Hillary Clinton likes to trumpet herself as the 'experienced' candidate, but longevity in Washington (and Little Rock) doesn't really mean that much to voters. People want to know concrete examples of what she has done to backup those claims. Well, she did list some things, like helping in Macedonia, Northern Ireland and even Rwanda. Um, Rwanda, hey Hillary don't you remember how that genocide went? Obviously more people than just me thought the Rwandan example was a bit strange, so some people started doing some detective work.
From The Chicago Tribune:
Earlier in the campaign, she and her husband claimed that she had advocated on behalf of a U.S. military intervention in Rwanda to stop the genocide there.
But her involvement in the Northern Ireland peace process was primarily to encourage activism among women's groups there, a contribution that the lead U.S. negotiator described as "helpful" but that an Irish historian who has written extensively about the conflict dismissed as "ancillary" to the peace process.
The Macedonian government opened its border to refugees the day before Clinton arrived to meet with government leaders. And her mission to Bosnia was a one-day visit in which she was accompanied by performers Sheryl Crow and Sinbad, as well as her daughter, Chelsea, according to the commanding general who hosted her.
Whatever her private conversations with the president may have been, key foreign policy officials say that a U.S. military intervention in Rwanda was never considered in the Clinton administration's policy deliberations. Despite lengthy memoirs by both Clintons and former Secretary of State and UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, any advice she gave on Rwanda had not been mentioned until her presidential campaign.
"In my review of the records, I didn't find anything to suggest that military intervention was put on the table in NSC [National Security Council] deliberations," said Gail Smith, a Clinton NSC official who did a review for the White House of the administration's handling of the Rwandan genocide. Smith is an Obama supporter.
Whether or not Smith supports Obama, she is only one of many that was around to document Hillary's "experience." Being First Lady may give you a front row seat to many spectacular examples of foreign relations in the moment, but that does not mean you actively participate and facilitate change. As the Tribune sums it up in the headline, there is "scant evidence" of her foreign policy experience that she merely claims to have.
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