Hillary Clinton and the Benefits of Silence By Georgy Gounev

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/08/hillary_clinton_and_the_benefits_of_silence.html

Hillary Clinton was wrong about radical Islam and she is wrong in her lack of understanding the immense complexity of the American- Russian relations

Let’s clear up a potential misunderstanding from the very beginning: the uniqueness of the strategy behind the election campaign 2016 of the former Secretary of State Clinton involves two layers of silence.

The first one is practiced by Ms. Clinton who for the first time in the history of presidential elections rejects any form of contact with the press. As far as the second layer is concerned, it involves deliberate silence of the sycophantic press with regard to the problem areas plaguing the record of the Senator or Secretary of State Clinton.

Similarly to her approach from 2008, she expects 2016 to be the year not of her election but rather of her coronation. In 2008, it was Barack Obama who prevented the coronation. In 2016, there is a chance for the Republican candidate to perform the same function.

The first question facing every individual ready to investigate the record of Ms. Clinton is, how far back in time such an exploration is supposed to start?  For instance, how appropriate would it be for some brave journalist to ask Hillary Clinton about the contradiction between her alleged support for women’s rights and a troubling fact from her younger years when she defended a rapist? There was something else — Hillary Clinton spoke about the incident with unhidden sympathy for the rapist. At the same time she referred to his skill which allowed him to successfully pass the test that measured the truthfulness of his words?

While we are on the same page relating to women’s rights; there was an interesting story that happened not so long ago. It was in June of 2011 when the State Department, under the leadership of Ms. Clinton, established close contact with the Muslim Brotherhood. An individual by the name of Gehad El Haddad, who was a hard-core Islamist, and who for five years was an employee of the Clinton Foundation, became a senior foreign policy advisor of President Morsi.

There was a slight inconvenience, though completely ignored by the media, and conveniently forgotten by Mr. Obama and his Secretary of State. As a matter of fact, it was the same Mohamed Morsi who in May of 2011, (in other words, two months before Ms. Clinton’s declaration of friendship with the Muslim Brotherhood), took a leading part in the composition of the new program of Muslim Brotherhood on the eve of the elections. Theoretically a rather important point of the curious document should have attracted the attention of the self-appointed defender of women’s rights, and should have brought about her anger — the stipulation that “neither a Copt, nor a woman could be President of Egypt.”

Some of the adherents of Ms. Clinton are arguing that any American reaction to such a blatant violation of the rights of women that Ms. Clinton is ready to defend after 2016, would have brought the wave of anti-Americanism to Egypt. This argument is wrong because, instead of the clumsy and shameful declaration of the Department of State, the U.S. position could have been strategically sound and morally strong. All Ms. Clinton should have done would have been a statement stipulating that the United States would accept any choice of the people of Egypt, but at the same time Washington should have declared that a government which promulgates anti-Semitism and which  discriminates against  women and minorities wouldn’t receive any American assistance either economic or militarily.

Due to her ignorance of the Middle Eastern history and politics, Ms. Clinton was blindly following the disastrous politics of Barack Obama, who declined to provide Egypt with the absolutely necessary assistance package designed to relieve the pressure of many factors affecting the economy and the defense of the country. Ms. Clinton was trying to convince the world that the military regime which replaced the failed presidency of Mohamed Morsi was an illegitimate institution that had removed from power the democratically elected leader of Egypt. What the Secretary of State was failing to mention was the drastic violation of all provisions of the constitution of Egypt by the hardcore Islamist Morsi, and the complete downward spiral of the economy devastated by the corruption of the officials of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian military prevented the transformation of their country into a second Islamo-totalitarian tyranny after Khomeini’s ascension to power in Iran in 1979. As far as the Benghazi drama is concerned, there is a theoretical hope that Ms. Clinton will provide some explanation about its details on October 22 when she is scheduled to address publicly the thorny issue.

Unfortunately, the blatant ignorance of Ms. Clinton is not restricted to the area of politics and the geographical domain of the Middle East.  Its dark cloud covers the area of history as well.  While condemning the actions of the deranged Nazi Fuehrer during the 1930s, Ms. Clinton mentioned Poland and Romania as the first victims of the Nazi aggression. In other words Ms. Clinton confused Czechoslovakia with Romania. Not a big deal, some of the most ardent sympathizers of Hillary Clinton who happened to display the same level of knowledge of history, would say.

Then let’s move to a different area of ignorance demonstrated by Ms. Clinton. Evidently, under the temptation to erase the legacy of her earlier desire to improve the relationship between the United States and Russia, Ms. Clinton made a statement in which she compared Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler.

Let’s remind the former top American diplomat that regardless of the fact that Vladimir Putin was born after the end of WWII, the horror of the global conflict didn’t spare his family. The father of President Putin was wounded and hospitalized during the siege of his native city of Leningrad.

Amidst the ferocious famine devastating the city, he was sharing the slightly larger food ration the wounded warriors were receiving with his wife, who was trying to save the life of their little boy.

This plan didn’t work out — the little boy who was the older brother of the future President of Russia didn’t survive the agony of the siege and became one of the countless victims of the all-out assault unleashed by Adolf Hitler’s army against the city created by Peter the Great.

In short, Hillary Clinton was wrong about radical Islam and she is wrong in her lack of understanding the immense complexity of the American- Russian relations. The important question is in what part of the world and in which crisis situation was Ms. Clinton right, it will be for her supporters to discover.

Georgy Gounev teaches ideology and strategy of radical Islam in Southern California. His most recent book is entitled The Dark Side of the Crescent Moon, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, N.J. and London, (England), 2014.

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