Clinton says U.S. could "totally obliterate" Iran
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton warned Tehran on Tuesday that if she were president, the United States could "totally obliterate" Iran in retaliation for a nuclear strike against Israel.
On the day of a crucial vote in her nomination battle against fellow Democrat Barack Obama, the New York senator said she wanted to make clear to Tehran what she was prepared to do as president in hopes that this warning would deter any Iranian nuclear attack against the Jewish state.
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel)," Clinton said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them," she said.
"That's a terrible thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic," Clinton said.
Her comments appeared harder than a week ago, when during a presidential debate she promised "massive retaliation" against any Iranian attack on Israel.
Obama rejected Clinton's rhetoric as saber rattling on a day when Pennsylvania Democrats voted in a party primary contest that could help decide which Democrat will face Republican John McCain for the White House in the November general election.
"One of the things that we've seen over the last several years is a bunch of talk using words like 'obliterate,'" Obama, an Illinois senator, said in a separate ABC interview. "It doesn't actually produce good results. And so I'm not interested in saber rattling."
CONTRADICTION ACCUSATION
The Obama campaign also issued a statement saying Clinton was contradicting her remarks at an August debate, where Obama spoke in favor of taking unilateral military action in Pakistan if the United States had actionable intelligence on the whereabouts of senior al Qaeda members.
Clinton had said she did not believe "people running for president should engage in hypotheticals" and called it a mistake "to telegraph" what U.S. strategy might be at a time of unrest inside Pakistan.
At a Tuesday news conference in the Philadelphia suburb of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, Clinton said the question of Iran merited hypothetical discussion because a nuclear Tehran would require straightforward Cold War-style deterrence. "It's a question not of what might be on or off the table," she said.
Meanwhile, Obama said he would respond "forcefully and swiftly" to an Iranian attack against Israel or any other U.S. ally, whether conventional or nuclear.
Iran, which Washington and its allies charge is seeking nuclear arms, has voiced war-like rhetoric in recent years amid speculation its nuclear facilities could face U.S. or Israeli military action.
Tehran denies it is trying to acquire nuclear weapons and says it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity.
Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons but, as part of a policy of "strategic ambiguity," has not confirmed or denied the nature of its arsenal.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad outraged the international community in 2005 by saying "Israel should be wiped off the map." A week ago, a senior Iranian army commander said Iran would "eliminate" Israel in response to any military attack from the Jewish state.
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Conshohocken; Editing by Eric Walsh and Bill Trott)
The America we live in is far more afraid that some vaguely defined shadowy terrorist is going to kill their kids than it is their kids don’t have healthcare or enough to eat or a decent paying job with a wage they can live on that won’t be outsourced to India.
This is an America far more offended by the idea immigrants might get a piece of the American Dream, might get a taste of freedom and liberty, might become part of our society than they are by the idea anybody should be left out.
JUST IN: Texas Radio Station Flooded With Callers Saying Voting Machines Switching Votes From Trump To Rubio
It would appear that some things never change in the state of Texas. It was long suggested thatthe late President Lyndon B. Johnson won many of his elections in the Lone Star state by “voting the graveyard,” which even earned him the nickname “Landslide Lyndon.” But such nefarious shenanigans don’t happen in this age of electronic voting machines, do they?
everal voters in Austin would beg to differ, and they called into a local radio station to say that their votes for Donald Trump had been changed to Marco Rubio.
Austin radio station KLBJ (oh, the irony in those call letters!) had callers dialing into the “Todd and Don Show” with reports of voting machines incorrectly stating who they had voted for. One of the radio hosts remarked:
‘That’s not good. You are the fourth person to call us in the past half hour to say they had that same problem. They voted for Trump but it popped up Rubio or somebody else.‘Something’s fishy. Something is going on strange. It appears it was one in Round Rock, one in Leander, one in Georgetown. So it appears to be a Williamston County problem.’
One caller from Williamson County, Texas, also confirmed that he had experienced problems with his voting machine, recalling:
‘When I reviewed my ballot at the end, the person I voted for president was marked differently than how I voted. And I know that when I touched the button that I hit the right button.’
Ah, Texas, what in the world would we do without you? But it does seem odd that the votes were changed to Rubio instead of Ted Cruz. After all, Cruz is a native Texan who represents the state in the United States Senate. Then again, if Cruz truly is as big of a jerk as he’s alleged to be, would it be any surprise that even fellow Texans want to see his Presidential aspirations go down in a fiery heap of smoldering ruins?
Here’s some audio from the “Todd and Don Show”http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/03/01/just-in-texas-radio-station-flooded-with-callers-saying-voting-machines-switching-votes-from-trump-to-rubio/
BREAKING: Neil deGrasse Tyson has officially endorsed Bernie Sanders for President.
Pass it on.
Pass it on.
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