We’re with her

We applaud the Ledger for breaking with tradition with your endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president.

Certainly a difficult decision that will vex some readers, we are gratified by your well-reasoned and principled stand. As Jews we know only too well the horrible consequences when a demagogue’s rantings are met with silence.

Thank you for speaking out for our democracy.

Connie and Alan Freeman
Stamford

Ledger erred in endorsing Hillary Clinton

It is regrettable that the Ledger abandoned its policy of not making an endorsement in the presidential race. (“Hillary Clinton for President,” Oct. 21, 2016).

First, your pro-Clinton editorial is forced to admit that “her record is far from perfect,” and that she has little to show for her four years as secretary of state in the administration of Barack Hussein Obama.

Second, your editorial claims that some of the charges against her, including Benghazi in which Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, another American foreign service officer as well as CIA contractors were murdered, U.S. government facilities attacked, our diplomatic and other national interests subverted and our country humiliated involved only matters which were “minor.”  This alone tends to discredit the judgment and sense of proportion of your editorial advisory board.

Third, most if not all of Clinton’s pro-Israel actions the editorial cites occurred either when she was from New York, a state with a significant Jewish constituency, or when she was running for office.

Fourth, the editorial omits material facts as to her record on Israel when she was secretary of state, making the rest of the claims promoting her misleading.

Here are some examples:

— Early in her term she excoriated Prime Minister Netanyahu for building in “east” Jerusalem. In claiming that this constituted an “insult” to America, she falsified an assertion of conflict of interest where none existed. She ignored Israel’s claim to that city based on historic right. As Jonathan Tobin wrote recently, “All you have to do to prove the existence of historic Jewish ties to Jerusalem is to start digging virtually anywhere in the city or, for that matter, anywhere in the country” (“Jerusalem’s Walls, Breached Again,” Commentary, Oct. 20, 2016).

— As part of the Obama administration, she never publicly dissented from Obama’s scheme to force Israel back to the 1949 cease fire lines.

— She takes credit for devising the notorious Iran nuclear deal, representing that it put the “lid” on Iran’s nuclear ambitions. This representation is false. As Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) acknowledged in a press release (Aug. 6, 2015), the deal should have been disapproved. Whatever short-term advantages it purportedly had, which in light of its weaknesses were less compelling, he concluded that “the agreement would allow Iran, after 10 to 15 years, to be a nuclear threshold state with the blessing of the world community. Iran would have a green light to be as close, if not closer, to possessing a nuclear weapon than it is today.” Furthermore, he warned that Iranian hardliners can use released funds to build an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) as soon as sanctions are lifted, augment their ICBM capabilities after the ban on importing ballistic weaponry is lifted, thus “threatening the United States.”

Did you ever hear candidate Clinton disclose these aspects of her Iran deal?

Apologists for her may claim that as a member of the Hussein Obama administration she had to carry out his directives. However, she has never indicated a departure from these policies when and if she is elected president.

Furthermore, the defense of just following orders is no excuse for undermining American and Israeli vital interests.

That excuse, of just following orders, is known as the Nuremberg defense.

Daniel R. Schafer
Hartford