Hillary's Huge Ties to the Military Industrial Complex

[amborin]

"...The Saudi deal was one of dozens of arms sales approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department that placed weapons in the hands of governments that had also donated money to the Clinton family philanthropic empire, an International Business Times investigation has found.Under Clinton's leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data..."

"...deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations [when compared to] the same time frame during the Bush administration. These extra sales were part of a broad increase in American military exports that accompanied Obama’s arrival in the White House. The 143 percent increase in U.S. arms sales to Clinton Foundation donors compares to an 80 percent increase in such sales to all countries over the same time period..."

"Hillary Clinton’s willingness to allow those with business before the State Department to finance her foundation heightens concerns about how she would manage such relationships as president, said Lawrence Lessig, the director of Harvard University’s Safra Center for Ethics. “These continuing revelations raise a fundamental question of judgment,” Lessig told IBTimes. “Can it really be that the Clintons didn't recognize the questions these transactions would raise? And if they did, what does that say about their sense of the appropriate relationship between private gain and public good?”

"...National security experts assert that the overlap between the list of Clinton Foundation donors and those with business before the the State Department presents a troubling conflict of interest... Questions about the nexus of arms sales and Clinton Foundation donors stem from the State Department’s role in reviewing the export of American-made weapons. The agency is charged with both licensing direct commercial sales by U.S. defense contractors to foreign governments and also approving Pentagon-brokered sales to those governments... Hillary Clinton was empowered to approve or reject deals for a broad range of reasons, from national security considerations to human rights concerns..."

More here:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-inc-the-military-industrial-candidate/5415651


And here:

Half the Foreign Policy Experts Signing Clinton’s Anti-Sanders Letter Have Ties to Military Contractors


Hillary Clinton’s campaign released a letter this week in which 10 foreign policy experts criticized her opponent Bernie Sanders’ call for closer engagement with Iran and said Sanders had “not thought through these crucial national security issues that can have profound consequences for our security.”

The missive from the Clinton campaign was covered widely in the press, but what wasn’t disclosed in the coverage is that fully half of the former State Department officials and ambassadors who signed the letter, and who are now backing Clinton, are now enmeshed in the military contracting establishment, which has benefited tremendously from escalating violence around the world, particularly in the Middle East.

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/21/clinton-foreign-policy-experts/

And:

Article in Sunday's NY Times documents how the US acts as Saudi Arabia's mercenary in the Middle East:

U.S. Relies Heavily on Saudi Money to Support Syrian Rebels

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/world/middleeast/us-relies-heavily-on-saudi-money-to-support-syrian-rebels.html

WASHINGTON — When President Obama secretly authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to begin arming Syria’s embattled rebels in 2013, the spy agency knew it would have a willing partner to help pay for the covert operation. It was the same partner the C.I.A. has relied on for decades for money and discretion in far-off conflicts: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Since then, the C.I.A. and its Saudi counterpart have maintained an unusual arrangement for the rebel-training mission, which the Americans have code-named Timber Sycamore. Under the deal, current and former administration officials said, the Saudis contribute both weapons and large sums of money, and the C.I.A takes the lead in training the rebels on AK-47 assault rifles and tank-destroying missiles.

More at the link.

Hillary urged Obama to follow her neo-con adenda, starting with toppling Qaddafi. Why were we in Libya? For the billions in its sovereign wealth funds?

Hillary urged Obama to topple Assad. Granted Assad is a monster, but we support far worse monsters. We're doing Saudi Arabia's bidding. Most recently, US taxpayers spent $500 million training some Syrian rebels. Only 5 proved viable.

But the bigger issue is: why are we toppling Assad in the first place? B/C Saudi Arabia wants another Shiite regime gone? We've now created a huge space for ISIS in Syria, with millions of Syrian refugees seeking shelter in Europe.

As Bernie Sanders noted: don't depose a leader until there is a plan in place for the day after.

[cali]

1. Her conflict of interest problems may not be a big deal

in the primary, but they sure will be in the general election.

[99th_Monkey]

2. The MIC is the elephant in the Living Room

There's lots of talk about Wall St., which is great, but the MIC and it's thousands of
corporate 'private contractors' on the Federal tits, are the main why "we just can't afford"
Universal Healthcare, or free college tuition.

[Bread and Circus]

3. She was a queen of military pork barrel spending when she was a Senator.

[John Poet]

4. Kicking.

[sadoldgirl]

5. Actuallythe MIC, CIA, and NSA including

all the corporations connected to them scare me more
than Wall Street.

[WillyT]

6. K & R !!!