President Clinton: Putin to face "Severe Consequences"

Rueters, 9^th March 2017, Warshington DC. In a mass media conference today, US President Hillary Clinton declared that the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, would face “severe consequences” for his continued and unprincipled support to the Islamic State.

Using the White House’s favoured acronym for the Islamic State, President Clinton reminded the world that the Russian tyrant had been “backing ISIL for well over a decade, ever since 2003 when he colluded with it in invading Iraq in defiance of world opinion and mass anti-war protests. He overthrew the stable Iraqi government, and, as is well known, threw the country into such total disarray and confusion that the United States had to reluctantly occupy it in an attempt to bring peace.”

Not satisfied, she added, the Russian despot then had gone on to help ISIL invade Libya in 2011 and destroy the nation, again in the teeth of opposition by NATO and other freedom-loving Western governments and institutions. He had also invaded Yemen, as she pointed out, and helped unleash the Islamic State on Syria, thus compelling the United States and its allies to most reluctantly go to fight to preserve freedoms in those countries.

“Putin,” she said, “is playing an increasingly dangerous game, but one which can no longer be allowed to continue. Not only is he supporting the Islamic State and other jihadist groups all over the world, including al Qaeda and its various franchises, he is, as we all know, forcing all LGBT people in Russia into concentration camps in Siberia. Won’t anyone think of the gays?”

It is not immediately clear what kind of “severe consequences” President Clinton had in mind, however. Noted economists pointed out that though the White House’s first instinct would be to impose more economic sanctions, this is no longer possible since there is absolutely nothing in Russia that has not already been sanctioned. It is perhaps mildly worrying that reports are coming in that US nuclear forces are on extreme alert and showing high levels of activity.

“If we have to use military force,” President Clinton said, before leaving for a business luncheon at Wall Street, “it will, of course, be fully Putin’s responsibility. We would not have waged war unless he had forced us to do so.”

While President Clinton’s media conference was highlighted by all news networks, some historians and critics struck a note of caution. “What she has been saying does not seem to be in line with recent history,” one stated. “One should be careful about accepting her statements at face value.”

These comments provoked a severe backlash from White House spokesperson Barack Kerromney. “These revisionists,” he said, “are merely Trumpist dead-enders who can’t digest the fact that their hero was defeated in the election. We also have reason to suspect that some of them, if not all, are paid Russian agents and trolls.”

Liberal commentators on social media had no doubts at all. “Nuke Moscow for Peace,” a new page on Facebook, gathered half a million “likes” in its first half-hour of existence. Other pages demanded the immediate execution by drone strike of Donald Trump and anyone else who had at any point of time shown any opposition to President Clinton whatever.

“Kill them all,” the Führer of the Liberal Council for Peace and Freedom, D R "One" Reaper, declared. “We simply cannot risk freedom and democracy being threatened by such people.”

Attempts to contact President Clinton’s one-time electoral rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, proved unsuccessful. It is suspected that he might have gone into hiding.