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40 replies
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which were NOT SUBTLE -- but she and Kerry couldn't.
I have always assumed there were back door things going on, but she looks happy to do it in the videos of her speech supporting it - like she doesn't understand the human cost of the tragedy of war.
And again, thank you for your service.
I get the difference. It is one that is rarely understood by those who view our military as "toy soldiers" instead of valuable citizen assets to be treasured at all costs.
Syria, Iran, the possibilities are endless. Kissinger and PNAC Kagan were trusty advisers, I guess they were good at what they did.
Most of the commentary regarding Hillary and Bernie on these pages has focused on domestic issues. But it is of equal importance to examine their views on foreign policy. In this regard, I find Hillary wholly unacceptable. Her vote for the Iraq war was notably inexcusable. In her comments leading up to her vote, she actually trotted out the inherently insane idea that Saddam – a secularist who hated and hunted down Wahabi extremists – was collaborating with Al Qaeda in terrorist schemes. Hillary, an intelligent person, could not possibly have believed this idiotic canard concocted by the White House – she simply sniffed the political winds and concluded that an attack on Saddam would be politically popular. When Scott Ritter, a UN weapons inspector who had worked in Iraq for many years, was making the rounds of Congress to explain that the evidence for Saddam’s weapons was utter bunk, Hillary flatly refused to see him – her mind had already been made up. She and her co-conspirators therefore set in motion a process that led to the death or displacement of millions of Iraqis, tens of thousands of dead or maimed Americans, trillions of dollars of unfunded expense, and the emergence of ISIS as the Sunni alternative to Saddam (who had protected religious minorities).
Her tenure as Secretary of State – one of Obama’s worst decisions – was hardly more reassuring. Her tacit support of the right-wing coup in Honduras, in defiance of the international community, led to the resurgence of right-wing death squads and a mass exodus of terrified Hondurans seeking asylum in the U.S. that further ignited anti-immigrant hysteria in the U.S. Her efforts to destabilize Assad by arming “moderate” insurgents has played directly into the hands of ISIS and helped Syria descend into total horror. Her meddling in Libya, providing arms and air support for the rebels without UN authorization, led to the total collapse of Libyan society, a land now overrun with competing warlords. (Ironically, she has only been criticized for her alleged culpability in the murder of our diplomatic personnel in Benghazi – an allegation which has been shown to be total rubbish.)
Hillary’s neo-con appointee Victoria Nuland – carrying on Hillary’s legacy after she left State – helped to foment the coup that brought down the elected government in Ukraine. After Yanukovich had made a deal with European powers to hold early elections in which he would not run – a deal which could have spared Ukraine its current agony – neo-Nazi militias seized government buildings in Kiev, forcing Yanukovich and his political colleagues to flee for their lives. The decision of the State Department to immediately recognize the coup government cemented its power, leading to the subsequent revolt of Russophilic Eastern Ukraine and the current civil war.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/9/4/1418522/-Hillary-vs-Bernie-Focus-on-Foreign-Affairs
We should never forget
The modern, educated, advanced nation of Iraq was reduced to a virtual failed state … the United States, beginning in 1991, bombed for much of the following 12 years, with one dubious excuse after another; then, in 2003, invaded, then occupied, overthrew the government, tortured without inhibition, killed wantonly … the people of that unhappy land lost everything – their homes, their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals, their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their women’s rights, their religious tolerance, their safety, their security, their children, their parents, their past, their present, their future, their lives … More than half the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile … The air, soil, water, blood, and genes drenched with depleted uranium … the most awful birth defects … unexploded cluster bombs lying in wait for children to pick them up … a river of blood running alongside the Euphrates and Tigris … through a country that may never be put back together again … “It is a common refrain among war-weary Iraqis,” reported the Washington Post in 2007, that things were better before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.”3
The United States has not paid any compensation to Iraq.
The United States has not made any apology to Iraq.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/02/presidential-fiat-us-right-to-commit-war-crimes/
The “hard choices” taken by Clinton and her team didn’t just damage U.S. relations with Latin America. They contributed to the enormous damage done to Honduras. In the years following the coup, economic growth has stalled, while poverty and income inequality have risen significantly. Violence has spiraled out of control. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has increased military assistance] to Honduras, despite alarming reports of killings and human rights abuses by increasingly militarized Honduran security forces. Many Congressional Democrats have asked for a complete suspension of security assistance while human rights violations continue with impunity. But neither the Clinton nor Kerry State Departments have heeded their call.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/09/24/hillary-clinton-emails-and-honduras-coup
In 2011, when the Arab Spring came to Libya, Clinton was the Obama administration’s most forceful advocate for intervening to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi. She even out-hawked Robert Gates, the Pentagon chief first appointed by George W. Bush who was less than enthusiastic about going to war in Libya.
http://otherwords.org/hillary-clinton-hasnt-learned-a-thing-from-iraq/
On Monday, a New York Times story demonstrated more specifically why Clinton's interactions with Blumenthal may have been a bad idea. Blumenthal, the Times reports via solid sources, was advising the Secretary of State both before and after former Libyan autocrat Muammar Qaddafi's death while also advising a group of private individuals who hoped to make money by obtaining reconstruction-type contracts in a post-Qaddafi Libya.
