As Michael Tracey argued
The American Conservative, anyone interested in a sane foreign policy over the next four-eight years
should be exceedingly worried: Robert Kagan has given Hillary not only rhetorical praise, but material
support—he headlined an official campaign fundraiser on her behalf.
Foreign-policy analyst Jim Lobe has suggested that Kagan is most likely angling for a job with Clinton.
Kagan co-signed a June report with Michèle Flournoy—the likely candidate for defense secretary under
Clinton—calling for escalated U.S. military presence in Syria, a policy that could lead to all-out ground
war or direct confrontation with Russia. So it seems he may already be on Clinton’s hawkish team in
waiting.
She strongly believe in the neoconservative foreign-policy agenda by re-casting the
neoconservatives’ goals in liberal-interventionist terms. In reality the difference between "liberal
interventionism" and Neoconservatism are pretty superficial (Kagan already calls himself liberal
interventionalist) and Hillary’s willingness to infest a foreign-policy establishment with
neoconservatives is beyond any doubt. As the recent Republican primary contest had shown
neoconservatives have virtually no support among the US voters. Their base is exclusively the a part
of the US elites, especially military-industrial complex. So the reason she is reaching our to those
shady figures is a deceptively simple: she shares common interests with them, respects their
supposed expertise, and wants to bring them into her governing coalition. Here is an article that contains some relevant information (How
Hillary Clinton And Barack Obama Created ISIS by
streiff)
How did it happen? How did a violent Islamic regime, a regime that is sort of like Saudi Arabia but
with inferior grooming and hygiene, come to hold sway over large portions of Iraq and Syria? Over
the weekend, Soviet Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev provided an interesting insight.
During a visit to Kuala Lumpur, Medvedev laid blame for ISIS, and one must say for the attending
chaos, squarely upon the
narrow,
unmanly shoulders of Barack Obama:
"The strengthening of the Islamic State became possible partially due to irresponsible
policies of the United States. Instead of concentrating joint efforts on fighting terrorism, the
United States and its allies decided to fight against the lawfully elected president of Syria
Bashar Assad," Medvedev told journalists.
That is a huge claim. And it is made by a Russian. But we are beyond the political state where
we can laugh at a statement made by Russians because over the past five or so years we've seen much
more truth about the actions of the Obama administration coming from Russia than coming from the
White House. At the least, the Russians haven't lied to the American people about the nature of the
Iran nuclear deal nor have the Russians told us that the Benghazi attack was caused by an internet
video.
Let's take a moment and evaluate Medvedev's claim. How did ISIS get here.
Bear with me for a moment. I am about to use a
significant number of quotes from Vox.com.
They will be from an article by Zack Beauchamp. Some of you may recognize the name. Beauchamp is
the low-IQ, note-taking dunderkind who discovered there was a bridge between the West Bank
and Gaza.
I am not making that up. The reason I'm using Vox.com is that the left relies heavily upon Vox.com
for the small daily intake of conventional wisdom and no one wishes to confuse them over an important
issue by using unfamiliar sources.
Prelude
By 2009, almost all of AQI's fighters were dead or in prison, and the group was a shadow of
itself. But it had learned a valuable lesson: Dissent from Sunnis under its rule could be disastrous.
That's why, years later, ISIS has slaughtered members of Sunni tribes, such as Iraq's
Abu Nimr, en masse. It sees brutality as the best way to prevent a replay of the 2006 uprising
that led to its downfall.
Take note of the years mentioned. There will be a test later on.
By 2010, "Iraq finally had relatively good security, a generous state budget, and positive
relations among the country’s various ethnic and religious communities," Zaid al-Ali, author of
The Struggle for Iraq's Future, wrote in
Foreign Policy. But
it was squandered. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stripped political opponents of power, appointed
his cronies to run the army, and killed peaceful protestors.
What else was going on in 2010? During 2010, Obama was in the midst of his promised troop draw-down
in Iraq. He was deliberately sabotaging his own SOFA negotiations to use the failure of those negotiations
as a reason for complete US withdrawal. This is significant. The Obama administration came into office
with no foreign policy objective larger than doing the opposite of whatever George Bush had done.
Without considering the consequences, the gains during The Surge were abandoned and, what is more
important, the Sunni tribes who had supported us during The Surge were abandoned by the United States
an caught between a hostile regime in Baghdad and resurgent terrorists.
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring provided a nice proving ground for the I'm-not-George-Bush foreign policy of the
administration. We turned over one ally (Egypt) to the Islamists. We overthrew a harmless (outside
of Libya) dictator and gave that country to Islamists. Next on the list was Syria. Syria has been
plagued with revolts throughout its existence. The Arab Spring set off initially peaceful protests
in January. We didn't take much notice. As late as March 2011,
Hillary Clinton was calling Assad a reformer. By July, an armed insurgency (we won't even
try to understand what it was) had begun.
"It was very much a strategic decision that the regime made, to militarize the conflict right
away,"
Glenn
Robinson, an associate professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, told me in a phone conversation.
"I think, in their mind and correctly, if this becomes a political battle where populations matter,
the regime probably only has support of a third of the country ... the opposition has the numbers."
Perhaps the most devious part of this strategy was Assad's deliberate effort to promote Islamic
extremism among the opposition. In
amnesties issued
between March and October 2011, Assad released a significant number (exact counts are hard to
know) of
extremists from Syrian prisons. Hof called this an "effort to pollute the opposition with
sectarianism": Assad gambled that if his enemies were Islamic militants, then the West wouldn't
intervene against him.
He guessed wrong.
Ever the rational actor, Assad assumed that the United States would prefer him to an Islamic regime.
The Obama administration, didn't even recognize what Assad was doing because they were fixated on
showing the world that they could throw out dictators really, really cheap that they didn't even
stop to consider what regime would regime would follow him. As bizarre as it sounds, they didn't
consider this in either Egypt or Libya. The Turks saw ISIS as a way to prosecute their own "war on
terror" against the Kurds. The Iranians saw the chance to expand their influence with Assad and Lebanese
Hezbollah. All of these actors saw ISIS as a stalking horse to allow them to accomplish other objectives.
By August, Obama was calling on him to step down. By early 2012, the Obama administration was
sending up trial balloons about using military force in Syria and we were running arms to "Syrian
rebels" from Libya.
Clinton’s vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq puts her in the cold-blooded
murderer class. By the standards of the Nuremberg Trials, many of the people in power at that
time were and are war criminals, and Clinton was certainly one of the people who could be
charged with war crimes. (But I suppose she could have pleaded ignorance, incompetence, and
indolence in mitigation.) All of this is completely out in the open.
I don’t know if it should be considered ‘corruption’, however. A crime
against humanity is not exactly corrupt if the perpetrators and almost everyone else believe
the perpetrators ought to be doing the crime, that it is their duty, their job. It might be
better if they were corrupt, if they slacked off. But Clinton, going by some of her other
well-known activities, seems to have been enthusiastically industrious at getting people
killed — or maimed, tortured, terrorized, raped, starved, impoverished, and the other
normal works of war. Not that this makes her much different from a lot of other people.
“We came, we saw, he died. Tee hee hee!”
“Did it have anything to do with your visit?”
“I’m sure it did.”
From a non-legal perspective at least, that makes her an accessory to murder, doesn’t
it?
We all know the Hypocrisy of that War. Clinton had to distract the masses from MonicaGate
and Hillary had to prove to the MIC that she could be beneficial to them.
Result : Those Kosovo Albanians had a state handed to them, and instead of building
it(with uncle Sam's and EU help) as prosperous country, they used their weapons and
"expertise" in becoming the low level gangsters of Europe. Every Europol analysis points to
the direction of Kosovo Albanians as the criminal thugs in prostitution and drug trade and
protection rackets. The largest percentage of a single ethnic group in European jails is that
of Albanians.
The most unjust and illegal of wars in the late 20c.
There was only one reason to bomb white Christian brothers in Serbia thereby aiding the
Muslim of Kosovo and Albania, and that was Russia, which by that stage had got its act
together and dealt with the traitorous oligarchs who had sold their country out to the
west.
Hillary and her cronies no doubt lost a lot of money when the Russians shut their rat
lines down.
I hope I live long enough to see those fuckers swing, and Tony Blair, Alistair Campnell
and Peter Mandelson as well.
Again, your Muslims are to blame for everything. Muslims are all different. And it is
necessary to separate the faithful Muslims from the bandits who are only covered by Muslim
slogans.
NATO and your godless government are to blame!
An Afghan Freedom Fighter in Donbass - ENG SUBTITLE
It happened at the time of the Lewinsky affair and the possible impeachment of Clinton.
They needed a distraction.
Milosevic btw. agreed to all conditions imposed on the FR of Yugoslavia except for one
condition that nobody would accept: the full and unhindered access to the territory of FRY by
NATO troops. That effectively meant an occupation. Nobody would agree to that. NATO and
Albright deliberately came up with that condition for they knew it was unacceptable. Even
Kissinger said that condition was over the top. NATO and Albright wanted that war. Serbia
btw. saved Albright twice when she was still a little Slovakian Jewish girl whose family
found refuge twice in Serbia. Once they escaped the Nazis that way and the second time the
communists.
NATO thought they would need 48 hours but they needed 78 days and Milosevic only gave in
after NATO switched from hitting military targets to civilian targets: Hospitals, commuter
trains, civilian industry, an open market, random houses in random villages. After Milosevic
pulled out his troops out of Kosovo, the KLA started killing Serbs and moderate Albanians,
not to mention engage in organ trafficking (...). As the article said, well over 200k Serbs,
moderate Albanians, Roma and other minorities were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo.
The US also used cluster bombs and DU weapons. Of the 4000 Italian KFOR troops that went
into Kosovo after the bombing, 700 are dead from cancer and leukemia with several hundreds
more seriously ill. The American KFOR troops wore hazmat suits. The Italians did not have
them and were not warned. Today, many people in southern Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo itself
are sick and dying.
yes just like USA tried to help Vietnam against communists... by killing 2 million
Vietnamese. and tried to help Korea by killing 20 % of the population. and by helping Iraq
get rid of "bad" Saddam Hussein by killing 2 million Iraqies.
Not disagreeing with you but lets remember that communists were killing a lot of people in
other areas not long before those wars in SE Asia. May have been a wash in the end.
Bring back the draft. On the whole Americans have no idea what the carnage of combat
produces. Combat vets do. And the ones that aren't natural psychopaths never want to
experience it again. This volunteer army we have is over loaded with a them. A military draft
will actually bring some sort civilian control.
Such ********. Do the millions we kill have any human rights? It's been going on for 4000
years. Ruthless pursuit of empire and fabricating phony justifications.
Hillary seems to enjoy killing people. If it wasn't Gaddaffi, it was all the people on her
body bag count, and now it's known she encouraged killing people in Serbia. Someone needs to
take that old cow out into the center of the town and burn her at the stake.
Partially true, otherwise as usually excellent Dr. Paul, ... The Pandora's box situation
was opened years before Clinton's bombing of Serbia, which was part of a larger scheme
started nearly a decade before.
That was when the US armed the religious extremists in Bosnia, in order to bring war,
"civil war" and chaos, and disintegration, the way they more recently tried to do with Syria,
or "succeeded" in doing in Libya, bringing chaos and open-air slave markets in a country that
was one of the most developed on the African continent under Gaddafi (a truth that was so
easily erased by propaganda).
And the whole neocon scheme started two decades before, with the Zbigniew Brzezinski
doctrine, when the US started arming the mujahedin in Afghanistan, provoking the trap for the
Soviet invasion of 1979, which was the real opening of US neocon's Pandora's box we are
regrettably so familiar with by now. We've all fallen in that old
neocon/military-industrial-congressional-complex trap by now. And there seems to be no end in
sight to those eternal wars "for civilization" (the old colonial trope dressed under new
fatigues). Unless serious societal and political changes take place in the US to put an end
to the US "imperial" death drive.
By all measures Clinton is a war criminal... Hilary is a female sociopath or worse.
Notable quotes:
"... Hillary Clinton revealed to an interviewer in the summer of 1999, "I urged him to bomb. You cannot let this go on at the end
of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?" ..."
"... The Kosovo Liberation Army's savage nature was well known before the Clinton administration formally christened them "freedom
fighters" in 1999. ..."
"... Sen. Joe Lieberman whooped that the United States and the KLA "stand for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA
is fighting for human rights and American values." ..."
"... Clinton administration officials justified killing civilians because, it alleged the Serbs were committing genocide in Kosovo.
After the bombing ended, no evidence of genocide was found, but Clinton and Britain's Tony Blair continued boasting as if their war
had stopped a new Hitler in his tracks. ..."
Twenty years ago, President Bill Clinton commenced bombing Serbia in the name of human rights, justice, and ethnic tolerance.
Approximately 1,500 Serb civilians were killed by NATO bombing in one of the biggest sham morality plays of the modern era. As British
professor Philip Hammond recently noted, the 78-day bombing campaign "was not a purely military operation: NATO also destroyed what
it called 'dual-use' targets, such as factories, city bridges, and even the main television building in downtown Belgrade, in an
attempt to terrorise the country into surrender."
Clinton's unprovoked attack on Serbia, intended to help ethnic Albanians seize control of Kosovo, set a precedent for "humanitarian"
warring that was invoked by supporters of George W. Bush's unprovoked attack on Iraq, Barack Oba-ma's bombing of Libya, and Donald
Trump's bombing of Syria.
Clinton remains a hero in Kosovo, and there is an 11-foot statue of him standing in the capitol, Pristina, on Bill Clinton Boulevard.
A commentator in the United Kingdom's Guardian newspaper noted that the statue showed Clinton "with a left hand raised, a
typical gesture of a leader greeting the masses. In his right hand he is holding documents engraved with the date when NATO started
the bombardment of Serbia, 24 March 1999." It would have been a more accurate representation if Clinton was shown standing on the
corpses of the women, children, and others killed in the U.S. bombing campaign.
Bombing Serbia was a family affair in the Clinton White House. Hillary Clinton revealed to an interviewer in the summer of
1999, "I urged him to bomb. You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What
do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?" A biography of Hillary Clinton, written by Gail Sheehy and published
in late 1999, stated that Mrs. Clinton had refused to talk to the president for eight months after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke.
She resumed talking to her husband only when she phoned him and urged him in the strongest terms to begin bombing Serbia; the president
began bombing within 24 hours. Alexander Cockburn observed in the Los Angeles Times,
It's scarcely surprising that Hillary would have urged President Clinton to drop cluster bombs on the Serbs to defend "our
way of life." The first lady is a social engineer. She believes in therapeutic policing and the duty of the state to impose
such policing. War is more social engineering, "fixitry" via high explosive, social therapy via cruise missile . As a tough therapeutic
cop, she does not shy away from the most abrupt expression of the therapy: the death penalty.
I followed the war closely from the start, but selling articles to editors bashing the bombing was as easy as pitching paeans
to Scientology. Instead of breaking into newsprint, my venting occurred instead in my journal:
April 7, 1999: Much of the media and most of the American public are evaluating Clinton's Serbian policy based on
the pictures of the bomb damage -- rather than by asking whether there is any coherent purpose or justification for bombing.
The ultimate triumph of photo opportunities . What a travesty and national disgrace for this country.
April 17: My bottom line on the Kosovo conflict: I hate holy wars. And this is a holy war for American good deeds
-- or for America's saintly self-image? Sen. John McCain said the war is necessary to "uphold American values." Make me barf!
Just another Hitler-of-the-month attack.
May 13: This damn Serbian war is a symbol of all that is wrong with the righteous approach to the world and to problems
within this nation.
The KLA
The Kosovo Liberation Army's savage nature was well known before the Clinton administration formally christened them "freedom
fighters" in 1999. The previous year, the State Department condemned "terrorist action by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army."
The KLA was heavily involved in drug trafficking and had close to ties to Osama bin Laden. Arming the KLA helped Clinton portray
himself as a crusader against injustice and shift public attention after his impeachment trial. Clinton was aided by many congressmen
eager to portray U.S. bombing as an engine of righteousness. Sen. Joe Lieberman whooped that the United States and the KLA "stand
for the same values and principles. Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values."
In early June 1999, the Washington Post reported that "some presidential aides and friends are describing [bombing] Kosovo
in Churchillian tones, as Clinton's 'finest hour.'" Clinton administration officials justified killing civilians because, it
alleged the Serbs were committing genocide in Kosovo. After the bombing ended, no evidence of genocide was found, but Clinton and
Britain's Tony Blair continued boasting as if their war had stopped a new Hitler in his tracks.
In a speech to American troops in a Thanksgiving 1999 visit, Clinton declared that the Kosovar children "love the United States
because we gave them their freedom back." Perhaps Clinton saw freedom as nothing more than being tyrannized by people of the same
ethnicity. As the Serbs were driven out of Kosovo, Kosovar Albanians became increasingly oppressed by the KLA, which ignored its
commitment to disarm. The Los Angeles Times reported on November 20, 1999,
As a postwar power struggle heats up in Kosovo Albanian politics, extremists are trying to silence moderate leaders with a
terror campaign of kidnappings, beatings, bombings, and at least one killing. The intensified attacks against members of the moderate
Democratic League of Kosovo, or LDK, have raised concerns that radical ethnic Albanians are turning against their own out of fear
of losing power in a democratic Kosovo.
American and NATO forces stood by as the KLA resumed its ethnic cleansing, slaughtering Serbian civilians, bombing Serbian
churches, and oppressing non-Muslims. Almost a quarter million Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, and other minorities fled Kosovo after Clinton
promised to protect them. In March 2000 renewed fighting broke out when the KLA launched attacks into Serbia, trying to seize
territory that it claimed historically belonged to ethnic Albanians. UN Human Rights Envoy Jiri Dienstbier reported that "the [NATO]
bombing hasn't solved any problems. It only multiplied the existing problems and created new ones. The Yugoslav economy was destroyed.
Kosovo is destroyed. There are hundreds of thousands of people unemployed now."
U.S. complicity in atrocities
Prior to the NATO bombing, American citizens had no responsibility for atrocities committed by either Serbs or ethnic Albanians.
However, after American planes bombed much of Serbia into rubble to drive the Serbian military out of Kosovo, Clinton effectively
made the United States responsible for the safety of the remaining Serbs in Kosovo. That was equivalent to forcibly disarming a group
of people, and then standing by, whistling and looking at the ground, while they are slaughtered. Since the United States promised
to bring peace to Kosovo, Clinton bears some responsibility for every burnt church, every murdered Serbian grandmother, every new
refugee column streaming north out of Kosovo. Despite those problems, Clinton bragged at a December 8, 1999, press conference that
he was "very, very proud" of what the United States had done in Kosovo.
I had a chapter on the Serbian bombing campaign titled "Moralizing with Cluster Bombs" in Feeling Your Pain: The Explosion
and Abuse of Government Power in the Clinton–Gore Years (St. Martin's Press, 2000), which sufficed to spur at least one or two
reviewers to attack the book. Norman Provizer, the director of the Golda Meir Center for Political Leadership, scoffed in the
Denver Rocky Mountain News, "Bovard chastises Clinton for an illegal, undeclared war in Kosovo without ever bothering to mention
that, during the entire run of American history, there have been but four official declarations of war by Congress."
As the chaotic situation in post-war Kosovo became stark, it was easier to work in jibes against the debacle. In an October 2002
USA Today article ("Moral High Ground Not Won on Battlefield") bashing the Bush administration's push for war against Iraq,
I pointed out, "A desire to spread freedom does not automatically confer a license to kill . Operation Allied Force in 1999 bombed
Belgrade, Yugoslavia, into submission purportedly to liberate Kosovo. Though Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic raised the white flag,
ethnic cleansing continued -- with the minority Serbs being slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground in the same way the
Serbs previously oppressed the ethnic Albanians."
