Hardly as significant as the brutalization of Iraq, Syria, and Libya; nonetheless, quite telling in its own way (it happened right in front of her; she did not miss a syllable).
From the non-profit Partnership for Civil Justice Fund:
February 18, 2016
RT’s “Watching the Hawks,” March 2, 2016 (10 and half min.)
(where Russian and U.S. troops finally met up on the Elbe River on April 25, 1945)
By Edward Lozansky, February25, 2016
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/25/edward-lozansky-will-syrian-raqqa-be-new-german/
READ TODAY; TOMORROW MAY BE TOO LATE!
By Scott Ritter, February 29, 2016
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-ritter/hillary-clinton-iraq-war-vote_b_9350340.html?1456781866
Transcript of RT interview (below); published Feb. 23
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/333343-ceasefire-turkey-agreement-syria/
Very soon after today’s announcement of the U.S.-Russia agreement on a partial cease fire in Syria, RT International conducted a Skype interview of Ray for comment.
It was not difficult: First, the situation on the ground has changed markedly, thanks to Russia’s military intervention starting in late September 2015, and Obama’s decision to cooperate with, rather than confront Moscow. What is new is the personal commitment of both President Obama and President Putin to make this detailed arrangement stick.
Ray suggested that Obama’s ability to exert the necessary influence on Washington’s “allies” – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel – is less than Putin’s ability to influence Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Hezbollah. Ray further suggests that Obama was right the first time, when in early August 2014 he told Tom Friedman that the idea of arming “moderate” rebels in Syria has ”always been a fantasy.” And that is surely one reason they are so hard to find.
(12 and a half minutes)
by Robert Parry
Parry provides background on the Feb. 18 statement by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (see item below) and what PCJF learned ferreting out then-Secretary Clinton’s personal emails from five years ago, when Ray got beaten up right in front of her while she speaking at George Washington University. The newly available emails were among those ordered released by a U.S. District Court. They were not turned over to PCFJ when it sought emails related to incident on Feb. 15, 2011; instead, they were kept out of public view. Ray’s offense was standing up silently and turning his back on Clinton as she spoke – for which he was brutalized, muscled out of the auditorium, arrested, and jailed by “the organs of state security.”
The embedded links in Parry’s article do much to fill out the story – on the chance you missed the Washington Post’s banner coverage of the incident (sorry for this “sick-joke” attempt at humor). Not even the striking irony of Ray’s violent removal directly before multiple TV cameras and many journalists, while Clinton spoke of the need to respect dissent, was deemed newsworthy – by the Post or anyone else in the Fawning Corporate Media.
The links in Parry’s article are worth clicking – particularly the one that takes you to an article by Ray, originally published on Feb. 23, 2011 and titled Standing Up To War and Hillary Clinton
This article discusses how:
-In 2010 then-Secretary of State Clinton sabotaged a promising nuclear deal with Iran that had been negotiated by the leaders of Turkey and Brazil at the President Barack Obama’s personal request;
-As secretary of state, Clinton shaped Washington’s dishonest “honest broker” role between Israel and the Palestinians;
-Clinton seemed never to have encountered a war that she didn’t immediately embrace on behalf of some geopolitical justification. As for the troops, her attitude seemed similar to her patron, Henry Kissinger, who has been quoted as saying that soldiers are “just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”
Missing from the “Standing Up To War and Hillary Clinton” article (because it hadn’t happened yet) was Clinton’s ill-conceived promotion of the idea of attacking Libya – the purpose of which, as she later inadvertently admitted, was to “regime-change” Gaddafi. This merits mention – if only because she is promoting the same hare-brained approach to Syria.
In short, against the advice of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Joint Chiefs, and many others, Secretary of State Clinton persuaded President Obama to impose a “no-fly zone” over Libya. In March 2011, U.S. and British warships and submarines fired over 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles at 20 integrated air and ground defense systems in Libya; U.S. stealth bombers flew non-stop from the US to drop forty bombs on a major Libyan airfield; and other US aircraft searched for Libyan ground forces to attack. But, alas: a la Iraq, the State Department lacked a workable post-hostilities plan. Libya is now in shambles.
Despite how the Libyan adventure turned out, Clinton now espouses a “no-fly zone” over Syria, much of which is already a shambles. Her oft-repeated precondition that “Assad must go” before substantive negotiations on Syria accounts largely for the unconscionable delay in launching the fledgling international talks now under way.
February 18, 2016
“Hillary Clinton says ‘supporting veterans is a sacred responsibility.’ So why, after five years, hasn’t she apologized to Ray McGovern? Newly released documents from Clinton’s private email server speak to his arrest.”
An email exactly five years ago (Feb. 18, 2011) to then-Secretary Clinton from confidant Sidney Blumenthal suggested an apology for what happened to Ray, “because it’s become a minor cause celebre on the Internet among lefties.” But his portrayal of Ray (“Whatever his views, he’s harmless”) may have helped Clinton conclude that no apology was really needed.
Blumenthal noted that Ray once gave the daily presidential briefing to George H. W. Bush, and “is pretty well known in the intelligence community.” But then comes what Blumenthal seems to think the ultimate put-down of Ray: “He’s become a Christian antiwar leftist who goes around bearing witness.”
Ray finds high irony in the fact that what one person considers the ultimate put-down is treasured by the other as the highest of compliments.