Washington: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton today said the “damage” done by her rival Donald Trump needs to be undone after the elections and underlined that the real estate tycoon’s “ignorance” towards Russian President Vladimir Putinis “dangerous”.
“We already know he (Trump) has done damage. We already know, from experienced intelligence and counter-Terrorism experts, that leaders within ISIS are rooting for his victory,” Clinton said.
“Now, you combine a free pass for Putin on aggressive behaviour and a welcome by ISIS that his language plays right into their hands and will give them more credibility in saying that this is some kind of civilisational war, we’re going to have to undo the damage that he’s already done in the campaign after this Electionand make it very clear, the US stands by our word, we stand by our friends and allies,” she said.
Clinton said the US is willing to work with anybody, including, of course, Putin.
“I have had many conversations with Putin. But we’re not going to do it by just rolling over and adopting his wish list, which is exactly what Donald Trump has done,” she said.
The former Secretary of State said Trump’s “ignorance” about Russia and Putin are “dangerous”.
“In an interview, he didn’t even know that Putin had invaded and occupied Crimea. So, this is just more of his loose talk, his kind of reckless pontificating that really doesn’t have any substance to it. I think that, if there are ways to do business with Russia, we should always be open to it,” she said.
“That’s what the reset accomplished. When Putin came back, he came back, with the view that his highest goal had to be to prevent what he considers to be the — his neighbourhood in Eastern and Central Europe all the way to Central Asia from falling under European Union and American influence,” she said.
And he has tried to disrupt and interfere with democratic elections, as he has, even in our country, attempted to do with this round of elections. So, he is pretty transparent that he is looking for ways of elevating Russia and himself, she added.
Clinton reiterated that she does not think putting American ground troops in Syria to hold territory, to become occupiers, to try to govern people is at all the right strategy.
“Then we have got to figure out what the day-after strategy is, what do we do, and how do we support a more effective governing structure inside Iraq,” she said.
“I feel very, very committed to depriving ISIS of their so-called caliphate. That’s a huge symbolic recruitment message that we should pull from them.I also believe that Baghdadi is a central figure in the promulgation of this ideology,” she said.
PTI