In a 2011 review for The American Conservative, I scoffed, "After NATO planes killed hundreds if not thousands of Serb
and ethnic Albanian civilians, Bill Clinton could pirouette as a savior. Once the bombing ended, many of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo
were slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground. NATO's 'peace' produced a quarter million Serbian, Jewish, and Gypsy refugees."
In 2014, a European Union task force confirmed that the ruthless cabal that Clinton empowered by bombing Serbia committed atrocities
that included murdering persons to extract and sell their kidneys, livers, and other body parts. Clint Williamson, the chief prosecutor
of a special European Union task force, declared in 2014 that senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had engaged in "unlawful
killings, abductions, enforced disappearances, illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania, sexual violence, forced displacements
of individuals from their homes and communities, and desecration and destruction of churches and other religious sites."
The New York Times reported that the trials of Kosovo body snatchers may be stymied by cover-ups and stonewalling: "Past
investigations of reports of organ trafficking in Kosovo have been undermined by witnesses' fears of testifying in a small country
where clan ties run deep and former members of the KLA are still feted as heroes. Former leaders of the KLA occupy high posts in
the government." American politicians almost entirely ignored the scandal. Vice President Joe Biden hailed former KLA leader and
Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci in 2010 as "the George Washington of Kosovo." A few months later, a Council of Europe investigative
report tagged Thaci as an accomplice to the body-trafficking operation.
Clinton's war on Serbia opened a Pandora's box from which the world still suffers. Because politicians and pundits portrayed that
war as a moral triumph, it was easier for subsequent presidents to portray U.S. bombing as the self-evident triumph of good over
evil. Honest assessments of wrongful killings remain few and far between in media coverage.
This article was originally published in the July 2019 edition ofFuture of Freedom .
James Bovard is a policy adviser to The Future of Freedom Foundation. He is a USA Today columnist and has written
for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, New Republic, Reader's Digest, Playboy, American Spectator,
Investors Business Daily, and many other publications. He is the author of Freedom Frauds: Hard Lessons in American Liberty
(2017, published by FFF); Public Policy Hooligan (2012); Attention Deficit Democracy (2006); The Bush Betrayal
(2004); Terrorism and Tyranny (2003); Feeling Your Pain (2000); Freedom in Chains (1999); Shakedown (1995);
Lost Rights (1994); The Fair Trade Fraud (1991); and The Farm Fiasco (1989). He was the 1995 co-recipient of
the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought, and the recipient of the 1996 Freedom
Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. His book Lost Rights received the
Mencken Award as Book of the Year from the Free Press Association. His Terrorism and Tyranny won Laissez Faire Book's Lysander
Spooner award for the Best Book on Liberty in 2003. Read his blog . Send
him email .
uh Hillary Clinton stood with Bush and lied the world into war. Hillary and Obama brought
slavery back to Libya and ISIS and the largest refugee crisis since WW2 to Syria .
Dont forget genocide in Yemen ..
Hillary also supported disastrous free trade deals like NAFTA and CAFTA and {TPP that
brought back slavery} that harm workers on both sides of the borders
Hillary also toppled a democratically elected president in Honduras with Death Squads and
Obama killed 40,000 innocent t people with Sanctions in Venezuela
They are fleeing Hillary and Obama's Terror spree ..and cheer on worse WW3 with Russia
Reporter Quits NBC Citing Network's Support For Endless War
c.. Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes, Emma Peele, Without a Doubt – and I absolutely adore your
"Avengers" pseudonym !
Hillary's disgusting crimes, however, seem to me to be an attempt to ingratiate herself
(and the Democrats) with the Ultra Hawkish Bush Era Republicans.
Who can ever forgive & forget her ghoulish pronouncement, "We came, we saw, He
died!!"
(in reference to the ghoulishly brutal public murder of Libya's Qaddafi. {Qaddafi's "Green
Book" was a well imagined Socio-Economic plan for for the economic liberation of Africa from
the economic and cultural strictures of US, European Absolutist Brutal Dominion.} -- As it
was, Libya, under Qaddafi, was a liberal, socialist society with free education, free health
care for all citizens, and a nation with it's own currency , free from US/EURO manipulation
and control.
-- This Is Why We Killed Him. --
This is US Command and Control World-Wide POLICY ! ! ! --
-- Anglo-Saxon Command and Control of the Whole Wide World and all it's resources Owned and
Militarily Controlled by European Bankers
-- - EUROPEAN Bankers, Rothschild Criminal Banker WarMongers/ Wall Street and American
Military Power --
These are They which Evilly Rule the World and Disparage or Murder (annihilate) All Others
at their pleasure, and Trump is an evil antagonist with the personage of a King Leopold.
Please find "KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST' By Adam Hochschild
The trouble with CIA democrats is not that they are stupid, but that that are evil.
Hillary proved to be really destructive witch during her Obama stunt as the Secretary of State. Destroyed Libya and Ukraine,
which is no small feat.
Notable quotes:
"... The policy of the Obama administration, and particularly Hillary Clinton's State Department, was – and still is – regime change in Syria. This overrode all other considerations. We armed, trained, and "vetted" the Syrian rebels, even as we looked the other way while the Saudis and the Gulf sheikdoms funded groups like al-Nusra and al-Qaeda affiliates who wouldn't pass muster. And our "moderates" quickly passed into the ranks of the outfront terrorists, complete with the weapons we'd provided. ..."
"... She is truly an idiot. Thanks again, Ivy League. ..."
The Grauniad just quoted a tweet from a predictably OUTRAGED @HillaryClinton:
Actions have consequences, and whether we're in Syria or not, the people who want to
harm us are there & at war. Isolationism is weakness. Empowering ISIS is dangerous.
Playing into Russia & Iran's hands is foolish. This President is putting our national
security at grave risk.
This from the woman who almost singlehandedly (i.e. along with David Cameron and Sarkovy)
destroyed Libya and allowed -- if not encouraged -- the flow of US weapons to go into the
hands of ISIS allies in the US-Saudi-Israeli obsession with toppling Assad regardless of the
consequences. As Justin Raimondo wrote in
Antiwar.com in 2015:
The policy of the Obama administration, and particularly Hillary Clinton's State
Department, was – and still is – regime change in Syria. This overrode all
other considerations. We armed, trained, and "vetted" the Syrian rebels, even as we looked
the other way while the Saudis and the Gulf sheikdoms funded groups like al-Nusra and
al-Qaeda affiliates who wouldn't pass muster. And our "moderates" quickly passed into the
ranks of the outfront terrorists, complete with the weapons we'd provided.
This crazy policy was an extension of our regime change operation in Libya, a.k.a.
"Hillary's War," where the US – "leading from behind" – and a coalition of our
Western allies and the Gulf protectorates overthrew Muammar Qaddafi. There, too, we
empowered radical Islamists with links to al-Qaeda affiliates – and then used them to
ship weapons to their Syrian brothers, as another document uncovered by Judicial Watch
shows.
After HRC's multiple foreign policy fiascos she is the last person who should be
commenting on this matter.
a different chris, December 21, 2018 at 11:50 am
> the people who want to harm us are there & at war
Sounds like then they are too busy to harm us? She is truly an idiot. Thanks again, Ivy League.
"... Among Global Research's most popular articles in 2016. ..."
"... Hillary is Dangerous. She Means What She says? Or Does She? (M. C. GR. Editor) ..."
"... On July 3, 2015, presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton addressed a hand-picked audience at a Dartmouth College campaign event. She lied calling Iran an "existential threat to Israel I hope we are able to get a deal next week that puts a lid on (its) nuclear weapons program." ..."
Among Global Research's most popular articles in 2016.
Hillary is Dangerous. She Means What She says? Or Does She? (M. C. GR. Editor)
* * *
On July 3, 2015, presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton addressed a hand-picked audience at a Dartmouth College campaign event.
She lied calling Iran an "existential threat to Israel I hope we are able to get a deal next week that puts a lid on (its) nuclear
weapons program."
Even if we do get such a deal, we will still have major problems from Iran. They are the world's chief sponsor of terrorism.
They use proxies like Hezbollah to sow discord and create insurgencies to destabilize governments. They are taking more and
more control of a number of nations in the region and they pose an existential threat to Israel.
We have to turn our attention to working with our partners to try to reign in and prevent this continuing Iranian aggressiveness.
Fact: US and Israeli intelligence both say Iran's nuclear program has no military component. No evidence whatever suggests Tehran
wants one. Plenty indicates otherwise.
As a 2008 presidential aspirant, she addressed AIPAC's annual convention saying:
The United States stands with Israel now and forever. We have shared interests .shared ideals .common values. I have a bedrock
commitment to Israel's security.
(O)ur two nations are fighting a shared threat" against Islamic extremism. I strongly support Israel's right to self-defense
(and) believe America should aid in that defense.
I am committed to making sure that Israel maintains a military edge to meet increasing threats. I am deeply concerned about
the growing threat in Gaza (and) Hamas' campaign of terror.
No such campaign exists. The only threats Israel faces are ones it invents.
Clinton repeated tired old lies saying Hamas' charter "calls for the destruction of Israel. Iran threatens to destroy Israel."
"I support calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard what it is: a terrorist organization. It is imperative that we get both
tough and smart about dealing with Iran before it is too late."
She backs "massive retaliation" if Iran attacks Israel, saying at the time:
" I want the Iranians to know that if I'm president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly
consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
She endorses using cluster bombs, toxic agents and nuclear weapons in US war theaters. She calls them deterrents that "keep the
peace." She was one of only six Democrat senators opposed to blocking deployment of untested missile defense systems – first-strike
weapons entirely for offense.
*
Stephen Lendmanlives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].
His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
"... In any event, it was "intercepts" leaked from deep in the bowels of the CIA to the Washington Post and then amplified in a 24/7 campaign by the War Channel (CNN) that brought General Flynn down. ..."
"... But here's the thing. They were aiming at Donald J. Trump. And for all of his puffed up bluster about being the savviest negotiator on the planet, the Donald walked right into their trap, as we shall amplify momentarily. ..."
"... But let's first make the essence of the matter absolutely clear. The whole Flynn imbroglio is not about a violation of the Logan Act owing to the fact that the general engaged in diplomacy as a private citizen. ..."
"... It's about re-litigating the 2016 election based on the hideous lie that Trump stole it with the help of Vladimir Putin. In fact, Nancy Pelosi was quick to say just that: ..."
"... 'The American people deserve to know the full extent of Russia's financial, personal and political grip on President Trump and what that means for our national security,' House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a press release. ..."
"... And Senator Graham, the member of the boobsey twins who ran for President in 2016 while getting a GOP primary vote from virtually nobody, made clear that General Flynn's real sin was a potential peace overture to the Russians: ..."
"... We say good riddance to Flynn, of course, because he was a shrill anti-Iranian warmonger. But let's also not be fooled by the clinical term at the heart of the story. That is, "intercepts" mean that the Deep State taps the phone calls of the President's own closest advisors as a matter of course. ..."
"... As one writer for LawNewz noted regarding acting Attorney General Sally Yates' voyeuristic pre-occupation with Flynn's intercepted conversations, Nixon should be rolling in his grave with envy: ..."
"... Yes, that's the same career apparatchik of the permanent government that Obama left behind to continue the 2016 election by other means. And it's working. The Donald is being rapidly emasculated by the powers that be in the Imperial City due to what can only be described as an audacious and self-evident attack on Trump's Presidency by the Deep State. ..."
"... Indeed, the paper details an apparent effort by Yates to misuse her office to launch a full-scale secret investigation of her political opponents, including 'intercepting calls' of her political adversaries. ..."
"... Yet on the basis of the report's absolutely zero evidence and endless surmise, innuendo and "assessments", the Obama White House imposed another round of its silly school-boy sanctions on a handful of Putin's cronies. ..."
"... Of course, Flynn should have been telling the Russian Ambassador that this nonsense would be soon reversed! ..."
"... But here is the ultimate folly. The mainstream media talking heads are harrumphing loudly about the fact that the very day following Flynn's call -- Vladimir Putin announced that he would not retaliate against the new Obama sanctions as expected; and shortly thereafter, the Donald tweeted that Putin had shown admirable wisdom. ..."
"... That's right. Two reasonably adult statesman undertook what might be called the Christmas Truce of 2016. But like its namesake of 1914 on the bloody no man's land of the western front, the War Party has determined that the truce-makers shall not survive. ..."
General Flynn's tenure in the White House was only slightly longer than that of President-elect
William Henry Harrison in 1841. Actually, with just 24 days in the White House, General Flynn's tenure
fell a tad short of old "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too". General Harrison actually lasted 31 days before
getting felled by pneumonia.
And the circumstances were considerably more benign. It seems that General Harrison had a fondness
for the same "firewater" that agitated the native Americans he slaughtered at the famous battle memorialized
in his campaign slogan. In fact, during the campaign a leading Democrat newspaper skewered the old
general, who at 68 was the oldest US President prior to Ronald Reagan, saying:
Give him a barrel of hard [alcoholic] cider, and a pension of two thousand [dollars] a year
and he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin.
That might have been a good idea back then (or even now), but to prove he wasn't infirm, Harrison
gave the longest inaugural address in US history (2 hours) in the midst of seriously inclement weather
wearing neither hat nor coat.
That's how he got pneumonia! Call it foolhardy, but that was nothing compared to that exhibited
by Donald Trump's former national security advisor.
General Flynn got the equivalent of political pneumonia by talking for hours during the transition
to international leaders, including Russia's ambassador to the US, on phone lines which were bugged
by the CIA Or more accurately, making calls which were "intercepted" by the very same NSA/FBI spy
machinery that monitors every single phone call made in America.
Ironically, we learned what Flynn should have known about the Deep State's plenary surveillance
from Edward Snowden. Alas, Flynn and Trump wanted the latter to be hung in the public square as a
"traitor", but if that's the solution to intelligence community leaks, the Donald is now going to
need his own rope factory to deal with the flood of traitorous disclosures directed against him.
In any event, it was "intercepts" leaked from deep in the bowels of the CIA to the Washington
Post and then amplified in a 24/7 campaign by the War Channel (CNN) that brought General Flynn down.
But here's the thing. They were aiming at Donald J. Trump. And for all of his puffed up bluster
about being the savviest negotiator on the planet, the Donald walked right into their trap, as we
shall amplify momentarily.
But let's first make the essence of the matter absolutely clear. The whole Flynn imbroglio
is not about a violation of the Logan Act owing to the fact that the general engaged in diplomacy
as a private citizen.
It's about re-litigating the 2016 election based on the hideous lie that Trump stole it with
the help of Vladimir Putin. In fact, Nancy Pelosi was quick to say just that:
'The American people deserve to know the full extent of Russia's financial, personal and political
grip on President Trump and what that means for our national security,' House Minority Leader Nancy
Pelosi said in a press release.
Yet, we should rephrase. The re-litigation aspect reaches back to the Republican primaries, too.
The Senate GOP clowns who want a war with practically everybody, John McCain and Lindsey Graham,
are already launching their own investigation from the Senate Armed Services committee.
And Senator Graham, the member of the boobsey twins who ran for President in 2016 while getting
a GOP primary vote from virtually nobody, made clear that General Flynn's real sin was a potential
peace overture to the Russians:
Sen. Lindsey Graham also said he wants an investigation into Flynn's conversations with a Russian
ambassador about sanctions: "I think Congress needs to be informed of what actually Gen. Flynn said
to the Russian ambassador about lifting sanctions," the South Carolina Republican told CNN's Kate
Bolduan on "At This Hour. And I want to know, did Gen. Flynn do this by himself or was he directed
by somebody to do it?"
We say good riddance to Flynn, of course, because he was a shrill anti-Iranian warmonger.
But let's also not be fooled by the clinical term at the heart of the story. That is, "intercepts"
mean that the Deep State taps the phone calls of the President's own closest advisors as a matter
of course.
This is the real scandal as Trump himself has rightly asserted. The very idea that the already
announced #1 national security advisor to a President-elect should be subject to old-fashion "bugging,"
albeit with modern day technology, overwhelmingly trumps the utterly specious Logan Act charge at
the center of the case.
As one writer for LawNewz noted regarding acting Attorney General Sally Yates' voyeuristic
pre-occupation with Flynn's intercepted conversations, Nixon should be rolling in his grave with
envy:
Now, information leaks that Sally Yates knew about surveillance being conducted against
potential members of the Trump administration, and disclosed that information to others. Even
Richard Nixon didn't use the government agencies themselves to do his black bag surveillance operations.
Sally Yates involvement with this surveillance on American political opponents, and possibly the
leaking related thereto, smacks of a return to Hoover-style tactics. As writers at Bloomberg and
The Week both noted, it wreaks of 'police-state' style tactics. But knowing dear Sally as I do,
it comes as no surprise.
Yes, that's the same career apparatchik of the permanent government that Obama left behind
to continue the 2016 election by other means. And it's working. The Donald is being rapidly emasculated
by the powers that be in the Imperial City due to what can only be described as an audacious and
self-evident attack on Trump's Presidency by the Deep State.
Indeed, it seems that the layers of intrigue have gotten so deep and convoluted that the nominal
leadership of the permanent government machinery has lost track of who is spying on whom. Thus, we
have the following curious utterance by none other than the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee,
Rep. Devin Nunes:
'I expect for the FBI to tell me what is going on, and they better have a good answer,' he told
The Washington Post. 'The big problem I see here is that you have an American citizen who had his
phone calls recorded.'
Well, yes. That makes 324 million of us, Congressman.
But for crying out loud, surely the oh so self-important chairman of the House intelligence committee
knows that everybody is bugged. But when it reaches the point that the spy state is essentially using
its unconstitutional tools to engage in what amounts to "opposition research" with the aim of election
nullification, then the Imperial City has become a clear and present danger to American democracy
and the liberties of the American people.
As Robert Barnes of LawNewz further explained, Sally Yates, former CIA director John Brennan and
a large slice of the Never Trumper intelligence community were systematically engaged in "opposition
research" during the campaign and the transition:
According to published reports, someone was eavesdropping, and recording, the conversations of
Michael Flynn, while Sally Yates was at the Department of Justice. Sally Yates knew about this eavesdropping,
listened in herself (Pellicano-style for those who remember the infamous LA cases), and reported
what she heard to others. For Yates to have such access means she herself must have been involved
in authorizing its disclosure to political appointees, since she herself is such a political appointee.
What justification was there for an Obama appointee to be spying on the conversations of a future
Trump appointee?
Consider this little tidbit in
The Washington Post . The paper, which once broke Watergate, is now propagating the benefits
of Watergate-style surveillance in ways that do make Watergate look like a third-rate effort. (With
the) FBI 'routinely' monitoring conversations of Americans...... Yates listened to 'the intercepted
call,' even though Yates knew there was 'little chance' of any credible case being made for prosecution
under a law 'that has never been used in a prosecution.'
And well it hasn't been. After all, the Logan Act was signed by President John Adams in 1799 in
order to punish one of Thomas Jefferson's supporters for having peace discussions with the French
government in Paris. That is, it amounted to pre-litigating the Presidential campaign of 1800 based
on sheer political motivation.
According to the Washington Post itself, that is exactly what Yates and the Obama holdovers did
day and night during the interregnum:
Indeed, the paper details an apparent effort by Yates to misuse her office to launch a full-scale
secret investigation of her political opponents, including 'intercepting calls' of her political
adversaries.
So all of the feigned outrage emanating from Democrats and the Washington establishment about
Team Trump's trafficking with the Russians is a cover story. Surely anyone even vaguely familiar
with recent history would have known there was absolutely nothing illegal or even untoward about
Flynn's post-Christmas conversations with the Russian Ambassador.
Indeed, we recall from personal experience the thrilling moment on inauguration day in January
1981 when word came of the release of the American hostages in Tehran. Let us assure you, that did
not happen by immaculate diplomatic conception -- nor was it a parting gift to the Gipper by the
outgoing Carter Administration.
