Mrs. Bill Clinton: I’d Keep Troops in Iraq

RUSH: Mrs. Bill Clinton. This is not going to help her with the nutroots of the Democrat Party, the kook fringe, and it may indicate she’s not concerned about it. I’d slap ’em down if I were a Democrat, rather than pander to them. They’re a small bunch of people, a bunch of literal nuts. “Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton foresees a ‘remaining military as well as political mission’ in Iraq, and says that if elected president, she would keep a reduced military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and possibly support the Iraqi military.

‘In a half-hour interview on Tuesday in her Senate office,” this is in the New York Times, “Mrs. Clinton said the scaled-down American military force that she would maintain would stay off the streets in Baghdad and would no longer try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence — even if it descended into ethnic cleansing.” She was asked in this interview, “What about ethnic cleansing in Kosovo? What about ethnic cleansing in Darfur?’ and so forth, but the point of all this is, Mrs. Bill Clinton says, “My vote was a mistake. I was misled.’ She hasn’t come out and apologized for the vote, but she’s let it be known that she told Bush she would be offended if Iraq is not settled and over with by the time she is inaugurated in January of 2009.

Now in an interview with the New York Times, Mrs. Bill Clinton says she’s gonna keep troops there to go after Al-Qaeda and watch ethnic cleansing? She’s not going to stop it. She’s going to watch it. Folks, you try to make sense of this. I cannot. ‘She said the United States’ security would be undermined if parts of Iraq turned into a failed state ‘that serves as a petri dish for insurgents and Al Qaeda.’” So we gotta maintain a presence in Iraq because we can’t let Iran take over. She doesn’t say this publicly. This is astounding. She’s essentially saying we’re going to stay there; we’re just going to watch it. We’re going to stay in Iraq and we’re going to watch it. We’re going to watch the ethnic cleansing. We’re going to make sure the Iranians don’t come. We’re going to keep a sharp eye on Al-Qaeda. This is her containment strategy.

The Times published a transcript of her interview, which is much too long for me to go into now, but she basically says that Kosovo is ethnically cleansed today and we’re still there with NATO. “We’re going to look out for America’s interests, region’s interests, because basically that’s our ultimate responsibility.” She is echoing words used by the Bush administration and by President Bush himself. I haven’t seen much of this reported during the Drive-By Media broadcast today, but you gotta wonder how this is going to play in the party. Just imagine Nancy Pelosi hearing about this and reading this when she’s trying to put together, as best she can, some coalition that will at least cut off the funding or get us out of Iraq. Here’s Mrs. Clinton (It’s Queen Bee Syndrome. They’re both trying to be the most powerful woman in Washington) saying (paraphrased), “Oh, no, we can’t get out of there. I’m going to leave a force. We’re going to watch. Even if there’s ethnic cleansing, we’re going to watch. We’re going to make sure Al-Qaeda doesn’t get big. We’re going to keep Iran out of there,’ but we’re not going to shoot. We’re just going to watch.

Go figure, folks. This is Twilight Zone day.