Question: Donald Trump and Mike Pence, and Hilary Clinton and Tim
Kain. What do these four people have in common?
Answer: They are all bought and paid for by the American Corporate
Empire. Do you think for a moment that the people looking up into the
missile headed toward them can tell that it is a meaner or kinder
missile?
The American Corporate Empire(ACE) has only one face which it presents
to the nations of the world. And that face scares the socks off even
Freddie Krueger.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/15/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Consortiumnews
Independent Investigative Journalism Since 1995
Hillary Clinton Promised Wars, Too
August 15, 2017
Exclusive: President Trump has shattered the hope of many peace-oriented
Americans that he would pull back from U.S. foreign interventions, but
Hillary Clinton might have pursued even more wars, notes James W. Carden.
By James W. Carden
The alliance between neoconservatives and the Democratic foreign policy
establishment, which is largely made up of former Obama administration
officials and former Clinton campaign surrogates, has been much noted of
late, particularly since the formation of the German Marshall Fund's
"Alliance for Democracy Project" which brings together high-profile members
of both groups in an effort to fight what is loosely (and often
inaccurately) defined as Russian "disinformation."
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressing the AIPAC conference
in
Washington D.C. on March 21, 2016. (Photo credit: AIPAC)
Those who applaud the new alignment are quick to point out that Donald J.
Trump who, by virtue of his volatile temperament and his alarming ignorance
and inexperience, is a menace to his country and the planet. And at this
stage in Mr. Trump's presidency, that would seem unarguable.
And yet, Clinton partisans charge that those who withheld their support
from
Clinton not only bear responsibility for Trump, but also had no right to do
so since it was, according to them, obvious that Clinton would have been,
among other things, a more responsible steward of U.S. foreign policy than
Trump.
And so, given the extreme bitterness that Hillary Clinton's loss has
engendered among a number of prominent members of the liberal commentariat,
it might be worth looking at what her campaign promised with regard to
foreign policy to see if the above criticism holds water.
The argument here isn't that Trump isn't awful (which is something I've
never argued); it's that he's proven to be every bit as bad as some of us
reasonably expected Clinton would have been; and if one takes the time to
consult the Clinton campaign's own briefing papers and fact sheets, one
will
find that on issue after issue, Clinton invariably took hawkish positions
that reflected the fact that Clinton was (and remains) a saber-rattler par
excellence - very much on par with the current occupant of the White House.
When North Korea conducted a nuclear test in September 2016, she released a
statement, if not quite promising "fire and fury," that did declare: "North
Korea's decision to conduct another nuclear test is outrageous and
unacceptable. . This constitutes a direct threat to the United States, and
we cannot and will never accept this."
No Regrets on 'Regime Change'
Beyond that, Clinton remained a firm believer in regime-change strategies.
On Syria, the Clinton campaign "proposed instituting a coalition no-fly
zone
in the air coupled with safe zones on the ground to protect Syrian
civilians
and create leverage for a diplomatic resolution that includes Assad's
departure." She supported the "deployment of special operating forces to
Syria" and "strongly urged President Obama to arm moderate rebels in
support
of the eventual removal of the brutal Assad regime."
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaking to the AIPAC
conference in Washington D.C. on March 21, 2016. (Photo credit: AIPAC)
Clinton also favored escalation in other hot spots. On Iran, the Clinton
campaign outlined "a plan to counter Iran's other malicious behavior" which
included pledges to "deepen America's unshakeable commitment to Israel's
security"; "expand our military presence in the region"; "increase security
cooperation in areas like intelligence sharing, military backing and
missile
defense with our Gulf allies, to ensure they can defend themselves against
Iranian aggression"; and "build a coalition to counter Iran's proxies."
When we also factor in Clinton's support for the NATO's illegal airstrikes
on Kosovo (1999), her vote to authorize the second Iraq War (2003), her
enthusiastic support for sending more troops to fight and die in
Afghanistan
(2009), and her disastrous embrace of regime change in Libya (2011) and
Syria (2012), how can anyone be sure that her administration's foreign
policy would have been much of an improvement over what we now have?
Indeed, those who threw their support behind Clinton's vision of American
world leadership, like those associated with the "Alliance for Democracy,"
really, with the notable exception of Trump's abandonment of the Paris
Climate Accord, have little to complain about.
Trump has done much as Clinton would have done by, among other things:
slapping sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea; pledging unlimited
support to Israel; reassuring "our allies" in the Persian Gulf and eastern
Europe; condemning Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine; expanding military
operations in eastern Syria; and lobbing none-to-veiled threats at the
left-wing government in Venezuela.
So while it's easy and almost certainly emotionally satisfying to the
legions of Clinton supporters to tell themselves (and their readers) that
of
course Hillary would have been a better of steward of U.S. foreign policy
than Trump, that assertion remains both unprovable and, given her record,
highly questionable.
James W. Carden served as an adviser on Russia policy at the US State
Department. Currently a contributing writer at The Nation magazine, his
work
has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Quartz, The American Conservative
and
The National Interest.