To the contrary, it was the fruit of secret negotiations with the Iranian government during the
transition by private American citizens. As the history books would have it because it's true, the
leader of that negotiation, in fact, was Ronald Reagan's national security council director-designate,
Dick Allen.
As the real Washington Post later reported, under the by-line of a real reporter, Bob Woodward:
Reagan campaign aides met in a Washington DC hotel in early October, 1980, with a self-described
'Iranian exile' who offered, on behalf of the Iranian government, to release the hostages to Reagan,
not Carter, in order to ensure Carter's defeat in the November 4, 1980 election.
The American participants were Richard Allen, subsequently Reagan's first national security adviser,
Allen aide Laurence Silberman, and Robert McFarlane, another future national security adviser who
in 1980 was on the staff of Senator John Tower (R-TX).
To this day we have not had occasion to visit our old friend Dick Allen in the US penitentiary
because he's not there; the Logan Act was never invoked in what is surely the most blatant case ever
of citizen diplomacy.
So let's get to the heart of the matter and be done with it. The Obama White House conducted a
sour grapes campaign to delegitimize the election beginning November 9th and it was led by then CIA
Director John Brennan.
That treacherous assault on the core constitutional matter of the election process culminated
in the ridiculous Russian meddling report of the Obama White House in December. The latter, of course,
was issued by serial liar James Clapper, as national intelligence director, and the clueless Democrat
lawyer and bag-man, Jeh Johnson, who had been appointed head of the Homeland Security Department.
Yet on the basis of the report's absolutely zero evidence and endless surmise, innuendo and
"assessments", the Obama White House imposed another round of its silly school-boy sanctions on a
handful of Putin's cronies.
Of course, Flynn should have been telling the Russian Ambassador that this nonsense would
be soon reversed!
But here is the ultimate folly. The mainstream media talking heads are harrumphing loudly
about the fact that the very day following Flynn's call -- Vladimir Putin announced that he would
not retaliate against the new Obama sanctions as expected; and shortly thereafter, the Donald tweeted
that Putin had shown admirable wisdom.
That's right. Two reasonably adult statesman undertook what might be called the Christmas
Truce of 2016. But like its namesake of 1914 on the bloody no man's land of the western front, the
War Party has determined that the truce-makers shall not survive.
We haven't had deep state (successfully) take out a President since JFK. I am sure they will
literally be gunning for Donald Trump! His election screwed up the elite's world order plans ...
poor Soros ... time for him to take a dirt knap!
Be careful Trump! They will try and kill you! The United States government is COMPLETELY corrupt.
Draining the swamp means its either you or they die!
Let us help Trump's presidency to make America (not globalist) great again.
Not only democrats rigged Primary to elect Clinton as presidential candidate last year even
though she has poor judgement (violating government cyber security policy) and is incompetent
(her email server was not secured) when she was the Secretary of State, and was revealed to be
corrupt by Bernie Sanders during the Primary, but also democrats encourage illegal immigration,
discourage work, and "conned" young voters with free college/food/housing/health care/Obama phone.
Democratic government employees/politicians also committed crimes to leak classified information
which caused former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn losing his job and undermined Trump's
presidency.
However middle/working class used their common senses voting against Clinton last November.
Although I am not a republican and didn't vote in primary but I voted for Trump and those Republicans
who supported Trump in last November since I am not impressed with the "integrity" and "judgement"
of democrats, Anti-Trump protesters, Anti-Trump republicans, and those media who endorsed Clinton
during presidential election and they'll work for globalists, the super rich, who moved jobs/investment
overseas for cheap labor/tax and demanded middle/working class to pay tax to support welfare of
illegal aliens and refugees who will become globalist's illegal voters and anti-Trump protesters.
To prevent/detect voter fraud, "voter ID" and "no mailing ballots" must be enforced to reduce
possible "voter frauds on a massive scale" committed by democratic/republic/independent party
operatives. All the sanctuary counties need to be recounted and voided county votes if recount
fails since the only county which was found to count one vote many times is the only "Sanctuary"
county, Wayne county, in recount states (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin) last year. The
integrity of voting equipment and voting system need to be tested, protected and audited. There
were no voting equipment stuck to Trump. Yet, many voting equipment were found to switch votes
to Clinton last November. Voter databases need to be kept current. Encourage reporting of "voter
fraud on a massive scale" committed by political party operatives with large reward.
Trump knows whats coming. Rush Limbaugh said "I've known Trump for a long time, he is a winner
and I am sure none of this phases him at all. The media didn't create him, the media can't destroy
him."
Flynn has been there for several years. If he was such a threat why did they not take action
sooner since Soweeto appointed him in 2012? It must be that Soweto Obama is his spy buddy then,
both of them in league with the Russians since Obama has been with Flynn for a much longer time
he had to know if something was up.
The entire Russian spy story is a complete Fake news rouse.
I am wondering what they'll say tomorrow to draw attention awya form the muslim riots in Sweden.
If the news of Muslim riots in Sweden, then Trump will be even more vindicated and the MSM will
look even more stupid and Fake.
The Deep State has accentually lost control of the Intelligence Community via its Agents /
Operatives & Presstitute Media vehicle's to Gas Light the Masses.
So what Criminals at large Obama, Clapper & Lynch have done 17 days prior to former CEO Criminal
Obama leaving office was to Decentralize & weaken the NSA. As a result, Intel gathering was then
regulated to the other 16 Intel Agencies.
Thus, taking Centuries Old Intelligence based on a vey stringent Centralized British Model,
De Centralized it, filling the remaining 16 Intel Agenices with potential Spies and a Shadow Deep
State Mirror Government.
All controlled from two blocks away at Pure Evil Criminal War Criminal Treasonous at large,
former CEO Obama's Compound / Lair.
It's High Treason being conducted "Hidden In Plain View" by the Deep State.
It's the most Bizzare Transition of Power I've ever witnessed. Unprecedented.
Flynn did not tell Pence that Pence's best friend was front and center on the Pizzagate list.
That's what cost Flynn his job...it had fuck all do do with the elections.
An interesting warning about possible return of neocons in Hillary administration. Looks like not
much changed in Washington from 2005 and Obama more and more looks like Bush III. Both Hillary and Trump
are jingoistic toward Iran. Paradoxically Trump is even more jingoistic then Hillary.
Notable quotes:
"... That no one yet claims actually exists, has begun. Once again we seem to be heading down a highway marked "counterproliferation war." What makes this bizarre is that the Middle East today, for all its catastrophic problems, is actually a nuclear-free zone except for one country, Israel, which has a staggeringly outsized, semi-secret nuclear arsenal. ..."
"... And not much has changed since. I recommend as well a piece written even earlier by Ira Chernus on a graphic about the Israeli nuclear arsenal tucked away at the MSNBC website (and still viewable ). ..."
"... Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and one of the founders of the group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, considers the Iranian and Israeli bombs, and Bush administration policy in relation to both below in a piece that, he writes, emerged from "an informal colloquium which has sprung up in the Washington, DC area involving people with experience at senior policy levels of government, others who examine foreign policy and defense issues primarily out of a faith perspective, and still others with a foot in each camp. We are trying to deal directly with the moral -- as well as the practical -- implications of various policy alternatives. One of our group recently was invited to talk with senior staffers in the House of Representatives about Iran, its nuclear plans, its support for terrorists, and U.S. military options. Toward the end of that conversation, a House staffer was emboldened to ask, 'What would be a moral solution?' This question gave new energy to our colloquium, generating a number of informal papers, including this one. I am grateful to my colloquium colleagues for their insights and suggestions." ..."
"... What about post-attack "Day Two?" Not to worry. Well-briefed pundits are telling us about a wellspring of Western-oriented I find myself thinking: Right; just like all those Iraqis who welcomed invading American and British troops with open arms and cut flowers. ..."
"... In 2001, the new President Bush brought the neocons back and put them in top policymaking positions. Even former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, convicted in October 1991 of lying to Congress and then pardoned by George H. W. Bush, was called back and put in charge of Middle East policy in the White House. In January, he was promoted to the influential post (once occupied by Robert Gates) of deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs. From that senior position Abrams will once again be dealing closely with John Negroponte, an old colleague from rogue-elephant Contra War days, who has now been picked to be the first director of national intelligence. ..."
"... Those of us who -- like Colin Powell -- had front-row seats during the 1980s are far too concerned to dismiss the re-emergence of the neocons as a simple case of déjà vu . They are much more dangerous now. Unlike in the eighties, they are the ones crafting the adventurous policies our sons and daughters are being called on to implement. ..."
"... So why would Iran think it has to acquire nuclear weapons? Sen. Richard Lugar, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked this on a Sunday talk show a few months ago. Apparently having a senior moment, he failed to give the normal answer. Instead, he replied, "Well, you know, Israel has..." At that point, he caught himself and abruptly stopped. ..."
That no one yet claims actually exists, has begun. Once again we seem to be heading down a highway
marked "counterproliferation war." What makes this bizarre is that the Middle East today, for all
its catastrophic problems, is actually a nuclear-free zone except for one country, Israel, which
has a staggeringly outsized, semi-secret nuclear arsenal.
As Los Angeles Times reporter Douglas Frantz wrote at one point, "Though Israel is a democracy,
debating the nuclear program is taboo A military censor guards Israel's nuclear secrets." And this
"taboo" has largely extended to American reporting on the subject. Imagine, to offer a very partial
analogy, if we all had had to consider the Cold War nuclear issue with the Soviet, but almost never
the American nuclear arsenal, in the news. Of course, that would have been absurd and yet it's the
case in the Middle East today, making most strategic discussions of the region exercises in absurdity.
I wrote about this subject under the title,
Nuclear Israel
, back in October 2003, because of a brief break, thanks to Frantz, in the media blackout on the
subject. I began then, "Nuclear North Korea, nuclear Iraq, nuclear Iran - of these our media has
been full for the last year or more, though they either don't exist or hardly yet exist. North Korea
now probably has a couple of crude nuclear weapons, which it may still be incapable of delivering.
But nuclear Israel, little endangered Israel? It's hard even to get your head around the concept,
though that country has either the fifth or sixth largest nuclear arsenal in the world." And
not much has changed since. I recommend as well a piece written even earlier
by Ira Chernus on a
graphic about the Israeli nuclear arsenal tucked away at the MSNBC website (and
still viewable
).
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and one of the founders of the group, Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity, considers the Iranian and Israeli bombs, and Bush administration policy
in relation to both below in a piece that, he writes, emerged from "an informal colloquium which
has sprung up in the Washington, DC area involving people with experience at senior policy levels
of government, others who examine foreign policy and defense issues primarily out of a faith perspective,
and still others with a foot in each camp. We are trying to deal directly with the moral -- as well
as the practical -- implications of various policy alternatives. One of our group recently was invited
to talk with senior staffers in the House of Representatives about Iran, its nuclear plans, its support
for terrorists, and U.S. military options. Toward the end of that conversation, a House staffer was
emboldened to ask, 'What would be a moral solution?' This question gave new energy to our colloquium,
generating a number of informal papers, including this one. I am grateful to my colloquium colleagues
for their insights and suggestions." Now, read on. ~ Tom
Attacking Iran: I Know It Sounds Crazy, But...
By Ray McGovern
"'This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous.'
"(Short pause)
"'And having said that, all options are on the table.'
"Even the White House stenographers felt obliged to note the result: '(Laughter).'"
For a host of good reasons -- the huge and draining commitment of U.S. forces to Iraq and Iran's
ability to stir the Iraqi pot to boiling, for starters -- the notion that the Bush administration
would mount a "preemptive" air attack on Iran seems insane. And still more insane if the objective
includes overthrowing Iran's government again, as in 1953 -- this time under the rubric of "regime
change."
But Bush administration policy toward the Middle East is being run by men -- yes, only men
-- who were routinely referred to in high circles in Washington during the 1980s as "the crazies."
I can attest to that personally, but one need not take my word for it.
According to James Naughtie, author of The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency
, former Secretary of State Colin Powell added an old soldier's adjective to the "crazies"
sobriquet in referring to the same officials. Powell, who was military aide to Defense Secretary
Casper Weinberger in the early eighties, was overheard calling them "the f---ing crazies" during
a phone call with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw before the war in Iraq. At the time, Powell
was reportedly deeply concerned over their determination to attack -- with or without UN approval.
Small wonder that they got rid of Powell after the election, as soon as they had no more use for
him.
If further proof of insanity were needed, one could simply look at the unnecessary carnage
in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003. That unprovoked attack was, in my view, the most fateful
foreign policy blunder in our nation's history...so far.
It Can Get Worse
"The crazies" are not finished. And we do well not to let their ultimate folly obscure
their current ambition, and the further trouble that ambition is bound to bring in the four years
ahead. In an immediate sense, with U.S. military power unrivaled, they can be seen as "crazy like
a fox," with a value system in which "might makes right." Operating out of that value system,
and now sporting the more respectable misnomer/moniker "neoconservative," they are convinced that
they know exactly what they are doing. They have a clear ideology and a geopolitical strategy,
which leap from papers they put out at the
Project for the New American Century
over recent years.
The very same men who, acting out of that paradigm, brought us the war in Iraq are now focusing
on Iran, which they view as the only remaining obstacle to American domination of the entire oil-rich
Middle East. They calculate that, with a docile, corporate-owned press, a co-opted mainstream
church, and a still-trusting populace, the United States and/or the Israelis can launch a successful
air offensive to disrupt any Iranian nuclear weapons programs -- with the added bonus of possibly
causing the regime in power in Iran to crumble.
But why now? After all, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency has just told Congress
that Iran is not likely to have a nuclear weapon until "early in the next decade?" The answer,
according to some defense experts, is that several of the Iranian facilities are still under construction
and there is only a narrow "window of opportunity" to destroy them without causing huge environmental
problems. That window, they say, will begin to close this year.
Other analysts attribute the sense of urgency to worry in Washington that the Iranians may
have secretly gained access to technology that would facilitate a leap forward into the nuclear
club much sooner than now anticipated. And it is, of course, neoconservative doctrine that it
is best to nip -- the word in current fashion is "preempt" -- any conceivable threats in the bud.
One reason the Israelis are pressing hard for early action may simply be out of a desire to ensure
that George W. Bush will have a few more years as president after an attack on Iran, so that they
will have him to stand with Israel when bedlam breaks out in the Middle East.
What about post-attack "Day Two?" Not to worry. Well-briefed pundits are telling us about
a wellspring of Western-oriented I find myself thinking: Right; just like all those Iraqis who
welcomed invading American and British troops with open arms and cut flowers. For me, this
evokes a painful flashback to the early eighties when "intelligence," pointing to "moderates"
within the Iranian leadership, was conjured up to help justify the imaginative but illegal arms-for-hostages-and-proceeds-to-Nicaraguan-Contras
caper. The fact that the conjurer-in-chief of that spurious "evidence" on Iranian "moderates,"
former chief CIA analyst, later director Robert Gates, was recently offered the newly created
position of director of national intelligence makes the flashback more eerie -- and alarming.
George H. W. Bush Saw Through "The Crazies"
During his term in office, George H. W. Bush, with the practical advice of his national security
adviser Gen. Brent Scowcroft and Secretary of State James Baker, was able to keep "the crazies"
at arms length, preventing them from getting the country into serious trouble. They were kept
well below the level of "principal" -- that is, below the level of secretary of state or defense.
Even so, heady in the afterglow of victory in the Gulf War of 1990, "the crazies" stirred up
considerable controversy when they articulated their radical views. Their vision, for instance,
became the centerpiece of the draft "Defense Planning Guidance" that Paul Wolfowitz, de facto
dean of the neoconservatives, prepared in 1992 for then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. It dismissed
deterrence as an outdated relic of the Cold War and argued that the United States must maintain
military strength beyond conceivable challenge -- and use it in preemptive ways in dealing with
those who might acquire "weapons of mass destruction." Sound familiar?
Aghast at this radical imperial strategy for the post-Cold War world, someone with access to
the draft leaked it to the New York Times , forcing President George H. W. Bush either
to endorse or disavow it. Disavow it he did -- and quickly, on the cooler-head recommendations
of Scowcroft and Baker, who proved themselves a bulwark against the hubris and megalomania of
"the crazies." Unfortunately, their vision did not die. No less unfortunately, there is method
to their madness -- even if it threatens to spell eventual disaster for our country. Empires always
overreach and fall.
The Return of the Neocons
In 2001, the new President Bush brought the neocons back and put them in top policymaking
positions. Even former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, convicted in October 1991 of
lying to Congress and then pardoned by George H. W. Bush, was called back and put in charge of
Middle East policy in the White House. In January, he was promoted to the influential post (once
occupied by Robert Gates) of deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs.
From that senior position Abrams will once again be dealing closely with John Negroponte, an old
colleague from rogue-elephant Contra War days, who has now been picked to be the first director
of national intelligence.
Those of us who -- like Colin Powell -- had front-row seats during the 1980s are far too
concerned to dismiss the re-emergence of the neocons as a simple case of déjà vu . They
are much more dangerous now. Unlike in the eighties, they are the ones crafting the adventurous
policies our sons and daughters are being called on to implement.
Why dwell on this? Because it is second in importance only to the portentous reality that the
earth is running out of readily accessible oil – something of which they are all too aware. Not
surprisingly then, disguised beneath the weapons-of-mass-destruction smokescreen they laid down
as they prepared to invade Iraq lay an unspoken but bedrock reason for the war -- oil. In any
case, the neocons seem to believe that, in the wake of the November election, they now have a
carte-blanche "mandate." And with the president's new "capital to spend," they appear determined
to spend it, sooner rather than later.
Next Stop, Iran
When a Special Forces platoon leader just back from Iraq matter-of-factly tells a close friend
of mine, as happened last week, that he and his unit are now training their sights (literally)
on Iran, we need to take that seriously. It provides us with a glimpse of reality as seen at ground
level. For me, it brought to mind an unsolicited email I received from the father of a young soldier
training at Fort Benning in the spring of 2002, soon after I wrote an op-ed discussing the timing
of George W. Bush's decision to make war on Iraq. The father informed me that, during the spring
of 2002, his son kept writing home saying his unit was training to go into Iraq. No, said the
father; you mean Afghanistan... that's where the war is, not Iraq. In his next email, the son
said, "No, Dad, they keep saying Iraq. I asked them and that's what they mean."
Now, apparently, they keep saying Iran ; and that appears to be what they mean.
Anecdotal evidence like this is hardly conclusive. Put it together with administration rhetoric
and a preponderance of other "dots," though, and everything points in the direction of an air
attack on Iran, possibly also involving some ground forces. Indeed, from the
New Yorker reports
of Seymour Hersh to
Washington Post articles , accounts of small-scale American intrusions on the ground as well
as into Iranian airspace are appearing with increasing frequency. In a speech given on February
18, former UN arms inspector and Marine officer Scott Ritter (who was totally on target before
the Iraq War on that country's lack of weapons of mass destruction) claimed that the president
has already "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June in order to destroy its alleged nuclear
weapons program and eventually bring about "regime change." This does not necessarily mean an
automatic green light for a large attack in June, but it may signal the president's seriousness
about this option.
So, again, against the background of what we have witnessed over the past four years, and the
troubling fact that the circle of second-term presidential advisers has become even tighter, we
do well to inject a strong note of urgency into any discussion of the "Iranian option."
Why Would Iran Want Nukes?
So why would Iran think it has to acquire nuclear weapons? Sen. Richard Lugar, chair of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was asked this on a Sunday talk show a few months ago.
Apparently having a senior moment, he failed to give the normal answer. Instead, he replied, "Well,
you know, Israel has..." At that point, he caught himself and abruptly stopped.
