by B. R. GOWANI
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flanked by President Barack Obama (on left) and her husband former President Bill Clinton. PHOTO/Examiner
In the United States, usually, the former presidents avoid criticizing the White House occupant while he/she(?) (not yet) is in the office. Former President Bill Clinton, however, did recently criticize President Barack Obama for not getting involved in the Syrian conflict.
The recent poll conducted by the NBC TV and Wall Street Journal show a mere 15% of the people showing their support for the United States intervention in Syria. Now how does Bill interpret people’s opposition? He has this to say:
“What the American people are saying when they tell you not to do these things, they’re not telling you not to do these things.”
The above sentence has an eerie similarity to Rumsfeld’s famous “unknown unknowns” statement:
There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know.
But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.
The basic motive of the above sentences was/is to ignore the views of the majority of the people by making confusing and contradictory statements that are pure lies: the second one was to defend the lies used in waging an illegal and destructive 2003 war against Iraq whereas the first one is a misinterpretation of people’s intent so the Obama administration could be pushed into a new conflict.
Then bill adds:
“… I don’t mean that a leader should go out of his way or her way to do the unpopular thing, I simply mean when people are telling you ‘no’ in these situations, very often what they’re doing is flashing a giant yellow light and saying, ‘For God’s sakes, be careful, tell us what you’re doing, think this through, be careful.”
The “no” is an absolute red light which Bill very slyly interprets as a flashing yellow light. Now on a flashing yellow light one can pass but with a caution. In other words, Obama should intervene in the Syrian conflict but with caution, that is, by making the majority of the people agree with him. For that the US news media is ever ready.
But what is Bill’s real motive?
He has one wife who ran for the US president in the 2008 election but lost to Obama and is going to run again in the 2016. Bill didn’t say this while talking to a private audience about the Syrian conflict. His talk would have remained private but for one person who was present there who passed on the audio recording to the Politico website and thus it became public. The Republican Senator John McCain was there too. He is always itching for some or other war and is a great proponent of a war against Syria.
Hillary, along with others, had pushed Obama into the Libyan conflict. Now Bill is pushing Obama into the Syrian conflict. The Israel Lobby in the US was happy with Hillary and is now happy to see Bill coming out against Syria. The Lobby will of course reciprocate by helping Hillary in 2016, unless someone more hawkish than Hillary joins the race too. Meanwhile the governments of France and Britain “dominated by the Jewish Lobby” are desperately trying to find ways to intervene in Syria.
B. R. GOWANI can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com