Much of the Libya intelligence that Mr. Blumenthal passed on to Mrs. Clinton appears to have come from a group of business associates he was advising as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional government. The venture, which was ultimately unsuccessful, involved other Clinton friends, a private military contractor and one former C.I.A. spy seeking to get in on the ground floor of the new Libyan economy ...
Much of the Libya intelligence that Mr. Blumenthal passed on to Mrs. Clinton appears to have come from a group of business associates he was advising as they sought to win contracts from the Libyan transitional government. The venture, which was ultimately unsuccessful, involved other Clinton friends, a private military contractor and one former C.I.A. spy seeking to get in on the ground floor of the new Libyan economy ...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/05/18/hillary_clinton_sidney_blumenthal_libya_unofficial_adviser_represented_business.html
Octafish (53,487 posts)
Hillary Is the Candidate of the War Machine
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511157399
by Jeffrey D. Sachs
Common Dreams, Feb. 5, 2016
There's no doubt that Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. The idea that she is bad on the corporate issues but good on national security has it wrong. Her so-called foreign policy "experience" has been to support every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA.
Hillary and Bill Clinton's close relations with Wall Street helped to stoke two financial bubbles (1999-2000 and 2005-8) and the Great Recession that followed Lehman's collapse. In the 1990s they pushed financial deregulation for their campaign backers that in turn let loose the worst demons of financial manipulation, toxic assets, financial fraud, and eventually collapse. In the process they won elections and got mighty rich.
Yet Hillary's connections with the military-industrial complex are also alarming. It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious realists who don't want the US in unending war. Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring American war adventures explains much of our current security danger.
SNIP...
Hillary's record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria.
Hillary has been much attacked for the deaths of US diplomats in Benghazi, but her tireless promotion of the overthrow Muammar Qaddafi by NATO bombing is the far graver disaster. Hillary strongly promoted NATO-led regime change in Libya, not only in violation of international law but counter to the most basic good judgment. After the NATO bombing, Libya descended into civil war while the paramilitaries and unsecured arms stashes in Libya quickly spread west across the African Sahel and east to Syria. The Libyan disaster has spawned war in Mali, fed weapons to Boko Haram in Nigeria, and fueled ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime, Hillary found it hilarious to declare of Qaddafi: "We came, we saw, he died."
CONTINUED w/links...
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/05/hillary-candidate-war-machine
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511157399
by Jeffrey D. Sachs
Common Dreams, Feb. 5, 2016
There's no doubt that Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex. The idea that she is bad on the corporate issues but good on national security has it wrong. Her so-called foreign policy "experience" has been to support every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA.
Hillary and Bill Clinton's close relations with Wall Street helped to stoke two financial bubbles (1999-2000 and 2005-8) and the Great Recession that followed Lehman's collapse. In the 1990s they pushed financial deregulation for their campaign backers that in turn let loose the worst demons of financial manipulation, toxic assets, financial fraud, and eventually collapse. In the process they won elections and got mighty rich.
Yet Hillary's connections with the military-industrial complex are also alarming. It is often believed that the Republicans are the neocons and the Democrats act as restraints on the warmongering. This is not correct. Both parties are divided between neocon hawks and cautious realists who don't want the US in unending war. Hillary is a staunch neocon whose record of favoring American war adventures explains much of our current security danger.
SNIP...
Hillary's record as Secretary of State is among the most militaristic, and disastrous, of modern US history. Some experience. Hilary was a staunch defender of the military-industrial-intelligence complex at every turn, helping to spread the Iraq mayhem over a swath of violence that now stretches from Mali to Afghanistan. Two disasters loom largest: Libya and Syria.
Hillary has been much attacked for the deaths of US diplomats in Benghazi, but her tireless promotion of the overthrow Muammar Qaddafi by NATO bombing is the far graver disaster. Hillary strongly promoted NATO-led regime change in Libya, not only in violation of international law but counter to the most basic good judgment. After the NATO bombing, Libya descended into civil war while the paramilitaries and unsecured arms stashes in Libya quickly spread west across the African Sahel and east to Syria. The Libyan disaster has spawned war in Mali, fed weapons to Boko Haram in Nigeria, and fueled ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime, Hillary found it hilarious to declare of Qaddafi: "We came, we saw, he died."