Recovering quickly and realizing that he could not just leave the word "Israel" hanging there,
Lugar began again: "Well, Israel is alleged to have a nuclear capability."
Is alleged to
have ? Lugar is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and yet he doesn't know that
Israel has, by most estimates, a major nuclear arsenal, consisting of several hundred nuclear
weapons? (Mainstream newspapers are allergic to dwelling on this topic, but it is mentioned every
now and then, usually buried in obscurity on an inside page.)
Just imagine how the Iranians and Syrians would react to Lugar's disingenuousness. Small wonder
our highest officials and lawmakers -- and Lugar, remember, is one of the most decent among them
-- are widely seen abroad as hypocritical. Our media, of course, ignore the hypocrisy. This is
standard operating procedure when the word "Israel" is spoken in this or other unflattering contexts.
And the objections of those appealing for a more balanced approach are quashed.
If the truth be told, Iran fears Israel at least as much as Israel fears the internal security
threat posed by the thugs supported by Tehran. Iran's apprehension is partly fear that Israel
(with at least tacit support from the Bush administration) will send its aircraft to bomb Iranian
nuclear facilities, just as American-built Israeli bombers destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor
at Osirak in 1981. As part of the current war of nerves, recent statements by the president and
vice president can be
read as giving a green light to Israel to do just that; while Israeli Air Force commander Major
General Eliezer Shakedi told reporters on February 21 that Israel must be prepared for an air
strike on Iran "in light of its nuclear activity."
US-Israel Nexus
The Iranians also remember how Israel was able to acquire and keep its nuclear technology.
Much of it was stolen from the United States by spies for Israel. As early as the late-1950s,
Washington knew Israel was building the bomb and could have aborted the project. Instead, American
officials decided to turn a blind eye and let the Israelis go ahead. Now Israel's nuclear capability
is truly formidable. Still, it is a fact of strategic life that a formidable nuclear arsenal can
be deterred by a far more modest one, if an adversary has the means to deliver it. (Look at North
Korea's success with, at best, a few nuclear weapons and questionable means of delivery in deterring
the "sole remaining superpower in the world.") And Iran already has missiles with the range to
hit Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Sharon has for some time appeared eager to enlist Washington's support
for an early "pre-emptive" strike on Iran. Indeed,
American
defense officials have told reporters that visiting Israeli officials have been pressing the
issue for the past year and a half. And the Israelis are now claiming publicly that Iran could
have a nuclear weapon within six months -- years earlier than the Defense Intelligence Agency
estimate mentioned above.
In the past, President Bush has chosen to dismiss unwelcome intelligence estimates as "guesses"
-- especially when they threatened to complicate decisions to implement the neoconservative agenda.
It is worth noting that several of the leading neocons – Richard Perle, chair of the Defense Policy
Board (2001-03); Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; and David Wurmser, Middle
East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney -- actually wrote policy papers for the Israeli government
during the 1990s. They have consistently had great difficulty distinguishing between the strategic
interests of Israel and those of the US -- at least as they imagine them.
As for President Bush, over the past four years he has amply demonstrated his preference for
the counsel of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who,
as Gen. Scowcroft said publicly , has the president "wrapped around his little finger." (As
Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board until he was unceremoniously removed
at the turn of the year, Scowcroft was in a position to know.) If Scowcroft is correct in also
saying that the president has been "mesmerized" by Sharon, it seems possible that the Israelis
already have successfully argued for an attack on Iran.
When "Regime Change" Meant Overthrow For Oil
To remember why the United States is no favorite in Tehran, one needs to go back at least to
1953 when the U.S. and Great Britain overthrew Iran's democratically elected Premier Mohammad
Mossadeq as part of a plan to insure access to Iranian oil. They then emplaced the young Shah
in power who, with his notorious secret police, proved second to none in cruelty. The Shah ruled
from 1953 to 1979. Much resentment can build up over a whole generation. His regime fell like
a house of cards, when supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini rose up to do some regime change of their
own.
Iranians also remember Washington's strong support for Saddam Hussein's Iraq after it decided
to make war on Iran in 1980. U.S. support for Iraq (which included crucial intelligence support
for the war and an implicit condoning of Saddam's use of chemical weapons) was perhaps the crucial
factor in staving off an Iranian victory. Imagine then, the threat Iranians see, should the Bush
administration succeed in establishing up to 14 permanent military bases in neighboring Iraq.
Any Iranian can look at a map of the Middle East (including occupied Iraq) and conclude that this
administration might indeed be willing to pay the necessary price in blood and treasure to influence
what happens to the black gold under Iranian as well as Iraqi sands. And with four more years
to play with, a lot can be done along those lines. The obvious question is: How to deter it? Well,
once again, Iran can hardly be blind to the fact that a small nation like North Korea has so far
deterred U.S. action by producing, or at least claiming to have produced, nuclear weapons.
Nuclear Is the Nub
The nuclear issue is indeed paramount, and we would do well to imagine and craft fresh approaches
to the nub of the problem. As a start, I'll bet if you made a survey, only 20% of Americans would
answer "yes" to the question, "Does Israel have nuclear weapons?" That is key, it seems to me,
because at their core Americans are still fair-minded people.
On the other hand, I'll bet that 95% of the Iranian population would answer, "Of course Israel
has nuclear weapons; that's why we Iranians need them" -- which was, of course, the unmentionable
calculation that Senator Lugar almost conceded. "And we also need them," many Iranians would probably
say, "in order to deter 'the crazies' in Washington. It seems to be working for the North Koreans,
who, after all, are the other remaining point on President Bush's 'axis of evil.'"
The ideal approach would, of course, be to destroy all nuclear weapons in the world
and ban them for the future, with a very intrusive global inspection regime to verify compliance.
A total ban is worth holding up as an ideal, and I think we must. But this approach seems unlikely
to bear fruit over the next four years. So what then?
A Nuclear-Free Middle East
How about a nuclear-free Middle East? Could the US make that happen? We could if we had moral
clarity -- the underpinning necessary to bring it about. Each time this proposal is raised, the
Syrians, for example, clap their hands in feigned joyful anticipation, saying, "Of course such
a pact would include Israel, right?" The issue is then dropped from all discussion by U.S. policymakers.
Required: not only moral clarity but also what Thomas Aquinas labeled the precondition for all
virtue, courage. In this context, courage would include a refusal to be intimidated by inevitable
charges of anti-Semitism.
The reality is that, except for Israel, the Middle East is nuclear free. But the discussion
cannot stop there. It is not difficult to understand why the first leaders of Israel, with the
Holocaust experience written indelibly on their hearts and minds, and feeling surrounded by perceived
threats to the fledgling state's existence, wanted the bomb. And so, before the Syrians or Iranians,
for example, get carried away with self-serving applause for the nuclear-free Middle East proposal,
they will have to understand that for any such negotiation to succeed it must have as a concomitant
aim the guarantee of an Israel able to live in peace and protect itself behind secure borders.
That guarantee has got to be part of the deal.
That the obstacles to any such agreement are formidable is no excuse not trying. But the approach
would have to be new and everything would have to be on the table. Persisting in a state of denial
about Israel's nuclear weapons is dangerously shortsighted; it does nothing but aggravate fears
among the Arabs and create further incentive for them to acquire nuclear weapons of their own.
A sensible approach would also have to include a willingness to engage the Iranians directly,
attempt to understand their perspective, and discern what the United States and Israel could do
to alleviate their concerns.
Preaching to Iran and others about not acquiring nuclear weapons is, indeed, like the village
drunk preaching sobriety -- the more so as our government keeps developing new genres of nuclear
weapons and keeps looking the other way as Israel enhances its own nuclear arsenal. Not a pretty
moral picture, that. Indeed, it reminds me of the Scripture passage about taking the plank out
of your own eye before insisting that the speck be removed from another's.
Lessons from the Past...Like Mutual Deterrence
Has everyone forgotten that deterrence worked for some 40 years, while for most of those years
the U.S. and the USSR had not by any means lost their lust for ever-enhanced nuclear weapons?
The point is simply that, while engaging the Iranians bilaterally and searching for more imaginative
nuclear-free proposals, the U.S. might adopt a more patient interim attitude regarding the striving
of other nation states to acquire nuclear weapons -- bearing in mind that the Bush administration's
policies of "preemption" and "regime change" themselves create powerful incentives for exactly
such striving. As was the case with Iraq two years ago, there is no imminent Iranian strategic
threat to Americans -- or, in reality, to anyone. Even if Iran acquired a nuclear capability,
there is no reason to believe that it would risk a suicidal first strike on Israel. That, after
all, is what mutual deterrence is all about; it works both ways.
It is nonetheless clear that the Israelis' sense of insecurity -- however exaggerated it may
seem to those of us thousands of miles away -- is not synthetic but real. The Sharon government
appears to regard its nuclear monopoly in the region as the only effective "deterrence insurance"
it can buy. It is determined to prevent its neighbors from acquiring the kind of capability that
could infringe on the freedom it now enjoys to carry out military and other actions in the area.
Government officials have said that Israel will not let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon; it would
be folly to dismiss this as bravado. The Israelis have laid down a marker and mean to follow through
-- unless the Bush administration assumes the attitude that "preemption" is an acceptable course
for the United States but not for Israel. It seems unlikely that the neoconservatives would take
that line. Rather
"Israel Is Our Ally."
Or so
said
our president before the cameras on February 17, 2005. But I didn't think we had a treaty
of alliance with Israel; I don't remember the Senate approving one. Did I miss something?
Clearly, the longstanding U.S.-Israeli friendship and the ideals we share dictate continuing
support for Israel's defense and security. It is quite another thing, though, to suggest the existence
of formal treaty obligations that our country does not have. To all intents and purposes, our
policymakers -- from the president on down -- seem to speak and behave on the assumption that
we do have such obligations toward Israel. A former colleague CIA analyst, Michael Scheuer, author
of Imperial Hubris , has put it this way: "The Israelis have succeeded in lacing tight
the ropes binding the American Gulliver to Israel and its policies."
An earlier American warned:
"A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for
the favorite nation facilitates the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where
no real common interest exists, infuses into one the enmities of the other, and betrays the
former into participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement
or justification.... It also gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, who devote
themselves to the favorite nation, facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own
country." ( George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796 )
In my view, our first president's words apply only too aptly to this administration's lash-up
with the Sharon government. As responsible citizens we need to overcome our timidity about addressing
this issue, lest our fellow Americans continue to be denied important information neglected or
distorted in our domesticated media.
Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years -- from the administration of John
F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. During the early 1980s, he was one of the writers/editors
of the President's Daily Brief and briefed it one-on-one to the president's most senior advisers.
He also chaired National Intelligence Estimates. In January 2003, he and four former colleagues
founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
"... Prioritizing foreign over domestic policy, Jackson's former aides Richard Perle , Douglas Feith , and Elliott Abrams - along with some fellow travelers like Paul Wolfowitz - eventually shifted their allegiance to the right-wing Republican Ronald Reagan. They formed an important pro-Israel, "peace through strength" nucleus within the new president's foreign policy team. ..."
John Feffer Director, Foreign Policy
In Focus and Editor, LobeLog Much has been made of the swing in political allegiances of neoconservatives
in favor of Hillary Clinton.
As a group, Washington's neocons are generally terrified of Trump's unpredictability and his flirtation
with the alt-right. They also support Clinton's more assertive foreign policy (not to mention her
closer relationship to Israel). Perhaps, too, after eight long years in the wilderness, they're daydreaming
of an appointment or two in a Clinton administration.
This group of previously staunch Republicans, who believe in using American military power to
promote democracy, build nations, and secure U.S. interests abroad, have defected in surprising numbers.
Washington Post columnist
Robert Kagan , the Wall Street Journal 's
Bret Stephens , and the
Foreign
Policy Initiative 's
James Kirchick have all endorsed Clinton. Other prominent neocons like The National Review
's William Kristol
, the Wall Street Journal 's
Max Boot , and SAIS's
Eliot Cohen have rejected
Trump but not quite taken the leap to supporting Clinton.
A not particularly large or well-defined group, neoconservatives have attracted a disproportionate
amount of attention in this election. For the Trump camp, these Republican defectors merely prove
that the elite is out to get their candidate, thus reinforcing his outsider credentials (never mind
that Trump initially
wooed neocons like Kristol).
For the left , the neocons are flocking to support a bird of their feather, at least when it
comes to foreign policy, which reflects badly on Clinton. The mainstream media, meanwhile, is attracted
to the man-bites-dog aspect of the story (news flash: members of the vast right-wing conspiracy support
Clinton!).
As we come to the end of the election campaign, which has been more a clash of personalities than
of ideologies, the neocon defections offer a much more interesting storyline. As the Republican Party
potentially coalesces around a more populist center, the neocons are the canary in the coal mine.
Their squawking suggests that the American political scene is about to suffer a cataclysm. What will
that mean for U.S. foreign policy?
A History of Defection
The neoconservative movement began within the Democratic Party. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a Democrat
from Washington State, carved out a new position in the party with his liberal domestic policies
and hardline Cold War stance. He was a strong booster of civil rights and environmental legislation.
At the same time, he favored military build-up and a stronger relationship with Israel. He was also
dismayed with the Nixon administration's détente with the Soviet Union.
Prioritizing foreign over domestic policy, Jackson's former aides
Richard Perle
, Douglas Feith
, and Elliott
Abrams - along with some fellow travelers like
Paul Wolfowitz
- eventually shifted their allegiance to the right-wing Republican Ronald Reagan. They formed
an important pro-Israel, "peace through strength" nucleus within the new president's foreign policy
team.
At the end of the Reagan era, their commitment to such policies as regime change in the Middle
East, confrontation with Russia, and opposition to multilateral institutions like the United Nations
brought them into conflict with realists in the George H.W. Bush administration. So many of them
defected once again to support Bill Clinton.
Writes
Jim Lobe:
A small but not insignificant number of them, repelled by George H.W. Bush's realpolitik, and
more specifically his Middle East policy and pressure on then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to
join the Madrid peace conference after the first Gulf War, deserted the party in 1992 and publicly
endorsed Bill Clinton. Richard Schifter, Morris Amitay of the Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs, Angier Biddle Duke, Rita Freedman of the Social Democrats USA, neocon union leaders John
Joyce and Al Shanker, Penn Kemble of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, James Woolsey,
Marty Peretz of The New Republic, and Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute all
signed a much-noted ad in The New York Times in August 1992 endorsing Clinton's candidacy. Their
hopes of thus being rewarded with top positions in a Clinton administration were crushed.
The flirtation with Clinton's Democratic Party was short-lived. Woolsey, Schifter, and Kemble
received appointments in the Clinton administration, but the neocons in general were unhappy with
their limited influence, Clinton's (albeit inconsistent) multilateralism, and the administration's
reluctance to intervene militarily in Rwanda, Somalia, and Bosnia. Disenchantment turned to anger
and then to organizing. In 1997, many of the same people who worked for Scoop Jackson and embraced
Ronald Reagan put together
the Project for the New American Century in an effort to preserve and expand America's post-Cold
War unilateral power.
A handful of votes in Florida in 2000 and the attacks on September 11 the following year combined
to give the neocons a second chance at transforming U.S. foreign policy. Dick Cheney became perhaps
the most powerful vice president in modern American history, with Scooter Libby as his national security
adviser. Donald Rumsfeld became secretary of defense, with Paul Wolfowitz as his deputy and Feith
as head of the policy office. Elliott Abrams joined the National Security Council, and so on. Under
their guidance, George W. Bush abandoned all pretense of charting a more modest foreign policy and
went on a militarist bender.
The foreign policy disasters of the Bush era should have killed the careers of everyone involved.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of think tanks and universities that value access over intelligence
(or ethics) - and even the most incompetent and craven administration officials after leaving office
retain their contacts (and their arrogance).
Those who worry that the neocons will be rewarded for their third major defection - to Reagan,
to Bill Clinton, and now to Hillary Clinton - should probably focus elsewhere. After all, the Democratic
nominee this year doesn't have to go all the way over to the far right for advice on how to construct
a more muscular foreign policy. Plenty of mainstream think tanks - from
the Center for a New American Security on the center-right to the leftish
Center for American Progress - are offering their advice on how to "restore balance" in how the
United States relates to the world. Many of these positions - how to push back against Russia, take
a harder line against Iran, and ratchet up pressure on Assad in Syria - are not very different from
neocon talking points.
But the defections do herald a possible sea change in party alignment. And that will influence
the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy.
The Walking Dead
The Republican Party has been hemorrhaging for nearly a decade. The Tea Party dispatched many
party centrists - Jim Leach, Richard Lugar - who once could achieve a measure of bipartisanship in
Congress. The overwhelming whiteness of the party, even before the ascendance of Trump, made it very
difficult to recruit African Americans and Latinos in large numbers. And now Trump has driven away
many of the professionals who have served in past Republican administrations, including the small
clique of neoconservatives.
What remains is enough to win state and local elections in certain areas of the country. But it's
not enough to win nationally. Going forward, with the further demographic shift away from white voters,
this Republican base will get older and smaller. Moreover, on foreign policy, the Trumpistas are
leading the party in a
nationalist,
apocalyptic direction that challenges the party leadership (in emphasis if not in content).
It's enough to throw dedicated Republicans into despair. Avik Roy, who was an advisor to the presidential
campaigns of Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry,
told
This American Life :
I think the Republican Party is a lost cause. I don't think the Republican Party is capable
of fixing itself, because the people who are most passionate about voting Republican today are
the Trump voters. And what politician is going to want to throw those voters away to attract some
unknown coalition of the future?
One of his Republican compatriots, Rob Long, had this to say on the podcast about how anti-Trump
survivors who stick with the party will navigate the post-election landscape:
It'll be like The Walking Dead, right? We're going to try to come up with bands of people and
walk across the country. And let's not get ourselves killed or eaten and hook up with people we
think are not insane or horrible or in some way murderous.
Coming out of this week's elections, here's my guess of what will happen. The Republican Party
will continue to be torn apart by three factions: a dwindling number of moderates like Susan Collins
(R-ME), right-wing fiscal conservatives like Paul Ryan (R-WI), and burn-the-house-down Trumpsters
like Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Foreign policy won't be much of an issue for the party because it will
be shut out of the White House for 12 years running and will focus instead on primarily domestic
questions. Perhaps the latter two categories will find a way to repair their breach; perhaps the
party will split in two; perhaps Trump supporters will engineer a hostile takeover.
The Democratic Party, meanwhile, may suffer as a result of its success. After all, how can a single
party play host to both Bernie Sanders and
Robert Kagan ?
How can the party promote both guns and butter? How can Hillary Clinton preserve Obama's diplomatic
successes - the Iran deal, the Cuba détente, the efforts to contain climate change - and be more
assertive militarily? Whatever unity the party managed during the elections will quickly fall apart
when it comes to governing.
In one sense, Clinton may well resurrect the neocon legacy by embracing a more or less progressive
domestic policy (which would satisfy the Sanderistas) and a more hawkish foreign policy (which would
satisfy all the foreign policy mandarins from both parties who supported her candidacy).
At the same time, a new political axis is emerging: internationalists vs. insularists, with the
former gathering together in the Democratic Party and the latter seeking shelter in a leaky Republican
Party. But this categorization conceals the tensions within each project. Internationalists include
both fans of the UN and proponents of unilateral U.S. military engagement overseas. Insularists,
who have not turned their back on the world quite as thoroughly as isolationists, include both xenophobic
nationalists and those who want to spend war dollars at home.
The trick of it for progressives is to somehow steal back the Democratic Party from the aggressive
globalists and recapture those Trump voters who are tired of supporting war and wealthy transnational
corporations. Or, perhaps in the wake of the Republican Party's collapse, progressives could create
a new party that challenges Clinton and the neocons.
One thing is for certain, however. With a highly unpopular president about to take office and
one of the major political parties on life support, the current political moment is highly unstable.
