WhatFinger


The 3 a.m. phone call.

State Dept. official: OK, fine, we should have designated Boko Haram terrorists a long time ago



A person who wants to be president of the United States needs to be judged closely on the decisions he or she has made to date. So Hillary Clinton's decision not to designate Boko Haram a terrorist organization when she was being urged to do so not only should, but must, be put under the microscope if she is claiming she is qualified to be president.
And what we're finding is not encouraging. Not only did she ignore calls to apply the designation, but her rationale for doing so was based largely on the reluctance of the Nigerian government to see the designation applied. Robert Jackson, the State Department's principal deputy assistant secretary for African affairs, gave details yesterday in Senate testimony:
The group, which has claimed responsibility for kidnapping more than 200 school girls in northern # last month and threatening to sell them into slavery, was added to the terror list last November by Secretary of State John Kerry. The timing of the action has triggered a political controversy around Hillary Clinton, who preceded Kerry as America's top diplomat and is weighing a potential run for president in 2016. A formal terror designation provides greater access to a group's finances and more ability to limit its movements. Officials said Boko Haram does not have financing in the United States.

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Some in Congress, the Justice Department and others called for the State Department to apply a terror label to Boko Haram in 2012 following a bombing in Abujat and amid growing concerns that it had al Qaeda links. But the agency, then led by Clinton, rejected that approach. Officials cited the reasons raised by Jackson, which also included the possibility that doing so might heighten threats against U.S. and Western interests. To those who say Republicans are trying to "exploit this for political purposes," I say: Hillary claims her tenure as Secretary of State helps make her qualified for the presidency, and this decision was a crucial part of that tenure. It absolutely behooves us to examine all the vital decisions she made in that role as we assess her candidacy. And she failed. By simply following the lead of the Nigerian government, Hillary followed the path of least resistance because it was the easy thing to do. She also demonstrated that her instinct when it comes to terrorist groups is to believe it's better not to agitate them, lest we "heighten threats against U.S. and Western interests." How's that working out? This is one of the reasons I find it so hilarious when people talk about Hillary as a "hawk," a description that is based solely on things she says, and never on anything she does. As president, Hillary would talk big about being tough, but the decisions she would make would be just like this one. If some foreign government is uncomfortable with a course of action, or if something might go wrong, or most importantly if it has the potential to make her look bad, she will back off and take the path of least resistance every time. Unless, of course, it's to "rein in" people's silly notions about their constitutional rights. Because that's important. Hillary tried to claim in 2008 that she should be president because she’s ready for the dreaded 3 a.m. phone call. But that doesn’t mean she knows how to make the right decision when it comes. If the Boko Haram decision is any indication – and what reason do we have to believe it’s not an indication? – she is a poor decision maker, and that would be the pattern of her entire presidency. That said, America, how about this time you put a little more thought into your vote than you did the last two times?


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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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