the evidence suggests flowers and friendly faces.

As Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson suggests, Hillary makes it up as she goes along.

Dick Morris of The Hill sets out just how badly Hillary bends the truth, not only in the Bosnian misspeak but in general, in his article “Hillary’s list of lies”.

“The USA Today/Gallup survey clearly explains why Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) is losing. Asked whether the candidates were ‘honest and trustworthy’, Sen John McCain (R-Ariz) won with 67%, with Sen Barack Obama (D-Ill) right behind him at 63. Hillary scored only 44$, the lowest rating for any candidate for any attribute in the poll.”

Americans are growing tired of the Clinton saga and, with the enormity of the tasks facing the leader of the most powerful country in the world, the very least they — and indeed the rest of us — should expect is someone that is considered honest and trustworthy.

To my mind, that excludes Hillary.