Something truly remarkable could emerge. Or voters in 2020 might face something even more monstrous
than what has haunted this election cycle.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton – as senator, secretary of
state, and active partner in the Clinton Foundation – has had the privilege of
influencing major players in governments across the globe.
The result of her efforts has largely been the unfettered consolidation of
autocratic power, instability (when not total collapse) in vulnerable states, and
a global jihadist movement with its own Caliphate infiltrating some of the world's
most strategic locations.
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The above map shows the nations of the world Clinton's policies have
destabilized and, below, an explanation of why each is labeled the way it is. This
is meant to be a comprehensive list, though by no means complete: there are few
nations in which an American secretary of state has no influence whatsoever.
Emboldened Autocrats
China
As secretary of state, Clinton presided over a policy known as the "
pivot
to Asia
," meant to increase American visibility in the continent and, in
particular, bring China and the United States closer together. Clinton publicly
supported the "
one-China
policy
" – China's way of imposing itself on the Republic of China (Taiwan),
Tibet, Hong Kong, and the western Xinjiang region – and encouraged China to
buy up U.S. debt
.
Following her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton expressed support for
incoming president Xi Jinping in private. In a 2013 private speech now public,
thanks to the organization WikiLeaks, Clinton
said
it was "good news" that Xi was "doing much more to try to assert his
authority" than his predecessor, Hu Jintao.
Since then, Xi has declared himself the "
core
"
leader,
comparable to Mao Zedong
;
colonized
the maritime territory of six nations in the South China Sea; used
state violence
to crack down on the nation's skyrocketing Christian
population; and engaged in multiple Communist Party purges, citing unspecified "
corruption
."
Cuba
Hillary Clinton has loudly supported President Obama's policy to "normalize"
relations with Cuba, and her associates
maintain close ties
to the Washington, D.C., community that benefits from
relations with the Castro regime. President Obama's "normalization" has
triggered a boom
in violent arbitrary arrests of political dissidents and a
new wave of refugees seeking to leave the communist dictatorship before the United
States changes its mind about treating them as political refugees.
Iran
Hillary Clinton's work to embolden the Iranian Islamic dictatorship began early
in her term as secretary of state. During Clinton's tenure, the Obama
administration all but ignored the Iranian Green Revolution, a series of protests
against then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
Clinton's State Department
rejected requests for funding
from groups doing the work on the grounds of
documenting Khamenei's rampant human rights abuses against unarmed protesters.
The Obama administration's crowning achievement in securing the Shiite
Caliphate's rule came years later, of course, in the form of the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear deal. While the parties signed
the deal long after her departure from State, Clinton was responsible for "naming
the negotiators for the nuclear talks and approving two major U.S. concessions to
Iran in 2011 – guaranteeing Iran the right to enrich uranium and agreeing to close
the IAEA's investigation of Iran's past nuclear weapons work,"
according to Fred Fleitz of the Center for Security Policy
.
Malaysia
Under Prime Minister Najib Razak, Malaysia has become a hotbed of
corruption
and,
increasingly,
radical
Islamic sentiment
. The Obama administration has, nonetheless, cozied up to
Kuala Lumpur, including
improving
its human rights ratings
to make it an eligible partner in the Trans-Pacific
Partnership. Among the allies Clinton world
feared
would
challenge Clinton, the presidential candidate, on Malaysia were labor leader
Richard Trumka and George Soros.
Secretary of State Clinton approached North Korea with a policy known as "
strategic
patience
," which one expert described as "sitting back and watching while
North Korea continued to build up its nuclear weapons program." North Korea has
detonated two nuclear weapons since Clinton has been out of office, in part
emboldened by "strategic patience" and in part, many argued after the fourth of
five tests,
emboldened by the Iranian nuclear deal
.
Russia
Clinton has attempted to convince the American people that her arch-rival in
the presidential election is Russian President Vladimir Putin, but long before it
was politically expedient for her to do so, Clinton was the face of President
Obama's "Russian reset" – the one that preceded the collapse of Ukraine – and
bragged privately to big-money donors of her close ties to Putin. The strongman
trusted her so much, she once boasted, that he invited her to his "
inner
sanctum
."
Turkey
In her memoir,
Hard Choices
, Clinton reserved praise from President
(then-Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan that sounded not unlike her optimistic
profiling of Xi Jinping. Erdogan,
she said
, was "an ambitious, forceful, devout and effective politician." Of
his government, she said Erdogan was correct to seek "zero problems with
neighbors." WikiLeaks-released emails
have since revealed
that Erdogan sought to buy influence through campaign
donations to the Clintons.
During his tenure as president, Erdogan has advanced the cause of Islamism in
Turkey to unprecedented levels since the rule of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, going so
far as to allow Islamic prayers in the Hagia Sophia, an iconic Christian landmark.
He has also conducted
mass arrests of political enemies
and shut down numerous media outlets who
dare challenge his government
. Last Friday, Erdogan's government
arrested the leaders
of the People's Democratic Party (HDP) – a pro-Kurdish,
pro-Christian center-left party – in a midnight raid on dubious "terrorism"
charges.
Venezuela
Clinton served as secretary of state during the tail end of the tenure of
socialist dictator Hugo Chávez, who died shortly after she departed. Chávez
presided over a bleak time in Venezuelan history: nationalizing private
industries, cozying up to enabling autocrats in Cuba, Iran, and China, and using
violence to suppress anti-socialist opposition.
In 2009, Clinton defended negotiating with Chávez and fostering diplomacy with
him, telling a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that the U.S.
should dismiss
Chávez's ties to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and communist China
because "we've isolated him, so he's gone elsewhere. I mean, he's a very sociable
guy."
Venezuela's economy is now in free fall as dozens of prisoners of conscience
languish in prison under Chávez's hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro. Maduro's
management of his own government has been so abysmal that, with Clinton gone,
President Obama has declared Venezuela
a national security threat
.
Emboldened Corruption
Algeria
The government of Algeria is involved in one of the most egregious corruption
schemes of the Clinton Foundation: offering the Clintons a $500,000 check. "The
donation reportedly coincided with an intense effort by Algeria to lobby Mrs
Clinton's State Department over US criticism of its human rights record,"
The
Telegraph
notes
.
Brazil
Earlier this year, Brazil
impeached and ousted
its socialist President Dilma Rousseff for a variety of
fiscal improprieties, including the misrepresentation of government funds to lure
investors. Triggering protests that numbered in the millions, however, was
Rousseff's deep involvement in something known as "Operation Car Wash," a
sprawling corruption scheme in which dozens of government officials took millions
in kickbacks from projects commissioned by the state-run oil company Petrobras.
As secretary of state, Clinton had longtime ties to Rousseff and
praised
"her commitment to openness, transparency," stating that "her fight
against corruption is setting a global standard" in 2012.
Haiti
The Clinton Foundation's
exploitation
of Haiti's poverty and the damage caused by a 2010 earthquake has
left many of those nation's leaders disgusted enough to speak up about the
corruption. An operation to aid earthquake victims run by the Clintons was also
found to have "
played
a role
" in an unprecedented cholera outbreak in that country.
Kazakhstan
Among the more alarming deals Clinton cut at the State Department was the
nuclear deal that handed one-fifth of America's uranium production capacity to
Russia. While Russia usurped control of the Uranium One corporation, the Clinton
Foundations coffers filled with Russian money.
In addition to Uranium One control, the
New York Times
reports
that Russia gained control of "mines in Kazakhstan that are among the
most lucrative in the world."
Morocco
A more recent WikiLeaks reveal shows that the Clinton Foundation received a $12
million donation from the King of Morocco in exchange for Hillary Clinton's
presence at a Foundation summit. At the last minute, she
did not attend
.
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia has enjoyed longstanding ties to the Clinton family and
donated
at least $50 million to the Clinton Foundation. These ties persisted
even as Clinton
privately admitted
she had evidence that Saudi Arabia provided "clandestine
financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the
region."
United States
While the Clinton Foundation often served as a
laundry service for foreign donations
, Clinton fostered questionable ties with
plenty of domestic entities, as well. Clinton
has raked in millions
in donations from big business in America, donors to
which she privately promised "
open
borders
." Clinton's ties to Department of Justice officials in the wake of an
investigation into her use of an illicit private server for state business has
also raised many questions regarding cronyism and corruption within our own
country.
Jihadist Boom
Afghanistan
President Obama famously declared that the war in Afghanistan
was over
for American soldiers in 2014. The policies that led to that point
only exacerbated the damage a vacuum of American power in the nation wrought
following the announcement.
Under Clinton, the State Department
largely ignored
a sprawling corruption problem that left Afghanistan with few
resources to combat the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Clinton policies elsewhere in the
world also led to the development of an Islamic State presence in the nation.
Currently, U.S. officials
warn
that the Taliban is stronger than it has been since September 11, 2001.
Indonesia
One of Clinton's first stops as secretary of state was Indonesia, where she
proclaimed, "If you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity and women's
rights can co-exist, go to Indonesia."
At the time
(2009), her visit was met with chants of "Allahu akbar" and an
inauspicious shoe-throwing protest against her.
Since then, Clinton's foreign policy greatly contributed to the creation of the
Islamic State, a jihadist group
actively courting Indonesian recruits
. "Between 300 and 700 Indonesians are
believed to have joined the group in Syria and Iraq over the past two years," the
BBC reported in July, adding that 30 Indonesian groups had pledged allegiance to
Islamic State "Caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Iraq
Unlike Syria, the collapse of which followed violent acts of oppression by a
ruthless tyrant, Iraq's collapse is more closely tied to American foreign policy
due to the nation's longtime occupation there. An American presence on the ground
in Iraq did more to subdue jihadist elements there than any action to routinely
fleeing Iraqi military and its corrupt leadership took.
While Clinton was in office, President Obama
withdrew
most of America's troops from Iraq, leaving a power vacuum rapidly
filled by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and Iran-backed Shiite militias. Military
experts
have agreed
that a prolonged American presence in the country would have
contributed to stability and withdrawing left the nation vulnerable to Islamist
colonization.
Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon
The nations surrounding Lake Chad continue to struggle with the rise of Boko
Haram, a jihadist group
founded in 2002
but active throughout the 2010s in northeast Borno state,
Nigeria. Boko Haram is currently the deadliest wing of the Islamic State and
responsible for killing
an
estimated 15,000
and displacing millions. The group rose to international
prominence following the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from a secondary
school in the Borno region in 2014. Most of these girls remain in captivity,
"married" off to Boko Haram jihadists for use as sex slaves.
As secretary of state, Clinton
refused to designate
Boko Haram, at the time affiliated with al-Qaeda, a
Foreign Terrorist Organization. The move
severely hindered
the Nigerian government's ability to target and neutralize
the group, as they could not seek U.S. aid for the mission.
Somalia, Kenya
Clinton
traveled to Somalia
personally in 2009 t0 offer support against al-Shabaab, an
al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group. Following that visit, al-Shabaab made its
ties to al-Qaeda public and went on two high-profile rampages against civilians in
Kenya: the
Westgate Mall massacre
in 2013 and the
Garissa University attack
of 2015. It has since then become a popular enough
jihadist group to have found itself the object of courtship of both its al-Qaeda
overlords and the Islamic State.
The United States did little in those in-between years to subdue al-Shabaab,
including a "
Yemen-like
"
drone policy to target leadership and an embarrassing
failed raid
on an al-Shabaab camp in 2013. Clinton herself merely
implored the terrorists
to allow humanitarian aid.
Collapse of State
Libya
Clinton's role
in the death of Americans, including a U.S. Ambassador, in the
September 11, 2012, siege of Benghazi is now well-known. She had a major role in
pushing for the decision to support Libya's uprising against dictator Muammar
Gadhafi, as well, however – a move President Obama followed up with little
strategy to ensure that a stable, secular government would replace Gadhafi. The
collapse of the Gadhafi dictatorship has left Libya a failed state, at first
governed by
two rival parties
, but now partially governed by the
Islamic State
,
al-Qaeda
, and a variety of Islamist tribal militias.
The Syrian Civil War began in 2011, during Clinton's stewardship of the State
Department. The Secretary reportedly
pushed President Obama
to arm Sunni Arab Syrian rebels, armed militias that
included a high number of jihadist elements, many of whom would move on to fight
for the Islamic State. The President
reportedly did not heed Clinton's advice
, though he failed to do much of
anything else, either.
In 2011, however, Clinton referred to dictator Bashar al-Assad as "
a
reformer
" by reputation, whose nascent rule was cause for optimism, casting
some doubt on how adamantly she pushed President Obama to arm the Syrian rebels.
Today, Syria remains a land mass governed piecemeal by the Islamic State,
Kurdish militias, al-Qaeda linked armed Sunni groups, and the
Iranian-Russian-Assad alliance. Assad
claimed in an interview
earlier this month that Syria is now "much better off"
than before the civil war.
Sudan/South Sudan
The creation of South Sudan, the world's youngest nation, was a direct product
of Clinton's foreign policy. Years of civil war in Sudan between the northern
Muslim population and the Christian south gave way to secession and a war between
two nations, not one. By the time Clinton visited in 2012,
the
Washington Post
referred to the refugee crisis there as one of
the worst in the world (soon to be eclipsed by the Syrian crisis).
The State Department persisted in aiding the South Sudanese government, even
continuing to provide funding after evidence surfaced that the government
employed
child soldiers
. Subsequent reports unveiled that Clinton-related firms
received money
from the South Sudanese government, as well.
Clinton's State Department support appears to have done little to
stabilize South Sudan. Report of
mass rape
at UN camps are common, and the country is
now facing a famine
.
Ukraine/Georgia
The Obama administration's tepid responses to Russian colonization of former
Soviet states have left Ukraine without its Crimea region and its eastern
provinces in collapse. In Georgia, the breakaway regions of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia
, invaded in 2008, remain under pseudo-Russian
control.
Hillary Clinton presided over a "Russian reset" policy meant to dissuade
Vladimir Putin from pillaging his neighbors. Clinton even gave her Russian
counterpart Sergei Lavrov a literal "reset button" as a gift,
leaving him baffled
. The reset succeeded in keeping Russia from obstructing
the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal and the invasion of Libya
, but did
little to convince Putin to change his foreign policy.
Subsequent revelations showed the Clintons
taking money from both sides
of the Ukraine conflict and being careful of
making too tough a stand against Putin's aggression.
Yemen
As secretary of state, Clinton made the first visit as America's top diplomat
to Yemen since 1990. There, she told Ali Abdullah Saleh that
she
would support
a program to return al-Qaeda terrorists imprisoned at Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba, to Yemen, while also acknowledging that Yemen was a hotbed of
al-Qaeda activity. Saleh is now an ally of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, which
have launched a civil war against current President Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi.
Al-Qaeda is possibly the most stable entity in a nation where
80 percent
of
civilians live off of humanitarian aid,
quadrupling its presence in the nation in a year
. Yemen is a failed state torn
apart by an emboldened Iran and Saudi Arabia, both major beneficiaries of the
Clinton State Department's policies.
The Migrant Crisis
Austria, Belgium, the Balkan nations, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany,
Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Turkey, Sweden, the UK
The Obama administration's Syria and Libya policies (See above.), executed
while Clinton was secretary of state, have triggered a flood of
nearly five million
displaced Syrians
and
more
than one million Libyans
seeking refuge in Europe and the Middle East.
Refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan, sub-Saharan Africa, and other volatile
regions have added to the masses seeking a new home, rejected in countries like
Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia who have criticized the West for being
unwelcoming.
By Daniel
Larison James Traub gamely
tries to convince us (and himself) that Clinton's foreign policy won't be as aggressive and meddlesome
as she says it will be, but he undermines his argument when he says this:
As a senator and later secretary of state, she rarely departed from the counsel of senior military
officials. She was far more persuaded of the merits of Gen. David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal's
counterinsurgency plan for Afghanistan, which would have sent an additional 40,000 troops there,
than Obama was and maybe even more than then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates was. She rarely departed
from Gates on any significant issue. Of course, the one time she did so was on Libya, where she
advocated intervention and he did not [bold mine-DL]. On Syria, Clinton may have to choose between
her own expressed commitments and a Pentagon that is far more cautious and more inclined to see
mishap than are civilian interventionists. I wonder how Kagan-esque she will be in the White House.
Less so, perhaps, than she was as secretary of state.
In other words, when military officers recommended a larger escalation, she agreed with them,
and when Gates didn't support intervention she didn't agree. Clinton was fine with advice from the
military when it meant supporting deeper involvement, but she broke with Gates when he didn't want
to take sides in a foreign war. That isn't a picture of someone who consistently heeds military advice,
but rather someone who always opts for the more aggressive option available at the time. It doesn't
make much sense that Clinton as president would be less "Kagan-esque" than she was as a member of
Obama's Cabinet. As president, she will have considerable leeway to do as she sees fit, Congress
will be pathetically quiescent as usual, and most of the foreign policy establishment will be encouraging
her to do more in Syria and elsewhere. Clinton will be predisposed to agree with what they urge her
to do, and in the last twenty years she has never seen a military intervention that she thought was
unnecessary or too risky. Why is that suddenly going to change when she has the power of the presidency?
In virtually every modern case, a new president ends up behaving more hawkishly than expected based
on campaign rhetoric. All of the pressures and incentives in Washington push a president towards
do-somethingism, and Clinton has typically been among the least resistant to the demand to "do something"
in response to crises and conflicts, so why would we think she would become more cautious once she
is in office? I can understand why many of her supporters wish that to be the case, but it flies
in the face of all the available evidence, including most of what we know about how Washington works.
Traub makes a number of predictions at the end of his article:
She will not make dumb mistakes. She will reassure every ally who needs reassurance. She will
try to mute China's adventurism in the South China Sea without provoking a storm of nationalism.
She'll probably disappoint the neocons. She won't go out on any limbs. She won't shake the policymaking
consensus.
I don't know where this confidence in Clinton's good judgment comes from, but it seems misplaced.
I suppose it depends on what you think smart foreign policy looks like, but there is a fair amount
of evidence from Clinton's own record that she is quite capable of making dumb mistakes.
That doesn't just apply to her vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq and her backing for intervention
in Libya, but could also refer to her support for sending weapons to Ukraine, her endorsement of
"no-fly" and safe zones in Syria, her preference for more sanctions on Iran while negotiations were
still taking place, and her belief that the U.S. has to bomb another country to retain its "credibility."
All of these are mistakes, and some are quite dumb.
It isn't at all reassuring to know that Clinton will "reassure every ally who needs reassurance,"
because in practice that means indulging bad behavior from reckless clients and rewarding them with
more aid and weapons. Earlier in the article, Traub seems to understand that enabling the Saudis
is a bad idea:
This last policy, which for Clinton will come under the heading of "alliance management," would
only deepen the violence and sectarian strife rending the region. She would be better advised
to tell the Saudis that the United States will reduce its support of their war effort unless they
make serious efforts toward a lasting cease-fire.
That would certainly be wiser than offering uncritical backing of their intervention, but what
is the evidence that Clinton thinks U.S. support for the war on Yemen needs to be curtailed? Yemen
has been devastated in no small part because of Obama's willingness to "reassure" the Saudis and
their allies. What other countries will be made to suffer so Clinton can keep them happy? Clinton
may disappoint neocons, but then they are disappointed by anything short of preventive war. Even
if Clinton's foreign policy isn't aggressive enough to satisfy them, it is likely to be far more
aggressive than necessary.
"... The American people don't know very much about war even if Washington has been fighting on multiple fronts since 9/11. The continental United States has not experienced the presence a hostile military force for more than 100 years and war for the current generation of Americans consists largely of the insights provided by video games and movies. The Pentagon's invention of embedded journalists, which limits any independent media insight into what is going on overseas, has contributed to the rendering of war as some kind of abstraction. Gone forever is anything like the press coverage of Vietnam, with nightly news and other media presentations showing prisoners being executed and young girls screaming while racing down the street in flames. ..."
