One thing stood out in a review of last night’s debate – Hillary Clinton refused to oscillate off of her position for a no-fly zone in the battle ravaged country of Syria despite shocking revelations from WikiLeaks email leaks wherein she acknowledged that a no-fly zone would have horrific consequences.
"To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of their air defenses, many of which are located in populated areas," said Clinton before a wealthy crowd. "So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we’re not putting our pilots at risk – you’re going to kill a lot of civilians."
Despite the acknowledgment that her preferred policy to deal with the Syrian crisis, a position that would certainly embolden Al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda) terrorists who serve as a vanguard for a collective called The Army of Conquest which includes the US-backed "moderate" rebels, to fill the vacuum left by neutering the Assad government’s ability to respond to the terror threat in the country, would result in untold human tragedy the former top US diplomat continued to favor the position.
"Russia hasn’t paid any attention to ISIS (Daesh). They’re interested in keeping Assad in power," said Clinton. "So I, when I was Secretary of State, advocated and I advocate today a no-fly zone and safe zones. We need some leverage with the Russians, because they are not going to come to the negotiating table for a diplomatic resolution unless there is some leverage over them."
Her opponent Donald Trump countered that Hillary’s position – which is held by the Washington foreign policy establishment – was misguided because "we don’t know who the rebels are so what’s the point” and that it would make a lot more sense to get along with Russia because "Russia is fighting ISIS, Syria is fighting ISIS, Iran is fighting ISIS" while cabining the statement to say that he has no love for the Assad government but merely prefers a position of fighting the conflict on one front at a time – starting with Daesh (ISIS).
Interestingly, during this part of the debate moderator Martha Raddatz interjected with her own opinions at multiple points bringing up the tragic image of “Aleppo boy” Omran Daqneesh, accusing Russia and Syria of war crimes in Aleppo akin to the Holocaust, and directly confronting a position by Trump that it is necessary for the US military to strike with an element of surprise in what some viewers think may have been a major overreach by the moderator.
The behavior by the Raddatz towards anything countering the Washington consensus on foreign policy provides an illustration on how pervasive misconceptions about the Syrian crisis are and how little many people know about the shocking human consequences that would result from Hillary’s proposed solution to the Syrian conflict because – by her own words – "you’re going to kill a lot of civilians."
