Hillary Gets Booed for Blaming the War on Iraqis

This post, written by Andre Banks, originally appeared on Race Wire

Well, after her speech this morning, one thing is clear: Hilary Clinton is trying to win this election. Even if she rides to the White House on the white horse of racism.

The Senator led with all the right talking points: more stem cell research, pre-K for kids, universal healthcare. Unfortunately, her delivery, as always, reeked more of an "everything must go" discount salesperson than an inspired and credible leader. This morning it seems she's taken instruction in the art of lying effectively, dispassionately and with miraculous self-righteousness. Like Barack, it was uninspiring political theater.

But one critical difference between the two junior Senators is that Barack, despite other failures, refuses to stoke American racism in a desperate quest to create scapegoats and pull votes. Sen. Clinton, alternatively, is well prepared to join that oldest of American political traditions: relying on racism, sometimes subtle and sometimes not, to get white people's support at the expense of Black and other people of color's lives and livelihoods.

So Hilary gets to that "bring the troops home now(ish)" moment that all the candidates have nuanced into pure confusion. And when she gets to why our troops should be pulled out of Iraq, she introduces a really innovative idea. It went something like this: The American military, in the Clinton imagination, has "done its job" in Iraq. Valiantly, they liberated the people from Saddam and gave the Iraqi government a "chance" to take control. But now, because the Iraqi's have failed to stand up to fix their own country (you know, the one with the city-sized U.S. embassy sitting smack in the middle), it's time to bring the troops home.

**Commence Shouting**

Blaming the Iraqi's for the mess in their country is beyond ignorant. Our country, the U.S.A, has invested half a trillion dollars to turn that nation into an unmitigated disaster - completely undermining real local leadership, rendering the nation nearly unlivable for Iraqis and impossibly dangerous for the foot soldiers forced to patrol the occupation. But why? Why would an intelligent and informed Senator and Presidential candidate tell this story to a room full of (mostly) white progressives?