"... Given all of that, it is perhaps no surprise that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, neither of whom has served in uniform, should regard violence inflicted on people overseas with a considerable level of detachment. ..."
"... They both share to an extent the dominant New York-Washington policy consensus view that dealing with foreigners can sometimes get a bit bloody, but that is a price that someone in power has to be prepared to pay. One of Hillary's top advisers, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, famously declared that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children due to U.S. led sanctions were "worth it." ..."
"... Hillary Clinton and her advisors, who believe strongly in Washington's leadership role globally and embrace their own definition of American exceptionalism, have been explicit in terms of what they would do to employ our military power. ..."
"... She would be an extremely proactive president in foreign policy, with a particular animus directed against Russia. ..."
"... Hillary has received support from foreign policy hawks, including a large number of formerly Republican neocons, to include Robert Kagan, Michael Chertoff, Michael Hayden, Eliot Cohen and Eric Edelman. James Stavridis, a retired admiral who was once vetted by Clinton as a possible vice president, recently warned of "the need to use deadly force against the Iranians. ..."
"... Hillary believes that Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is the root cause of the turmoil in that country and must be removed as the first priority. . It is a foolish policy as al-Assad in no way threatens the United States while his enemy ISIS does and regime change would create a power vacuum that will benefit the latter. ..."
"... Hillary has not recommended doing anything about Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all of which have at one time or another for various reasons supported ISIS, but she is clearly no friend of Iran, which has been fighting ISIS. ..."
"... One of Hillary's advisors, former CIA acting Director Michael Morell, has called for new sanctions on Tehran and has also recently recommended that the U.S. begin intercepting Iranian ships presumed to be carrying arms to the Houthis in Yemen. ..."
"... Hillary's dislike for Russia's Vladimir Putin is notorious. Syria aside, she has advocated arming Ukraine with game changing offensive weapons and also bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, which would force a sharp Russian reaction. One suspects that she might be sympathetic to the views expressed recently by Carl Gershman in a Washington Post op-ed that received curiously little additional coverage in the media. Gershman is the head of the taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which means that he is a powerful figure in Washington's foreign-policy establishment. NED has plausibly been described as doing the sorts of things that the CIA used to do. ..."
"... She would increase U.S. military presence in the South China Sea to deter any further attempts by Beijing to develop disputed islands and would also "ring China with defensive missiles," ostensibly as "protection" against Pyongyang but also to convince China to pressure North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. One wonders what Beijing might think about being surrounded by made-in-America missiles. ..."
The American people don't know very much about war even if Washington has been fighting on
multiple fronts since 9/11. The continental United States has not experienced the presence a hostile
military force for more than 100 years and war for the current generation of Americans consists largely
of the insights provided by video games and movies. The Pentagon's invention of embedded journalists,
which limits any independent media insight into what is going on overseas, has contributed to the
rendering of war as some kind of abstraction. Gone forever is anything like the press coverage of
Vietnam, with nightly news and other media presentations showing prisoners being executed and young
girls screaming while racing down the street in flames.
Given all of that, it is perhaps no surprise that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, neither
of whom has served in uniform, should regard violence inflicted on people overseas with a considerable
level of detachment. Hillary is notorious for her assessment of the brutal killing of Libya's
Moammar Gaddafi, saying "We came, we saw, he died." They both share to an extent the dominant
New York-Washington policy consensus view that dealing with foreigners can sometimes get a bit bloody,
but that is a price that someone in power has to be prepared to pay. One of Hillary's top advisers,
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, famously declared that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi
children due to U.S. led sanctions were "worth it."
In the election campaign there has, in fact, been little discussion of the issue of war and peace
or even of America's place in the world, though Trump did at one point note correctly that implementation
of Hillary's suggested foreign policy could escalate into World War III. It has been my contention
that the issue of war should be more front and center in the minds of Americans when they cast their
ballots as the prospect of an armed conflict in which little is actually at stake escalating and
going nuclear could conceivably end life on this planet as we know it.
With that in mind, it is useful to consider what the two candidates have been promising. First,
Hillary, who might reasonably be designated the Establishment's war candidate though she carefully
wraps it in humanitarian "liberal interventionism." As Senator and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton
has always viewed a foreign crisis as an opportunity to use aggressive measures to seek a resolution.
She can always be relied upon to "do something," a reflection of the neocon driven Washington foreign
policy consensus.
Hillary Clinton and her advisors, who believe strongly in Washington's leadership role globally
and embrace their own definition of American exceptionalism, have been explicit in terms of what
they would do to employ our military power.
She would be an extremely proactive president in foreign policy, with a particular animus
directed against Russia. And, unfortunately, there would be little or no pushback against the
exercise of her admittedly poor instincts regarding what to do, as was demonstrated regarding Libya
and also with Benghazi. She would find little opposition in Congress and the media for an extremely
risky foreign policy, and would benefit from the Washington groupthink that prevails over the alleged
threats emanating from Russia, Iran, and China.
Hillary has received support from foreign policy hawks, including a large number of formerly
Republican neocons, to include Robert Kagan, Michael Chertoff, Michael Hayden, Eliot Cohen and Eric
Edelman. James Stavridis, a retired admiral who was once vetted by Clinton as a possible vice president,
recently warned of "the need to use deadly force against the Iranians. I think it's coming.
It's going to be maritime confrontation and if it doesn't happen immediately, I'll bet you a dollar
it's going to be happening after the presidential election, whoever is elected."
Hillary believes that Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is the root cause of the turmoil in
that country and must be removed as the first priority. . It is a foolish policy as al-Assad in no
way threatens the United States while his enemy ISIS does and regime change would create a power
vacuum that will benefit the latter. She has also called for a no-fly zone in Syria to protect
the local population as well as the insurgent groups that the U.S. supports, some of which had been
labeled as terrorists before they were renamed by current Secretary of State John Kerry. Such a zone
would dramatically raise the prospect of armed conflict with Russia and it puts Washington in an
odd position vis-à-vis what is occurring in Syria. The U.S. is not at war with the Syrian government,
which, like it or not, is under international law sovereign within its own recognized borders. Damascus
has invited the Russians in to help against the rebels and objects to any other foreign presence
on Syrian territory. In spite of all that, Washington is asserting some kind of authority to intervene
and to confront the Russians as both a humanitarian mission and as an "inherent right of self-defense."
Hillary has not recommended doing anything about Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all of which
have at one time or another for various reasons supported ISIS, but she is clearly no friend of Iran,
which has been fighting ISIS. As a Senator, she threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran but
she has more recently reluctantly supported the recent nuclear agreement with that country negotiated
by President Barack Obama. But she has nevertheless warned that she will monitor the situation closely
for possible violations and will otherwise pushback against activity by the Islamic Republic. As
one of her key financial supporters is Israeli Haim Saban, who has said he is a one issue guy and
that issue is Israel, she is likely to pursue aggressive policies in the Persian Gulf. She has also
promised to move America's relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a "new level" and
has repeatedly declared that her support for Israel is unconditional.
One of Hillary's advisors, former CIA acting Director Michael Morell, has called for new sanctions
on Tehran and has also recently recommended that the U.S. begin intercepting Iranian ships presumed
to be carrying arms to the Houthis in Yemen. Washington is not at war with either Iran or Yemen
and the Houthis are not on the State Department terrorist list but our good friends the Saudis have
been assiduously bombing them for reasons that seem obscure. Stopping ships in international waters
without any legal pretext would be considered by many an act of piracy. Morell has also called for
covertly assassinating Iranians and Russians to express our displeasure with the foreign policies
of their respective governments.
Hillary's dislike for Russia's Vladimir Putin is notorious. Syria aside, she has advocated
arming Ukraine with game changing offensive weapons and also bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO,
which would force a sharp Russian reaction. One suspects that she might be sympathetic to the views
expressed recently by Carl Gershman in a Washington Post op-ed that received curiously little additional
coverage in the media. Gershman is the head of the taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), which means that he is a powerful figure in Washington's foreign-policy establishment. NED
has plausibly been described as doing the sorts of things that the CIA used to do.
After making a number of bumper-sticker claims about Russia and Putin that are either partially
true, unproven or even ridiculous, Gershman concluded that "the United States has the power to contain
and defeat this danger. The issue is whether we can summon the will to do so." It is basically a
call for the next administration to remove Putin from power-as foolish a suggestion as has ever been
seen in a leading newspaper, as it implies that the risk of nuclear war is completely acceptable
to bring about regime change in a country whose very popular, democratically elected leadership we
disapprove of. But it is nevertheless symptomatic of the kind of thinking that goes on inside the
beltway and is quite possibly a position that Hillary Clinton will embrace. She also benefits from
having the perfect implementer of such a policy in Robert Kagan's wife Victoria Nuland, her extremely
dangerous protégé who is currently Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
and who might wind up as Secretary of State in a Clinton Administration.
Shifting to East Asia, Hillary sees the admittedly genuine threat from North Korea but her response
is focused more on China. She would increase U.S. military presence in the South China Sea to
deter any further attempts by Beijing to develop disputed islands and would also "ring China with
defensive missiles," ostensibly as "protection" against Pyongyang but also to convince China to pressure
North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. One wonders what Beijing might think
about being surrounded by made-in-America missiles.
Trump's foreign policy is admittedly quite sketchy and he has not always been consistent. He has
been appropriately enough slammed for being simple minded in saying that he would "bomb the crap
out of ISIS," but he has also taken on the Republican establishment by specifically condemning the
George W. Bush invasion of Iraq and has more than once indicated that he is not interested in either
being the world's policeman or in new wars in the Middle East. He has repeatedly stated that he supports
NATO but it should not be construed as hostile to Russia. He would work with Putin to address concerns
over Syria and Eastern Europe. He would demand that NATO countries spend more for their own defense
and also help pay for the maintenance of U.S. bases.
Trump's controversial call to stop all Muslim immigration has been rightly condemned but it contains
a kernel of truth in that the current process for vetting new arrivals in this country is far from
transparent and apparently not very effective. The Obama Administration has not been very forthcoming
on what might be done to fix the entire immigration process but Trump is promising to shake things
up, which is overdue, though what exactly a Trump Administration would try to accomplish is far from
clear.
Continuing on the negative side, Trump, who is largely ignorant of the world and its leaders,
has relied on a mixed bag of advisors. Former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency General Michael
Flynn appears to be the most prominent. Flynn is associated with arch neocon Michael Ledeen and both
are rabid about Iran, with Flynn suggesting that nearly all the unrest in the Middle East should
be laid at Tehran's door. Ledeen is, of course, a prominent Israel-firster who has long had Iran
in his sights. The advice of Ledeen and Flynn may have been instrumental in Trump's vehement denunciation
of the Iran nuclear agreement, which he has called a "disgrace," which he has said he would "tear
up." It is vintage dumb-think. The agreement cannot be canceled because there are five other signatories
to it and the denial of a nuclear weapons program to Tehran benefits everyone in the region, including
Israel. It is far better to have the agreement than to scrap it, if that were even possible.
Trump has said that he would be an even-handed negotiator between Israel and the Palestinians
but he has also declared that he is strongly pro-Israel and would move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem,
which is a bad idea, not in America's interest, even if Netanyahu would like it. It would produce
serious blowback from the Arab world and would inspire a new wave of terrorism directed against the
U.S.
Regarding the rest of the Middle East, Trump would prefer strong leaders, i.e. autocrats, who
are friendly rather than chaotic reformers. He rejects arming rebels as in Syria because we know
little about whom we are dealing with and find that we cannot control what develops. He is against
foreign aid in principle, particularly to countries like Pakistan where the U.S. is strongly disliked.
In East Asia, Trump would encourage Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear arsenals
to deter North Korea. It is a very bad idea, a proliferation nightmare. Like Hillary, he would prefer
that China intervene in North Korea and make Kim Jong Un "step down." He would put pressure on China
to devalue its currency because it is "bilking us of billions of dollars" and would also increase
U.S. military presence in the region to limit Beijing's expansion in the South China Sea.
So there you have it as you enter the voting booth. President Obama is going around warning that
"the fate of the world is teetering" over the electoral verdict, which he intends to be a ringing
endorsement of Hillary even though the choice is not nearly that clear cut. Part of the problem with
Trump is that he has some very bad ideas mixed in with a few good ones and no one knows what he would
actually do if he were president. Unfortunately, it is all too clear what Hillary would do.
The author is a neocon...
Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty was deeply unfair as it did not eliminated see based missiles, only ground based
one. It is essentially a trap Gorbachov went into.
Notable quotes:
"... On the American side, the weapon of immediate concern is a new version of the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, usually carried by B-52 bombers. Also known as the Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO) ..."
"... No wonder former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry called on President Obama to cancel the ALCM program in a recent Washington Post op-ed piece. "Because they… come in both nuclear and conventional variants," he wrote, "cruise missiles are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon." And this issue is going to fall directly into the lap of the next president. ..."
By Michael T. Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and
the author, most recently, of The Race
for What's Left . A documentary movie version of his book Blood and Oil is available
from the Media Education Foundation . Follow him on Twitter at @mklare1. Originally published
at TomDispatch
... ... ..
With passions running high on both sides in this year's election and rising fears about Donald
Trump's impulsive nature and Hillary Clinton's hawkish one, it's hardly surprising that the "nuclear
button" question has surfaced repeatedly throughout the campaign. In one of the more pointed exchanges
of the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton declared that Donald Trump lacked the mental composure
for the job. "A man who can be provoked by a tweet," she
commented , "should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes." Donald Trump has reciprocated
by charging that Clinton is too prone to intervene abroad. "You're going to end up in World War III
over Syria," he told
reporters in Florida last month.
For most election observers, however, the matter of personal character and temperament has dominated
discussions of the nuclear issue, with partisans on each side insisting that the other candidate
is temperamentally unfit to exercise control over the nuclear codes. There is, however, a more important
reason to worry about whose finger will be on that button this time around: at this very moment,
for a variety of reasons, the "nuclear threshold" - the point at which some party to a "conventional"
(non-nuclear) conflict chooses to employ atomic weapons - seems to be
moving dangerously lower.
Not so long ago, it was implausible that a major nuclear power - the United States, Russia, or
China - would consider using atomic weapons in any imaginable conflict scenario. No longer. Worse
yet, this is likely to be our reality for years to come, which means that the next president will
face a world in which a nuclear decision-making point might arrive far sooner than anyone would have
thought possible just a year or two ago - with potentially catastrophic consequences for us all.
No less worrisome, the major nuclear powers (and some smaller ones) are all in the process of
acquiring new nuclear arms, which could, in theory, push that threshold lower still. These include
a variety of cruise missiles and other delivery systems capable of being used in "limited" nuclear
wars - atomic conflicts that, in theory at least, could be confined to just a single country or one
area of the world (say, Eastern Europe) and so might be even easier for decision-makers to initiate.
The next president will have to decide whether the U.S. should actually produce weapons of this type
and also what measures should be taken in response to similar decisions by Washington's likely adversaries.
Lowering the Nuclear Threshold
During the dark days of the Cold War, nuclear strategists in the United States and the Soviet
Union conjured up elaborate conflict scenarios in which military actions by the two superpowers and
their allies might lead from, say, minor skirmishing along the Iron Curtain to full-scale tank combat
to, in the end, the use of "battlefield" nuclear weapons, and then city-busting versions of the same
to avert defeat. In some of these scenarios, strategists hypothesized about wielding "tactical" or
battlefield weaponry - nukes powerful enough to wipe out a major tank formation, but not Paris or
Moscow - and claimed that it would be possible to contain atomic warfare at such a devastating but
still sub-apocalyptic level. (Henry Kissinger, for instance, made his reputation by preaching this
lunatic doctrine in his first book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy .) Eventually, leaders
on both sides concluded that the only feasible role for their atomic arsenals was to act as deterrents
to the use of such weaponry by the other side. This was, of course, the concept of "
mutually assured
destruction ," or - in one of the most classically apt acronyms of all times: MAD. It would,
in the end, form the basis for all subsequent arms control agreements between the two superpowers.
Anxiety over the escalatory potential of tactical nuclear weapons peaked in the 1970s when the
Soviet Union began deploying the
SS-20 intermediate-range
ballistic missile (capable of striking cities in Europe, but not the U.S.) and Washington responded
with plans to deploy nuclear-armed, ground-launched cruise missiles and the
Pershing-II ballistic missile
in Europe. The announcement of such plans provoked massive antinuclear demonstrations across Europe
and the United States. On December 8, 1987, at a time when worries had been growing about how a nuclear
conflagration in Europe might trigger an all-out nuclear exchange between the superpowers, President
Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces (INF) Treaty.
That historic agreement - the first to eliminate an entire class of nuclear delivery systems -
banned the deployment of ground-based cruise or ballistic missiles with a range of 500 and
5,500 kilometers and required the destruction of all those then in existence. After the collapse
of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation inherited the USSR's treaty obligations and pledged to
uphold the INF along with other U.S.-Soviet arms control agreements. In the view of most observers,
the prospect of a nuclear war between the two countries practically vanished as both sides made deep
cuts in their atomic stockpiles in accordance with already existing accords and then signed others,
including the
New START , the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 2010.
... ... ...
To put this in perspective, Russian leaders ardently believe that they are the victims of a
U.S.-led drive by NATO to encircle their country and diminish its international influence. They
point, in particular, to the
build-up
of NATO forces in the Baltic countries, involving the semi-permanent deployment of combat battalions
in what was once the territory of the Soviet Union, and in apparent violation of
promises made to Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not do so. As a result, Russia has been bolstering
its defenses in areas bordering Ukraine and the Baltic states, and
training its troops for a possible clash with the NATO forces stationed there.
... ... ...
On the American side, the weapon of immediate concern is a
new version of the AGM-86B air-launched cruise missile, usually carried by B-52 bombers. Also
known as the Long-Range Standoff Weapon (LRSO), it is, like the Iskander-M, expected to be deployed
in both nuclear and conventional versions, leaving those on the potential receiving end unsure what
might be heading their way.
In other words, as with the Iskander-M, the intended target might assume the worst in a crisis,
leading to the early use of nuclear weapons. Put another way, such missiles make for
twitchy trigger fingers
and are likely to lead to a heightened risk of nuclear war, which, once started, might in turn
take Washington and Moscow right up the escalatory ladder to a planetary holocaust.
No wonder former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry
called on President Obama to cancel the ALCM program in a recent Washington Post op-ed
piece. "Because they… come in both nuclear and conventional variants," he wrote, "cruise missiles
are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon." And this issue is going to fall directly into the lap
of the next president.
scanning it, it keeps referring to the obama administration's beliefs about russia, and
claims by american officials. given the hysteria about putin allegedly hacking the us election,
and the propaganda surrounding the war on terror, i'm reluctant to rely on this kind of evidence.
But even Hillary Clinton, for all her experience as secretary of state, is
likely to have a hard time grappling with the pressures and dangers that are likely to arise
in the years ahead, especially given that her inclination is to toughen U.S. policy toward
Russia.
"Even" is a little rich, given that the Clinton campaign has systematically - I hate to
use the word, but - demonized* Putin. One can regard the political class as cynically able to
turn on a dime when the election is done, but Clinton has also induced her base of "NPR
tote baggers" to buy in, and the more massive base is harder to turn. And then of course the neo-cons
have gone over to her, and they certainly know which side their bread has blood on.
So, if Clinton wins, the dominant faction of the Democrat Party is - from the leadership
through the nomenklatura to the base - committed to a "muscular" foreign policy, including a "No
Fly Zone" in Syria, where shooting down a Russian plane would be an act of war, so far as Russia
is concerned. (In the last debate, Clinton pointedly didn't answer what she would do in that eventuality.)
It is what it is. We are where we are.
