Brahma Chellaney on how Israel's policy of backing Hamas was influenced by U.S. support for mujahideen in Afghanistan

The international focus on the war in Gaza has helped obscure the fact that Israel in the 1980s aided the rise of the Islamist Hamas as a rival to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah.  Israel’s policy was clearly influenced by the U.S. training and arming of mujahideen (or Islamic holy warriors) in Pakistan from multiple countries to wage jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. 

The multibillion-dollar American program from 1980 to create anti-Soviet jihadis represented what still remains the largest covert operation in the Central Intelligence Agency’s history.  In 1985, at a White House ceremony attended by several mujahideen, then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan gestured toward his guests and declared, “These gentlemen are the moral equivalent of America’s Founding Fathers.”

Out of the mujahideen evolved the Taliban and al-Qaida.  As then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton openly admitted in 2010, “We trained them, we equipped them, we funded them, including somebody named Osama bin Laden ... And it didn’t work out so well for us.”

~ Brahma Chellaney, "Israel's Historical Role in the Rise of Hamas," The Japan Times, November 21, 2023

President Reagan meeting with Afghan mujahideen
leaders in the Oval Office in 1983

Henry Kissinger on Hillary Clinton

I know Hillary Clinton as a person.  And as a personal friend, I would say yes, she'd be a good president.  But she'd put me under a great conflict of interest if she were a candidate because I intend to support the Republicans.

~ Henry A. Kissinger

Michael Savage on Hillary Clinton's propaganda techniques

I listened to Hillary [Clinton], and I heard the double talk.  She's so good at it, and I'm not making this up, that the Communist Chinese have sent their cadres to study her speeches.  They say she's the finest propagandist they've ever heard. 

~  Michael Savage

Mark Cuban endorses Hillary Clinton for president

I am ready to vote for the American Dream. I am ready to tell the world that I am here to endorse Hillary Clinton.

~ Mark Cuban, "Mark Cuban Drops an Endorsement on Hillary — But the Name He Drops on Trump is Making Headlines," Independent Journal, July 31, 2016

David Geffen on Bill and Hillary Clinton

Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling.

~ David Geffen, February 21, 2007, interview with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times

Hillary Clinton: "I would not have started this war"

If I had been president in October of 2002, I would not have started this war.

If we in Congress don't end this war before January 2009, as president I will.

~ Senator Hillary Clinton, New York Democrat, who announced late last month she is seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, "Clinton: I will end Iraq war," CNN.com, February 2, 2007

Ann Coulter on the 2008 election

If Hillary is elected president, we'll have a four-year disaster, with Republicans ferociously opposing her, followed by Republicans zooming back into power, as we did in 1980 and 1994, and 2000. If McCain is elected president, we'll have a four-year disaster, with the Republicans in Congress co-opted by "our" president, followed by 30 years of Democratic rule. There's your choice, America. 

~ Ann Coulter, February 8, 2008

Jay Leno on action stars endorsing presidential candidates

Have you noticed all these action stars are now endorsing candidates? Like Mike Huckabee has Chuck Norris; Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger came out for John McCain; and today, Hillary Clinton picked up Janet Reno.

~ Jay Leno, The Tonight Show, January 4, 2008

Hillary Clinton on offshore tax havens

Close the loopholes for people who create a mailbox, or a drop, or send one person to sit on the beach in some island paradise and claim that it is their offshore headquarters.

~ Hillary Clinton, Senator, New York, "Clinton's Ties to Burkle Include Funds in Offshore Tax Haven", Bloomberg, December 17, 2007

Kevin Duffy on the statist Hillary Clinton and pseudo-capitalist Warren Buffett tag team

Next up: American capitalism's folk hero, Warren Buffett, raising funds for Hillary Clinton. According the WSJ:

"The fund-raising 'Conversation with Warren Buffett' drew over 1,500 people, including a mix of Silicon Valley executives such as John Doerr, a partner at venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers... Tickets ranged from $100 to more than $2,300, drawing in around $1 million, according to the Clinton campaign."

