Monday, March 10, 2008

Did Hillary "Help" Bring Peace to Belfast?

Hillary Clinton is dull and boring, especially compared to her charming seducer of a husband, which is why she has tried to spin that around into an image of an experienced and tough candidate. But the public opinion hasn't bought that, and neither has the democratic voters in the primaries. Besides, many wonders if her claim to experience is all that it is said to be.

Take her claim to have "helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland," something she told CNN about a week ago.

Hillary Clinton brought peace to Northern Ireland. But why did she not get the Noble Peace Prize then? Well, the guy who did get the price --Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey-- tells London's Daily Telegraph that that is "wee bit silly".

"I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around," he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely "the sort of thing people put in their canvassing leaflets" during elections. "She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player."

"..... negotiators from the parties that helped broker the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 told The Daily Telegraph that her role was peripheral and that she played no part in the gruelling political talks over the years."

"Lord Trimble shared the Nobel Peace Prize with John Hume, leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, in 1998. Conall McDevitt, an SDLP negotiator and aide to Mr Hume during the talks, said: "There would have been no contact with her either in person or on the phone. I was with Hume regularly during calls in the months leading up to the Good Friday Agreement when he was taking calls from the White House and they were invariably coming from the president."

Hans Sandberg

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