NOTE * I mean, come on. Trump and Comey as Putin's agents of influence? Beyond bizarre.
UPDATE One of the salient features of the bureaucratic infighters who brought about World War
I is their utter mediocrity; see
this review of The Sleepwalkers , a diplomatic history of how World War I came out. If you
want to see real mediocrity in today's terms, read the Podesta emails.
Agreed. Klare's order of presentation creates a questionable sense of causality by talking
first about Russian tech and strategy and then about what appear to be US responses. For example,
my understanding of recent developments of low yield nuclear weapons - I'm thinking of the "dial
a bomb" - has the US once again opening up a new strategic front the Russians feel compelled to
duplicate. His discussion of the Iskander M similarly elides the question of how the Russians
think about the B52-based cruise missiles the US has had for years.
He also seems to lose track of a point he introduces by referring to Kissinger's advocacy of
the use of low yield nukes. Kissinger's book came out in 1957, and afair only the US had battlefield
nuclear missile delivery systems back in early 60s. After Kissinger gained power in the Nixon
administration, they both thought that it was useful to look rationally irrational, to set out
a logic for dangerous policies in order to make opponents fearful of a catastrophic reaction.
The Russians are likely doing the same thing. I'm sure, too, that talking of a low first use threshold
is a way to split Europe from the US.
This article on nuclear strategy makes no mention of the single most destabilizing thing
that happened in nuclear affairs in this century: the USA's unilateral abrogation of the ABM Treaty.
How could the author make such an omission?
The biggest nuclear problem we face is that there are "serious" military and political leaders
in the USA who think that their new ABM systems will allow them to burst the shackles of assured-destruction,
and thus to actively employ escalation dominance as a foreign policy tool..
The author puts too much emphasis on anti-cities warfare at a pre-strategic level. A strike
will be more likely to be an EMP anti-infrastructure strike. In modern societies, one doesn't
need to kill people to break their resolve. Disrupting the provision of electricity, mobile, cable
and internet connection is amply enough to eliminate the appetite for overseas military adventures.
The nukes run on a dead-man switch. If one EMP's "everything", the periodic "please do not
launch today, sir"-signal will not reach the silos/submarines and missiles will launch automatically.
We can be pretty sure that the last missiles launched will be salted with some "well, fuck
you too!"-concoction to create massive fallout and maybe even some bio-weapons on top for all
those weakened immune systems (from the gamma radiation). The USSR did a lot of very high quality
research on biological weapons, obviously, everyone else has whatever they had in the 1980's.
People who ingest radioactive dust are goners sooner or later. Sooner with bio-weapons on top
of the radiation poisoning.
People, especially people "on top" who should be informed and know better, yet still think
ABM systems work effectively for any other purpose than moving billions of USD to into the pockets
of defense industry cronies, are simply deluded. Even with cooked tests, where the speed and trajectory
of the opposition missile is known to the missile defence in advance, the odds of an intercept
are low.
Why would the elites not want to win, compared to the first 70 years of the nuclear age?
They are like 70-80 years old, geriatrics already, soon diaper-cases. All thes powerful people
are in a desparate race with time to "set things right", before they lose all of their faculties
(or start smelling of poo so no-one invites them anymore).
Even more troubling, Russia has adopted a military doctrine that favors the early use
of nuclear weapons if it faces defeat in a conventional war, and NATO is considering comparable
measures in response. The nuclear threshold, in other words, is dropping rapidly.
Of course this is the exact mirror image of the US policy during the Cold War. We relied
on the threat of "theater nuclear war" to deter the huge Soviet conventional forces that NATO
had little chance of stopping with conventional forces. Of course the Germans joked that the definition
of a "theater" nuclear weapon was one that went off in Germany.
"... He opened his remarks by bashing Donald Trump on student loan debt, but then surprisingly turned to bashing Hillary Clinton from her own stage. "Unfortunately, Hillary doesn't really care about this issue either," Vanfosson said. "The only thing she cares about is pleasing her donors, the billionaires who fund her campaign. The only people that really trust Hillary are Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup can trust Hillary, the military industrial complex can trust Hillary. Her good friend Henry Kissinger can trust Hillary." ..."
"... "She is so trapped in the world of the elite that she has completely lost grip on what it's like to be an average person," Vanfosson continued. "She doesn't care. Voting for another lesser of two evils, there's no point." ..."
Just a few days before the general election, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham
Clinton and her running mate Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) still can't unite her party. Supporters of
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her Democratic primary rival, are disrupting her campaign's
efforts to take on GOP nominee Donald J. Trump, and in Iowa on Saturday one prominent Sanders
backer was actually escorted out of a Clinton campaign event for urging those present not to vote
for Clinton-for which he was cheered by the crowd.
Kaleb Vanfosson, the president of Iowa State University's Students for Bernie chapter, bashed
Hillary Clinton and told rally-goers at her own campaign event not to vote for her. He was
cheered.
He opened his remarks by bashing Donald Trump on student loan debt, but then surprisingly
turned to bashing Hillary Clinton from her own stage. "Unfortunately, Hillary doesn't really care
about this issue either," Vanfosson said. "The only thing she cares about is pleasing her donors,
the billionaires who fund her campaign. The only people that really trust Hillary are Goldman
Sachs, CitiGroup can trust Hillary, the military industrial complex can trust Hillary. Her good
friend Henry Kissinger can trust Hillary."
The crowd at the Clinton-Kaine event erupted in applause.
"She is so trapped in the world of the elite that she has completely lost grip on what
it's like to be an average person," Vanfosson continued. "She doesn't care. Voting for another
lesser of two evils, there's no point."
At that point, a Clinton staffer rushed on stage and grabbed the young man by the arm to
escort him off the stage and out of the event.
"... The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis, particularly the first two, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation, while Hillary Clinton is secretary of state, and the State Department is approving massive arms sales, particularly Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... this notorious jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are giving money to the Clinton Foundation? ..."
John Pilger: The Saudis, the Qataris, the Moroccans, the Bahrainis,
particularly the first two, are giving all this money to the Clinton Foundation, while
Hillary Clinton is secretary of state, and the State Department is approving massive
arms sales, particularly Saudi Arabia.
Julian Assange: Under Hillary Clinton – and the Clinton emails
reveal a significant discussion of it – the biggest-ever arms deal in the world was made
with Saudi Arabia: more than $80 billion. During her tenure, the total arms exports from
the US doubled in dollar value.
JP: Of course, the consequence of that is that this notorious
jihadist group, called ISIL or ISIS, is created largely with money from people who are
giving money to the Clinton Foundation?
And yes, about the only thing "liberal" about Clinton involves identity politics. But if she is
elected, all of her supporters who used identity politics based attacks to smear Bernie Sanders
and his supporters (along with a good dose of that against Trump also) are going to be in for
a very rude awakening.
How easily in particular the gay and black communities forget the administration
of Bill Clinton and what he and Hillary did.
Just as a start, Clinton ignored the identity crowd by picking somebody for VP that the identity
crowd spent the previous year smearing the Sanders campaign over: Kaine is your prototypical straight
privileged white male who has failed upwards.
And not a peep from the identity crowd especially
black leaders who more than any other group put Clinton over the top (forgetting the cheating
for a moment). One of the early Wikileak revelations was a memo to Congressional candidates how
to marginalize BLM if they were ever confronted.
If BLM acts up and damages her politically, a President Hillary will smash the leaders and
movement in the same Obama violently smashed OWS
.
She will honor her "feminist" supporters by
appointing the most violent and virulent warmongering women into positions of power so they too
can like the men can decide which black and brown women and children to bomb.
She will stab in
the back such early supporters as SEIU by refusing to support min. wage increases. And women are
disproportionately the base of min. wage workers. She supports Simpson-Bowles as revealed by Wikileaks
and the Cat Food Commission recommended cutting social security. Guess which groups that will
really hurt? Maybe the next groveling task for John Lewis will be to attack people who are against
Hillary cutting social security.
"... When Hillary was Secretary of State, she convinced Obama to authorize a covert operation in Libya (which included sending in special forces and arming terrorist groups) in preparation for a US/Nato aeronaval attack. ..."
"... Clinton's emails that subsequently came to light, prove what the real motive for war might be: blocking Gaddafi's plan to harness Libya's sovereign funds to establish independent financial organizations, located within the African Union and an African currency that could serve as an alternative to the dollar and the CFA franc. ..."
"... Immediately after razing the State of Libya, the US and Nato brought in the Gulf Monarchies and set about a covert operation to destroy the State of Syria by infiltrating it with special forces and terrorist groups that gave birth to Isis. ..."
"... "the best way to help Israel is to help the rebellion in Syria that has now lasted for more than a year" (i.e. from 2011). How? By mounting the case that the use of force is a sina qua non to make Basshar Assad fold, so as to endanger his life and that of his family". ..."
"... "wrecking Assad would not only be a huge advantage for the security of the State of Israel, but would also go a long way to reducing Israel's justifiable fear that it will lose its nuclear monopoly". ..."
From time to time, it is in the interests of the Western media and political establishment to
do a bit of "political cleansing".
Thus the West pulls out some skeleton from the closet. A British Parliamentary Committee has criticized
David Cameron for authorizing the use of force in Libya when he was Prime Minister in 2011. However
the basis for criticism was not the war of aggression per se (even though it erased from the map
a sovereign state) but rather the fact that war was entered into without an adequate "intelligence"
foundation and also because there was no plan for "reconstruction" [
1 ].
The same mistake was made by President Obama: thus he declared last April that Libya was his "biggest
regret", not because he used US-led Nato forces to reduce it to smithereens but because he had failed
to plan for "the day after". At the same time, Obama has confirmed his support for Hillary Clinton
who is now running for president. When Hillary was Secretary of State, she convinced Obama to authorize
a covert operation in Libya (which included sending in special forces and arming terrorist groups)
in preparation for a US/Nato aeronaval attack.
Clinton's emails that subsequently came to light, prove what the real motive for war might be:
blocking Gaddafi's plan to harness Libya's sovereign funds to establish independent financial organizations,
located within the African Union and an African currency that could serve as an alternative to the
dollar and the CFA franc.
Immediately after razing the State of Libya, the US and Nato brought in the Gulf Monarchies and
set about a covert operation to destroy the State of Syria by infiltrating it with special forces
and terrorist groups that gave birth to Isis.
An e mail from Clinton, one of the many the Department of State was compelled to de-classify following
the uproar triggered by the disclosures on Wikileaks, proves what one of the key objectives of the
operation still underway. In an e mail dated 31 December 2012, declassified as "case no: F – 2014
– 20439, Doc No. CO5794998", Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, wrote [
2 ]:
"It is Iran's strategic relationship with the Bashar Assad regime that allows Iran to threaten Israel's
security – not through a direct attack but through its allies in Lebanon such as the Hezbollah."
She then emphasizes that:
"the best way to help Israel is to help the rebellion in Syria that has now lasted for more than
a year" (i.e. from 2011). How? By mounting the case that the use of force is a sina qua non to make
Basshar Assad fold, so as to endanger his life and that of his family".
And Clinton concludes:
"wrecking Assad would not only be a huge advantage for the security of the State of Israel, but would
also go a long way to reducing Israel's justifiable fear that it will lose its nuclear monopoly".
So, the former Secretary of State admits what officially is not said. That Israel is the only
country in the Middle East to possess nuclear weapons [
3 ].
The support given by the Obama Administration to Israel over and above some disagreements (more
formal than substantive) is confirmed by the agreement signed on 14 September at Washington under
which the United States agrees to supply Israel over a ten year period with weapons of the latest
design for a value of 38 billion dollars through an annual financing of 3.3 billion dollars plus
half a million for "missile defense".
In the meantime, after the Russian intervention scuppered the plan to engage in war to demolish
Syria from within, the US obtains a "truce" (which it immediately violated), launching at the same
time a fresh attack in Libya, in the sheepskin of humanitarian operations that Italy participates
in with its "para-medics".
Meanwhile Israel, lurking in the background, strengthens its nuclear monopoly so precious to Clinton.
"... Let's hope that Mr. Assange is saving the best for last, and delivers the coup de grace to the warmongering sociopathic harpy and she melts down like the wicked witch of the west. ..."
"... Either way, methinks that a great mass of unwashed deplorables may just rise up and sweep the authoritarian orange barbarian into power. ..."
The stench of desperation and corruption is surrounding the Dems like the piles of rotting
corpses Obama and Clinton have stacked up in Libya and Syria.
Let's hope that Mr. Assange is saving the best for last, and delivers the coup de grace
to the warmongering
sociopathic harpy and she melts down like the wicked witch of the west.
Either way, methinks that a great mass of unwashed deplorables may just rise up and sweep
the
authoritarian orange
barbarian into power.
Which is why I'm stocking up on ribeyes, scotch, and ammo for next week. Should Trump prevail,
I give better than even odds that the leftist chimps will, literally, go
berserk .
In ''A Burden Too Heavy to Put Down,'' * David Brooks
writes, ''Inevitably, there will be atrocities'' committed by
our forces in Iraq. Did he forget to add that they must be
prosecuted?
War crimes are indeed more likely if influential
commentators foreshadow impunity for perpetrators of the
''brutal measures our own troops will have to adopt.''
The choice is not between committing war crimes and
retreating ''into the paradise of our own innocence.'' A
third option is for the United States to strive to avoid
complicity.
It is untrue that ''we have to take morally hazardous
action.'' Those who choose it, or urge others to, cannot
evade or distribute responsibility by asserting that ''we
live in a fallen world.''
If HRC wins, we have war with Russia, including possibly WW3. That makes environmental issues
moot.
Separately, HRC will not even agree to a carbon tax, she lobbied for two giant polluting coal
plants in South Africa, and she promotes fracking worldwide.
The attack on Iraq, the attack on Libya, the attack on Syria happened because the leader in each
of these countries was not a puppet of the West. The human rights record of a Saddam or a Gaddafi
was irrelevant. They did not obey orders and surrender control of their country.
The same fate awaited Slobodan Milosevic once he had refused to sign an "agreement" that demanded
the occupation of Serbia and its conversion to a market economy. His people were bombed, and he was
prosecuted in The Hague. Independence of this kind is intolerable.
As WikLeaks has revealed, it was only when the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in 2009 rejected
an oil pipeline, running through his country from Qatar to Europe, that he was attacked.
From that moment, the CIA planned to destroy the government of Syria with jihadist fanatics –
the same fanatics currently holding the people of Mosul and eastern Aleppo hostage.
Why is this not news? The former British Foreign Office official Carne Ross, who was responsible
for operating sanctions against Iraq, told me: "We would feed journalists factoids of sanitised intelligence,
or we would freeze them out. That is how it worked."
The West's medieval client, Saudi Arabia – to which the US and Britain sell billions of dollars'
worth of arms – is at present destroying Yemen, a country so poor that in the best of times, half
the children are malnourished.
"... HEDGES: Well what feeds the hatred toward the west has nothing to do with Donald Trump. It has to do with the one-thousand-pound iron fragmentation bombs and cruise missiles and 155 artillery shells that are being dropped all over areas that ISIS controls. ..."
"... That is a far more potent engine of rage than anything Trump says and I think sometimes we forget what we' re doing and the state terror that is delivered day in and day out on Muslims in areas that have been opened up by these failed states because of our military adventurism in countries like Libya and Iraq. ..."
"... : Chris the recently released WikiLeaks indicate that Hillary Clinton is involved in conspiring in maintaining Israels nuclear dominance in the region and containing Irans nuclear development program. ..."
"... Yea, I mean shes quite upfront. I have to give her credit on that in terms of her militantly pro-Israel stance. She of course has courted quite successfully wealthy pro-Israeli donors attacking the Boycott Divestment Sanctions Movement. ..."
"... So one of the dangers of Clinton and shes called for a no fly zone over Syria. Well, people forget that when you institute a no fly zone, that is patrolled and that requires very heavy presence of US forces. ..."
HEDGES: Well what feeds the hatred toward the west has nothing to do with Donald Trump. It
has to do with the one-thousand-pound iron fragmentation bombs and cruise missiles and 155 artillery
shells that are being dropped all over areas that ISIS controls.
That is a far more potent engine of rage than anything Trump says and I think sometimes we
forget what we' re doing and the state terror that is delivered day in and day out on Muslims in areas
that have been opened up by these failed states because of our military adventurism in countries
like Libya and Iraq.
PERIES: So connect those two for us. Give us some examples of how the war on terror in the Middle
East, Syria in particular, is causing this kind of islamophobia here and our hesitancy about doing
humanitarian work by accepting refugees that are fleeing these wars and how it manifests itself in
the form of islamophobia here.
HEDGES: Well, islamophobia here is a doctrine that plays quite conveniently into the goals of
the corporate state in the same way that anti-communism once played into the goals of our capitalist
democracy. So the caricature of threats from the Muslim world independent of the actual possibility
of those threats has especially since 9/11, one of the corner stones of the argument that has been
used by the security and surveillance state to strip us of basic civil liberties, including for instance,
under the Obama administration, misinterpreting the 2001 authorization to use military force act
as giving the executive branch to right to assassinate American citizens. Of course I'm talking about
Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son.
So the rise of islamophobia has been largely independent of anything Muslims have done other than
perhaps initially the attacks of 9/11. The continued over 15 years of indiscriminate violence, industrial
violence, delivered on whole swaps of the Muslim world has stirred up the kind of hornet' s nest that
we' re seeing enraged not only among Muslims in the Muslim world but Muslims in Europe and many other
parts of the globe who despite Clinton' s rhetoric see this as a war against Muslims. I think that
although she speaks in kind of a softer and more tolerate tone, Clinton has been one of the main
architects of the attacks for instance in Libya that have given or empowered or given rise to groups
like ISIS. While Clinton' s rhetoric is certainly more palatable, she has been an enthusiastic supporter
that we are going to bomb our way into peace in the Muslim world.
PERIES: Chris give us a sense of the climate created by what both candidates eluded to that Muslims
in this country has to help us in terms of identifying potential terrorists and any kind of activities
in the community that might feed terrorists attacks here. What does this do to a society?
HEDGES: Well it turns us into a society of informers. I think we have to acknowledge how pervasive
the harassment is of Muslim Americans when they go through the airport, intrusive invasions of their
privacy by Homeland Security, the FBI, and others. We have to acknowledge that almost all of the
homegrown terrorist attacks that the FBI have broken have been orchestrated by the FBI usually with
people of marginal means and sometimes marginal intelligence being prodded and often provided supposed
equipment to carry out terrorist attacks. The racial profiling that has gone on coupled with the
rhetoric and this is very dangerous because if you take already an alienated youth and subject it
to this kind of unrelenting harassment, then you provide a recipe for homegrown radicalism.
So yes it' s once again an effort in this case on part of the Trump rhetoric to blame the Muslims
for not only their own victimhood but for terrorist attacks that are being driven by jihadist whom
the vast majority, 99 plus percent of the Muslim world has no contact with and probably very little
empathy for, I mean there' s 4 to 5 million Muslims, I think I have that right, in the United States.
Most of them have integrated quite successfully into American. Unlike in Britain because Muslim immigrants
in the United States whereas in Europe, France, they came over as laborers, we largely absorbed Muslim
professional classes, doctors, engineers, and others and the Muslim community in the United States
is pretty solidly middle class and professional.
... ... ...
PERIES: Chris the recently released WikiLeaks indicate that Hillary Clinton
is involved in conspiring in maintaining Israels nuclear dominance in the region and containing
Irans nuclear development program. Your comments on those WikiLeaks.
HEDGES:Yea, I mean shes quite upfront. I have to give her credit on that in terms of
her militantly pro-Israel stance. She of course has courted quite successfully wealthy
pro-Israeli donors attacking the Boycott Divestment Sanctions Movement. And she has and will
continue what are considered Israeli interests in the region which are not our interest. Israel
pushed very heavily for an invasion of Iraq as a way to destroy a powerful state within the
region. That did not serve our interests at all. In fact, it elevated to the dominant position
within the region, Iran and out of these vacuums gave birth to these jihadist groups and got us
embroiled in wars that we can never win.