CONTINUED w/links...
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/05/hillary-candidate-war-machine
Wars without end. Amen.
Iran ....... another (imo, it has NOTHING to do with nuclear capabilities, without sanctions Iran is posed to become a major economic powerhouse - the failing Saudi regime cannot have that).
Back in 2008, for example, she warned that Washington could “totally obliterate“ Iran. During that presidential campaign, she chided Obama as “naïve” and “irresponsible” for wanting to engage the country diplomatically.
http://otherwords.org/hillary-clinton-hasnt-learned-a-thing-from-iraq/
Syria:
Clinton favors greater military intervention in Syria’s civil war, too. In her presidential bid, she’s joined hawkish Republican senators like John McCain and Lindsey Graham in supporting the creation of a no-fly zone over the country.
That puts her at odds not only with President Barack Obama, but also with her Democratic presidential rival Bernie Sanders, who warned that it could “get us more deeply involved in that horrible civil war and lead to a never-ending U.S. entanglement in that region.”
That puts her at odds not only with President Barack Obama, but also with her Democratic presidential rival Bernie Sanders, who warned that it could “get us more deeply involved in that horrible civil war and lead to a never-ending U.S. entanglement in that region.”
http://otherwords.org/hillary-clinton-hasnt-learned-a-thing-from-iraq/
Clinton’s unwillingness to let go of the “regime change” requirement regarding a sovereign state, coupled with a moralistic but biased outrage, suggests someone who does not respect international law and could be dangerous as President: hypocritical, prejudiced and self-righteous.
Following are specific points of interest from “Syria: A Wicked Problem”.
Clinton echoes the western narrative about the Syrian conflict
This description is widespread but misleading. In his 2007 article Seymour Hersh exposed the U.S. promotion of Sunni fundamentalists to undermine Syria and Iran. In 2010 Secretary of State Clinton pressed Syrian President Bashar al Assad to comply with Israeli and US calls to stop supporting the Lebanese resistance and break relations with Iran. Was Clinton especially hostile to the Syrian President because he did not comply with her requests/demands and soon after forged an agreement with Iran? She makes no mention of this in her book but it is obviously relevant to the issue of Syria-USA relations.
Following are specific points of interest from “Syria: A Wicked Problem”.
Clinton echoes the western narrative about the Syrian conflict
"The crisis began in early 2011, when Syrian citizens, inspired in part by the successful peaceful protests in Tunisia and Egypt, took to the streets to demonstrate against the authoritarian regime of Bashar al Assad. As in Libya, security forces responded with excessive force and mass detentions which in turn led some Syrians to take up arms to defend themselves and, eventually, to try to topple Assad.” (p 447)
This description is widespread but misleading. In his 2007 article Seymour Hersh exposed the U.S. promotion of Sunni fundamentalists to undermine Syria and Iran. In 2010 Secretary of State Clinton pressed Syrian President Bashar al Assad to comply with Israeli and US calls to stop supporting the Lebanese resistance and break relations with Iran. Was Clinton especially hostile to the Syrian President because he did not comply with her requests/demands and soon after forged an agreement with Iran? She makes no mention of this in her book but it is obviously relevant to the issue of Syria-USA relations.
Regarding the so-called peaceful protesters, in fact, there was a violent element from the start. In Deraa in March 2011 several police were killed. In the original “capital of the revolution”, Homs, a very credible eye-witness reported armed demonstrators initiating the violence.
Clinton confirms the anti-Assad obsession of the Gulf monarchies
This presents a baffling inconsistency: If the Syrian uprising was about “freedom and democracy” why was it being heavily promoted by repressive monarchies Saudi Arabia and Qatar?
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/09/the-wicked-war-on-syria/
Clinton confirms the anti-Assad obsession of the Gulf monarchies
Sunni countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, backed the rebels and wanted Assad gone. (p 450)
This presents a baffling inconsistency: If the Syrian uprising was about “freedom and democracy” why was it being heavily promoted by repressive monarchies Saudi Arabia and Qatar?
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/09/the-wicked-war-on-syria/
“I greatly admire the skill and aplomb with which you conduct our foreign policy,” wrote Henry Kissinger in a 2012 letter to “the Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton.” The compliment was included as a handwritten postscript added to the printed letter.
Kissinger met regularly with Secretary Clinton, and applauded her hawkish foreign policy in a handwritten message
BEN NORTON AND JARED FLANERY
“Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state,” Clinton revealed in the review. “He checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders and sending me written reports on his travels.”
http://www.salon.com/2016/01/12/emails_expose_close_ties_between_hillary_clinton_and_accused_war_criminal_henry_kissinger/
Meanwhile, little children wash up on beaches as a result of all of this needless horror.