By Philip Fernando in Los Angeles
(April 25, Los Ageles, Sri Lanka Guardian) Hilary Clinton’s first hundred days as Secretary State did not bring the predicted breath of fresh air. No path-breaking gust of insight blew us off our feet. Her pronouncement that she was sorry about the Sri Lanka situation was a truism not worthy of a Secretary of State. She just ignored or overlooked the human shield used by Prabhakaran to put thousands in harm’s way. She was off-handish and callous.
She knew very well how the LTTE had acted when her husband's administration branded them terrorists after minute scrutiny of Tiger atrocities. Hillary has just expunged from memory what Bill Clinton deemed it proper to do. She was talked of as a dynamo capable of painstaking research and analysis on any situation. She had once castigated Barrack Obama for most likely being unprepared on the first day at work. Even after one hundred days Hillary Clinton is acting like a green horn, a novice groping for answers.
The situation in Sri Lanka is crystal clear. Prabhakaran has demanded of the Tamil civilians that their one and only destiny is to be human sacrifices for protecting their Supremo. But Hillary just ignored all that and made a generalized statement that she was sorry genocide is happening. Who caused and how could it be stopped was not Clinton’s to probe or care about.
She did not demonstrate an in-depth study of the realities in Sri Lanka. She may not even know the ground situation there and how LTTE leaders were just waiting for a life line to be thrown at them from the international community. She would have easily got a cue from Sri Lanka’s neighbor. India’s assessment of the ground zero in Wanni would have helped her. Her take on the crucial situation in Sri Lanka was extremely casual and uninspiring.
According to one critic she uttered nothing beyond the usual nostrums and bromides when it comes to discussing current challenges in Sri Lanka. How she would deal with the Middle East and rest of the world may not be radically different from the way she tackled the Sri Lankan situation.
She wants to make it known that feels about human suffering in Sri Lanka. But was she outraged by what happened in Iraq during the last seven years? Ober 50,000 civilians died there. It is indeed a sorry spectacle that Hillary Clinton has not shown any penchant coming to grips with urgent issues of a humanitarian nature.
We in the United States were familiar with Hillary’s disastrous experience mismanaging Bill Clinton’s efforts to reform health care in 1992. This is still surprisingly fresh in the public mind. We still remember how during her primary campaign which she lost to the rookie Barack Obama while she pooh-poohed his claims to foreign policy and national security experience. To bring home the point she produced the infamous commercial about the red phone ringing inside the White House at 3 a.m...
To the extent Clinton's credentials are at issue about Sri Lanka, it could be said with no hesitancy that Hillary goofed badly. She has a stubborn streak not to acknowledge errors whenever they occur. She authorized the Iraqi war but never apologized for it when questions were repeatedly posed at her.
Her arrival as the new Secretary of State was supposed to usher in a sea-change from the Bush era. Hillary will have to show greater enterprise and dexterity with world affairs for that to happen. For starters, she needs to make close observations of what is happening in Sri Lanka. Madam secretary of State! The world is watching you.
Home Unlabelled Hilary Clinton’s hundred days as Secretary of State off-handish and callous.
Hilary Clinton’s hundred days as Secretary of State off-handish and callous.
By Sri Lanka Guardian • April 25, 2009 • • Comments : 1
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Life in the US became a whole lot more dangerous and open to the next terrorist threat, as a result of this appointment.
The Obama administration is hapless, beyond its pontifiacting preaching style and a gushing black media entourage. Teh first 100 days has been nothing other than a series of decision making disasters by a man who struts hos stuff to a still enraptured audience who has not yet recovered enough to coldly understand the long term implications of what has happened. When it does, a different type of disbelief will dawn on these people as they realize that they've been fooled totally and it has led the country into further misery.
Hillary Clinton doesn't see herself as a part of the Obama administration; but rather as the new foreign policy decision maker and President in waiting.
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