How ludicrous - the country's prominent venture capitalists and its best known and beloved "capitalist" raising funds for a committed welfare statist and socialist. On CNBC, Hillary agreed with Buffett's position to maintain the estate tax because, in her words,

"It's really a tax to prevent us from having inherited wealth generation after generation which would undermine the kind of spirit and meritocracy that the United States stands for."

This is awfully charitable of Hillary and Warren to provide such a vital service to our "free" society. Never mind that Mr. Buffett sells life insurance to these very people attempting to protect their family businesses and family estates from the ravages of the tax man, just so they can keep them intact for their children. Buffett chooses to hand over the vast majority of his $57 billion fortune to charity, so why should he care? Repeal the exemption on charitable giving and you would see him go apoplectic. In 1995, Buffett was quoted on the subject:

"I personally think that society is responsible for a very significant percentage of what I've earned. If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru or someplace, you find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil... I work in a market system that happens to reward what I do very well -- disproportionately well... I do think that when you're treated enormously well by this market system, where in effect the market system showers the ability to buy goods and services on you because of some peculiar talent -- maybe your adenoids are a certain way, so you can sing and everybody will pay you enormous sums to be on television or whatever -- I think society has a big claim on that."

So on the one hand, Buffett realizes the free market maximizes human potential, and on the other supports Big Government, itself the greatest threat to free markets. Some capitalist. Note to Oracle of Omaha: If you feel the need to give back, why not write a few checks to free market think tanks?

~ Kevin Duffy, Bearing Asset Management, "Beam Me Up," LewRockwell.com, December 14, 2007

Hillary Clinton on the estate tax

I do not believe the estate tax should be repealed. I think it has been very cleverly designated as a "death tax." It's really a tax to prevent us from having inherited wealth generation after generation which would undermine the kind of spirit and meritocracy that the United States stands for. And there are a lot of economic reasons why it is just not affordable... I will strongly support the maintenance of the estate tax.

~ Hillary Clinton, as appeared on CNBC with Warren Buffett, December 11, 2007

Jack Kenny on Giuliani slaying the dreaded Hillary Clinton

A recent pamphlet from the Giuliani campaign mentions the dreaded Hillary by name seven times and includes two photos of her. Two of the six panels are devoted to her exclusively. Perhaps we should cancel the New Hampshire primary now. Mayor Giuliani has already chosen the nominees of both parties.

"Rudy Giuliani is the only Republican who can beat Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in 2008," the slick mailer proclaims. Where, in Hoboken? Uncle Rudolph was going to defeat Hillary when she invaded New York and ran for the Senate in 2000. Some skeptics still believe it was his deteriorating poll numbers more than his health problems that convinced His Honor to withdraw from that race. Surely, he was healthy enough by 2006 to oppose Clinton in her run for reelection. By that time Giuliani, his political stock resurrected by the events of 9-11, was busy running for president. Too bad. Had he slain the dragon lady in ’06, a grateful GOP might have already handed him the presidential nomination for 2008. As it is, the "Only Rudy can beat Hillary" theme remains an untested theory.

~ Jack Kenny, "Saint Rudolph and the Dragon Lady," LewRockwell.com, November 27, 2007

Hillary Clinton: "Climate change is our space race"

For this generation, climate change is our space race.

The climate crisis is also one of the greatest economic opportunities in the history of our country. It will unleash a wave of innovation, create millions of new jobs, enhance our security and lead the world to a revolution in how we produce and use energy.

It's the biggest challenge we've faced in a generation, a challenge to our economy, our health and our planet. It's time for America to meet it. It is time to get back into the solutions business.

~ Senator Hillary Clinton, speaking in a cavernous factory with giant wind turbines in the background at the Iowa State University Biobased Industry Outlook Conference, November 5, 2007

(Clinton, who is pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination, is calling for creation of a $50 billion strategic energy fund, coupled with tougher fuel efficiency standards financed in part by $20 billion in "green vehicle bonds.")