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In late August 2016, the 10-second video clip above was shared via social media by political partisans who claimed it documents Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton beseeching Americans to respect and empathize with the terrorist group ISIS. The clip consists entirely of the following sentence fragment, spoken while the phrase RESPECTING OUR ATTACKERS is superimposed in across the bottom of the image: Those 23 words were indeed spoken by Clinton in a 2014 address at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, but, despite how they have been repackaged for propaganda purposes, had nothing to do with ISIS militants or Clinton's views on how the U.S. should deal with terrorists. In their original context, the words applied to the role women ought to play in diplomacy and the use of what Clinton termed smart power in brokering and keeping the peace between warring factions: So, whereas the purveyors of the deceptive clip above would like us to think that Clinton implored Americans to respect our attackers and empathize with ISIS, what she actually said was that attempting to understand the point of view of one's enemies is one of many tools that can be employed in the service of smart power. Her speech in full can be viewed here:
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