What the Khans Should Really Be Attacking
Over the past week, the American public have seen a great deal of Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of an American soldier, Captain Humayun Khan, who died in 2004 while fighting in Iraq. The Khans and their son are / were Muslims, and Khizr Khan gave a speech at the Democratic National Convention last week denouncing Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric and arguing his proposed immigration ban on Muslims is unconstitutional. Trump has reacted with his usual bloviating, including jabs at Captain Khan's mother, resulting in an escalating war of words with the family.
Both Republicans and Democrats have rightly denounced Trump's attacks on the fallen soldier's family. That said, all the praise for the Khans rings hollow for me. Although they were brave for condemning Trump, they have failed to call Hillary Clinton on her support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq which killed their son in the first place. They took the stage to speak on behalf of a politician who voted to send their son to his death.
My Gut Reaction: I rarely agree with the orange bigot, but he had a point when he noted that it was Hillary Clinton, not him, who voted for the Iraq War.
More below the fold...
As the great Cindy Sheehan pointed out, Hillary's offense against the Khans is arguably far worse than Trump's:
Trump's rhetoric is despicable (why doesn't someone take away his iPhone?), but Hillary Clinton's policies and support of war are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Arab/Muslims in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Which is worse, background checks or mass murder?
This is not to suggest that people should ignore Trump's racism or hold their noses and vote for him. If he gets the chance, I suspect he will prove just as bloodthirsty, if not more so, than Hillary Clinton. However, there is no escaping the fact that Hillary Clinton has the blood of easily hundreds of thousands on her hands. Both the policies she supported in the Senate and those she enacted as Secretary of State promoted militarism and continued American intervention in the Middle East. Anyone who thinks they are supporting the "lesser evil" by voting for Clinton basically dismisses these lost lives as irrelevant, even if they do not say so explicitly.
If I could make one suggestion to the Khans, it would be to go after Hillary Clinton with the same ferocity that they have directed at Trump.
Comments
Well said and cant be said enough!
Secretary of State promoted militarism and continued American intervention in the Middle East. Anyone who thinks they are supporting the "lesser evil" by voting for Clinton basically dismisses these lost lives as irrelevant, even if they do not say so explicitly.
Clinton, and Bush and the neocons and the corporate
media, all of Congress and Senate that voted for the war, etc. Should be going after ALL those responsible for the war. But when do Americans take responsibility for their own decisions in this deal. It's well known now that U.S. wars are not waged for our "freedom", to protect our country, but to protect and serve the interests of the bankers and corporations and feed the MIC. Wars are waged for the ruling class and those that die in them are not dying for freedom and democracy but for greed and power. Smedley Butler said War is a Racket and he was nothing but a "gangster for capitalism". That's what it is.
Like I told my nephew who joined the Marines, you get yourself killed over there its your own damn fault.
Also too, Trump’s proposals are not unconstitutional
Constitutional rights do apply to non-citizens, but only after they arrive on U.S. soil. Trump’s immigration proposals are bone headed, but not unconstitutional. A Harvard-educated lawyer who specializes in immigration cases might be expected to know this.
"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
That was the first thing I thought: Hillary voted for the war.
Why aren't the Khan's calling her out?
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020
Is it really possible to be more bloodthirsty than HRC?
Pretty sure she has been more destructive than Genghis Kahn and Hurricane Katrina combined. GK also believed that he was beleaguered by a vast right wing conspiracy.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass