07 | 25 | 2008
Hillary's Foreign Policy "Experience" Questioned PDF Print E-mail
Written by Tony   
Thursday, 20 March 2008 06:52

Certainly Barrack Obama's foreign policy experience is about as extensive as mine.  Further, his leadership experience is about on par with the local dog catcher's since he has never lead anything more than the few people that make up his Senate office staff. 

Now Hillary of course runs around the campaign trail touting her foreign policy "experience" and how that makes her so much more qualified to be President.  Almost the same aruguments made about Obama's experience could be made about hers as well.  The difference though is that Hillary continually touts how much she has done already in terms of foreign relations, primarily as First Lady, presumably while Bill was otherwise engaged with Monica.  Some of what she touts...

Case 1 - She claims, "I negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo."  Quite a tremedous achievement.  However, on her recently released schedules from her days as first lady, it shows she met for 30 minutes in Washington on April 21, 1999, with the Macedonian ambassador to the United States, followed by her May 14, 1999, trip to the Balkans.  Hmmm.  Don't expect that experience justifies her comments.

Case 2 - Just this last week she repeated her claim about having to "duck sniper fire" during her 1996 visit to Bosnia.  Wow!  That is pretty scary and I feel for her.  Then again...  The comedian Sinbad who was on the trip with her has ridiculed the idea.  Further, the Media Research Center has scanned the coverage at the time by reporters who were on the trip and found no mention of a shooting of any kind.  Certainly the First Lady coming under fire would have been a big deal if it were true!  Clinton has also said there was no welcome ceremony and "we just ran with our heads down."  Hmmm.  CBS news footage of the trip shows her walking right beside Chelsea and smiling the whole way.  Further, it shows her being greeted by the acting Bosnian president and some school children. 

Case 3 - Probably her most repeated claim is that, ""I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland," which she recently touted again on CNN.  In theory she helped broker the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 that brought much needed peace to the area.  Negotiators that were directly involved in the event have said that her role was completely peripheral and that she played no part in the gruelling political talks over the years.   Just last week, Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, the Nobel Prize winner who really did negotiate peace said, "I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player." 

In the end the fact is neither Hillary or Barrack have any foreign policy experience worth mentioning.  They have either sat behind a desk, rode the coat tails of a spouse, or supervised Senate office staff - not any sort of true credentials. 

 
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