So one of the dangers of Clinton and shes called for a no fly zone over Syria. Well, people
forget that when you institute a no fly zone, that is patrolled and that requires very heavy
presence of US forces. Not just air forces but ground stations, radar stations,
anti-aircraft missile batteries. Shes quite openly calling for a further escalation for American
involvement in the Syrian quagmire which of course again we did so much to create by along with
our allies, the Saudis and Qataris and others pumping so many arms in them. I think we gave a
billion dollars worth of arms to Syrian rebels as if you can control where those arms go, just in
the last year.
All of this loses sight of how much the framing effects have skewed this entire discussion.
Bush's signature use of military force and the defining initiative of his presidency-the invasion
of Iraq-was an unusually extreme act as measured either by past U.S. foreign policy or standards
of international conduct that the United States expects of others.
One of the many flaws in the idea that the U.S. should seek a "middle ground" between Bush and
Obama is that it treats their respective records as offering equally damaging and extreme alternatives.
Of course, the cost to the U.S. from the two presidencies is drastically different. Bush's legacy
was to launch wars that have cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives, while Obama's
has been his failure to extricate the U.S. from them at a significant but much reduced cost. Obama
has certainly made some very serious and even indefensible mistakes (supporting the war on Yemen
being among the worst), but in terms of the damage done to U.S. interests the costs have been much
lower.
To believe that the U.S. needs to "moderate" between Bush's disasters and Obama's failures
is to believe that the U.S. needs a foreign policy that will be even more costly in American lives
and money than the one we have right now.
That is not only not a "moderate" position to take, but it is also a highly ideological one
that insists on the necessity of U.S. "leadership" no matter how much it costs us.
The 'middle ground" that Clinton offers is no middle ground at all, but rather represents moving
the U.S. in the direction of one of the worst foreign policy records in our history. Obama's great
foreign policy failure was that he could not or would not move the U.S. away from the disastrous
policies of the Bush era, and under Clinton there won't even be the pretense that the U.S. should
try to do this.
"... Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists, mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions. ..."
"... The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise, in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies ..."
"... Apart from the fact that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration chooses to take. ..."
"... A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11 September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve of the paranoid Right. ..."
"Who says we share common values with the Europeans? They don't even go to church!" Will the atrocities
of September 11 push America further to the right or open a new debate on foreign policy and the
need for alliances? In this exclusive online essay from the London Review of Books, Anatol Lieven
considers how the cold war legacy may affect the war on terrorism
Not long after the Bush Administration took power in January, I was invited to lunch at a glamorous
restaurant in New York by a group of editors and writers from an influential American right-wing
broadsheet. The food and wine were extremely expensive, the decor luxurious but discreet, the clientele
beautifully dressed, and much of the conversation more than mildly insane. With regard to the greater
part of the world outside America, my hosts' attitude was a combination of loathing, contempt, distrust
and fear: not only towards Arabs, Russians, Chinese, French and others, but towards 'European socialist
governments', whatever that was supposed to mean. This went with a strong desire - in theory at least
- to take military action against a broad range of countries across the world.
Two things were particularly striking here: a tendency to divide the world into friends and enemies,
and a difficulty verging on autism when it came to international opinions that didn't coincide with
their own - a combination more appropriate to the inhabitants of an ethnic slum in the Balkans than
to people who were, at that point, on top of the world.
Today Americans of all classes and opinions have reason to worry, and someone real to fear and
hate, while prolonged US military action overseas is thought to be inevitable. The building where
we had lunch is now rubble. Several of our fellow diners probably died last week, along with more
than six thousand other New Yorkers from every walk of life. Not only has the terrorist attack claimed
far more victims than any previous such attack anywhere in the world, but it has delivered a far
more damaging economic blow. Equally important, it has destroyed Americans' belief in their country's
invulnerability, on which so many other American attitudes and policies finally rested.
This shattering blow was delivered by a handful of anonymous agents hidden in the wider population,
working as part of a tightly-knit secret international conspiracy inspired by a fanatical and (to
the West) deeply 'alien' and 'exotic' religious ideology. Its members are ruthless; they have remarkable
organisational skills, a tremendous capacity for self-sacrifice and self-discipline, and a deep hatred
of the United States and the Western way of life. As Richard Hofstader and others have argued, for
more than two hundred years this kind of combination has always acted as a prompt for paranoid and
reactionary conspiracy theories, most of them groundless.
Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce
two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists,
mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening
of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions.
The latter danger has been greatly increased by the attacks. The terrorists have raised to white
heat certain smouldering tendencies among the American Right, while simultaneously - as is usually
the case at the start of wars - pushing American politics and most of its population in a sharply
rightward direction; all of which has taken place under an unexpectedly right-wing Administration.
If this leads to a crude military response, then the terrorists will have achieved part of their
purpose, which was to provoke the other side to indiscriminate retaliation, and thereby increase
their own support.
It is too early to say for sure how US strategies and attitudes will develop. At the time of writing
Afghanistan is the focus, but whatever happens there, it isn't clear whether the US Administration
will go on to launch a more general campaign of military pressure against other states which have
supported terrorist groups, and if so, what states and what kind of military pressure? US policy
is already pulled in two predictable but contradictory directions, amply illustrated in the op-ed
pages of US newspapers and in debates within the Government.
The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise,
in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies. There are the beginnings, too, of
a real public debate on how US policy needs to be changed and shaped to fight the new 'war'. All
this is reminiscent of US attitudes and behaviour at the start of the Cold War, when Communism was
identified as the central menace to the US and to Western capitalism and democracy in general.
On the other hand, the public desire for revenge has strengthened certain attitudes - especially
in the Republican Party and media, as well as parts of the Administration - which, if they prevail,
will not only be dangerous in themselves, but will make the search for real allies difficult. And
real allies are essential, above all in the Arab and Muslim worlds. In the longer run, only the full
co-operation of Arab regimes - along with reform and economic development - can prevent the recruitment,
funding and operations of Arab-based terrorist groups.
As for Europe, British military support may be unconditional, but most European countries - Russia
among them - are likely to restrict their help to intelligence and policing. Apart from the fact
that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing
great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration
chooses to take.
Yet a blank cheque is precisely what the Administration, and the greater part of US public opinion,
are asking for. This is Jim Hoagland, veteran establishment foreign correspondent and commentator,
in the generally liberal Washington Post:
"Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and many of the other Arab states Powell hopes to recruit for the bin
Laden posse have long been part of the problem, not part of the solution to international terrorism.
These states cannot be given free passes for going through the motions of helping the United States.
And European allies cannot be allowed to order an appetiser of bin Laden and not share in the costs
of the rest of a meal cooked in hell."
If this is the Post, then the sentiments in the right-wing press and the tabloids can well be
imagined. Here is Tod Lindberg, the editor of Policy Review, writing in the Washington Times:
"The United States is now energetically in the business of making governments pick a side: either
with us and against the terrorists, or against us and with them... Against the category of enemy
stands the category of 'friend'. Friends stand with us. Friends do whatever they can to help. Friends
don't, for example, engage in commerce with enemies, otherwise they aren't friends."
A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11
September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve
of the paranoid Right. Now it has spread and, for the moment at least, some rather important ideas
have almost vanished from the public debate: among them, that other states have their own national
interests, and that in the end nothing compels them to help the US; that they, too, have been the
victims of terrorism - in the case of Britain, largely funded from groups in the United States -
but have not insisted on a right of unilateral military retaliation (this point was made by Niall
Ferguson in the New York Times, but not as yet in any op-ed by an American that I have seen); and
that in some cases these states may actually know more about their own part of the world than US
intelligence does.
Beyond the immediate and unforeseeable events in Afghanistan - and their sombre implications for
Pakistan - lies the bigger question of US policy in the Arab world. Here, too, Administration policy
may well be a good deal more cautious than the opinions of the right-wing media would suggest - which
again is fortunate, because much opinion on this subject is more than rabid. Here is AM Rosenthal
in the Washington Times arguing that an amazing range of states should be given ultimatums to surrender
not only alleged terrorists but also their own senior officials accused by the US of complicity:
"The ultimatum should go to the governments of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Sudan and
any other devoted to the elimination of the United States or the constant incitement of hatred against
it... In the three days the terrorists consider the American ultimatum, the residents of the countries
would be urged 24 hours a day by the United States to flee the capital and major cities, because
they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth."
Rosenthal isn't a figure from the lunatic fringe ranting on a backwoods radio show, but the former
executive editor of the New York Times, writing in a paper with great influence in the Republican
Party, especially under the present Administration.
No Administration is going to do anything remotely like this. But if the Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, has emerged as the voice of moderation, with a proper commitment to multilateralism, other
voices are audible, too. Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defence, has spoken of "ending states
which support terrorism", and in the case of Iraq, there are those who would now like to complete
the work of the Gulf War and finish off Saddam Hussein.
Here, too, the mood of contempt for allies contributes to the ambition. Thus Kim Holmes, vice-president
of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, argued that only deference to America's Arab allies prevented
the US from destroying the Iraqi regime in 1991 (the profound unwillingness of Bush Senior to occupy
Iraq and take responsibility for the place also played its part in the decision): "To show that this
war is not with Islam per se, the US could be tempted to restrain itself militarily and accommodate
the complex and contradictory political agendas of Islamic states. This in turn could make the campaign
ineffectual, prolonging the problem of terrorism."
Getting rid of Saddam Hussein is not in itself a bad idea. His is a pernicious regime, a menace
to his own people and his neighbours, as well as to the West. And if the Iraqi threat to the Gulf
States could be eliminated, US troops might be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia: it was their permanent
stationing on the holy soil of Islam that turned Osama bin Laden from an anti-Soviet mujahid into
an anti-American terrorist.
But only if it were to take place in the context of an entirely new policy towards Palestine would
the US be able to mount such a campaign without provoking massive unrest across the Arab world; and
given what became of promises made during the Gulf War, there would first of all have to be firm
evidence of a US change of heart. The only borders between Israel and Palestine which would have
any chance of satisfying a majority of Palestinians and Arabs - and conforming to UN resolutions,
for what they are worth - would be those of 1967, possibly qualified by an internationalisation of
Jerusalem under UN control. This would entail the removal of the existing Jewish settlements in the
Occupied Territories, and would be absolutely unacceptable to any imaginable Israeli Government.
To win Israeli agreement would require not just US pressure, but the threat of a complete breach
of relations and the ending of aid.
There may be those in the Administration who would favour adopting such an approach at a later
stage. Bush Sr's was the most anti-Israeli Administration of the past two generations, and was disliked
accordingly by the Jewish and other ethnic lobbies. His son's is less beholden to those lobbies than
Clinton's was. And it may be that even pro-Israeli US politicians will at some point realise that
Israel's survival as such is not an issue: that it is absurd to increase the risk to Washington and
New York for the sake of 267 extremist settlers in Hebron and their comrades elsewhere.
Still, in the short term, a radical shift is unlikely, and an offensive against Iraq would therefore
be dangerous. The attacks on New York and the Pentagon and the celebrations in parts of the Arab
world have increased popular hostility to the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular,
a hostility assiduously stoked by Israeli propaganda. But when it comes to denouncing hate crimes
against Muslims - or those taken to be Muslims - within the US, the Administration has behaved decently,
perhaps because they have a rather sobering precedent in mind, one which has led to genuine shame:
the treatment of Japanese Americans during world war two.
This shame is the result of an applied historical intelligence that does not extend to the Arab
world. Americans tend - and perhaps need - to confuse the symptoms and the causes of Arab anger.
Since a key pro-Israel position in the US has been that fundamental Palestinian and Arab grievances
must not be allowed legitimacy or even discussed, the only explanation of Arab hostility to the US
and its ally must be sought in innate features of Arab society, whether a contemporary culture of
anti-semitism (and anti-Americanism) sanctioned by Arab leaderships, or ancient 'Muslim' traditions
of hostility to the West.
All of which may contain some truth: but the central issue, the role of Israeli policies in providing
a focus for such hatred, is overwhelmingly ignored. As a result, it is extremely difficult, and mostly
impossible, to hold any frank discussion of the most important issue affecting the position of the
US in the Middle East or the open sympathy for terrorism in the region. A passionately held nationalism
usually has the effect of corrupting or silencing those liberal intellectuals who espouse it. This
is the case of Israeli nationalism in the US. It is especially distressing that it should afflict
the Jewish liberal intelligentsia, that old bedrock of sanity and tolerance.
An Administration which wanted a radical change of policy towards Israel would have to generate
a new public debate almost from scratch - which would not be possible until some kind of tectonic
shift had taken place in American society. Too many outside observers who blame US Administrations
forget that on a wide range of issues, it is essentially Congress and not the White House or State
Department which determines foreign policy; this is above all true of US aid. An inability or unwillingness
to try to work on Congress, as opposed to going through normal diplomatic channels, has been a minor
contributory factor to Britain's inability to get any purchase on US policy in recent years.
The role of Congress brings out what might be called the Wilhelmine aspects of US foreign and
security policy. By that I do not mean extreme militarism or a love of silly hats, or even a shared
tendency to autism when it comes to understanding the perceptions of other countries, but rather
certain structural features in both the Wilhemine and the US system tending to produce over-ambition,
and above all a chronic incapacity to choose between diametrically opposite goals. Like Wilhelmine
Germany, the US has a legislature with very limited constitutional powers in the field of foreign
policy, even though it wields considerable de facto power and is not linked either institutionally
or by party discipline to the executive. The resulting lack of any responsibility for actual consequences
is a standing invitation to rhetorical grandstanding, and the pursuit of sectional interests at the
expense of overall policy.
Meanwhile, the executive, while in theory supremely powerful in this field, has in fact continually
to woo the legislature without ever being able to command its support. This, too, encourages dependence
on interest groups, as well as a tendency to overcome differences and gain support by making appeals
in terms of overheated patriotism rather than policy. Finally, in both systems, though for completely
different reasons, supreme executive power had or has a tendency to fall into the hands of people
totally unsuited for any but the ceremonial aspects of the job, and endlessly open to manipulation
by advisers, ministers and cliques.
In the US, this did not matter so much during the Cold War, when a range of Communist threats
- real, imagined or fabricated - held the system together in the pursuit of more or less common aims.
With the disappearance of the unifying threat, however, there has been a tendency, again very Wilhelmine,
to produce ambitious and aggressive policies in several directions simultaneously, often with little
reference at all to real US interests or any kind of principle.
The new 'war against terrorism' in Administration and Congressional rhetoric has been cast as
just such a principle, unifying the country and the political establishment behind a common goal
and affecting or determining a great range of other policies. The language has been reminiscent of
the global struggle against Communism, and confronting Islamist radicalism in the Muslim world does,
it's true, pose some of the same challenges, on a less global scale, though possibly with even greater
dangers for the world.
The likelihood that US strategy in the 'war against terrorism' will resemble that of the Cold
War is greatly increased by the way Cold War structures and attitudes have continued to dominate
the US foreign policy and security elites. Charles Tilly and others have written of the difficulty
states have in 'ratcheting down' wartime institutions and especially wartime spending. In the 1990s,
this failure on the part of the US to escape its Cold War legacy was a curse, ensuring unnecessarily
high military spending in the wrong fields, thoroughly negative attitudes to Russia, 'zero-sum' perceptions
of international security issues in general, and perceptions of danger which wholly failed, as we
now see, to meet the real threats to security and lives.
The idea of a National Missile Defense is predicated on a limited revival of the Cold War, with
China cast in the role of the Soviet Union and the Chinese nuclear deterrent as the force to be nullified.
Bush's foreign and security team is almost entirely a product of Cold War structures and circumscribed
by Cold War attitudes (which is not true of the President himself, who was never interested enough
in foreign policy; if he can get his mind round the rest of the world, he could well be more of a
free-thinker than many of his staff).
The collapse of the Communist alternative to Western-dominated modernisation and the integration
(however imperfect) of Russia and China into the world capitalist order have been a morally and socially
ambiguous process, to put it mildly; but in the early 1990s they seemed to promise the suspension
of hostility between the world's larger powers. The failure of the US to make use of this opportunity,
thanks to an utter confusion between an ideological victory and crudely-defined US geopolitical interests,
was a great misfortune which the 'war against terrorism' could in part rectify. Since 11 September,
the rhetoric in America has proposed a gulf between the 'civilised' states of the present world system,
and movements of 'barbaric', violent protest from outside and below - without much deference to the
ambiguities of 'civilisation', or the justifications of resistance to it, remarked on since Tacitus
at least.
How is the Cold War legacy likely to determine the 'war against terrorism'? Despite the general
conviction in the Republican Party that it was simply Reagan's military spending and the superiority
of the US system which destroyed Soviet Communism, more serious Cold War analysts were always aware
that it involved not just military force, or the threat of it, but ideological and political struggle,
socio-economic measures, and state-building. The latter in particular is an idea for which the Bush
team on their arrival in office had a deep dislike (if only to distance themselves from Clinton's
policies), but which they may now rediscover. Foreign aid - so shamefully reduced in the 1990s -
was also a key part of the Cold War, and if much of it was poured into kleptocratic regimes like
Mobutu's, or wasted on misguided projects, some at least helped produce flourishing economies in
Europe and East Asia.
The Republican Party is not only the party of Goldwater and Reagan, but of Eisenhower, Nixon and
Kissinger. Eisenhower is now almost forgotten by the party. 'Eisenhower Republicans', as they refer
to themselves, are usually far closer to Tony Blair (or perhaps more accurately, Helmut Schmidt)
than anyone the Republican Party has seen in recent years, and I'd wager that the majority of educated
Americans have forgotten that the original warning about the influence of the 'military industrial
complex' came from Eisenhower.
Kissinger is still very much alive, however, and his history is a reminder that one aspect of
the American capacity for extreme ruthlessness was also a capacity for radical changes of policy,
for reconciliation with states hitherto regarded as bitter enemies, and for cold-blooded abandonment
of close allies and clients whose usefulness was at an end. It would not altogether surprise me if
we were now to see a radical shift towards real co-operation with Russia, and even Iran.
In general, however, the Cold War legacies and parallels are discouraging and dangerous. To judge
by the language used in the days since 11 September, ignorance, demonisation and the drowning out
of nuanced debate indicate that much of the US establishment can no more tell the difference between
Iran and Afghanistan than they could between China and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s - the
inexcusable error which led to the American war in Vietnam. The preference for militarised solutions
continues (the 'War on Drugs', which will now have to be scaled back, is an example). Most worryingly,
the direct attack on American soil and American civilians - far worse than anything done to the US
in the Cold War - means that there is a real danger of a return to Cold War ruthlessness: not just
in terms of military tactics and covert operations, but in terms of the repulsive and endangered
regimes co-opted as local American clients.
The stakes are, if anything, a good deal higher than they were during the Cold War. Given what
we now know of Soviet policymaking, it is by no means clear that the Kremlin ever seriously contemplated
a nuclear strike against America. By contrast, it seems likely that bin Laden et al would in the
end use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons if they could deliver them.
There is also the question of the impact of US strategies (or, in the case of Israel, lack of
them) on the unity of the West - assuming that this is of some importance for the wellbeing of humanity.
However great the exasperation of many European states with US policy throughout the Cold War, the
Europeans were bound into the transatlantic alliance by an obvious Soviet threat - more immediate
to them than it was to the US. For the critical first decade of the Cold War, the economies of Europe
were hopelessly inferior to that of the US. Today, if European Governments feel that the US is dragging
them into unnecessary danger thanks to policies of which they disapprove, they will protest bitterly
- as many did during the Cold War - and then begin to distance themselves, which they could not afford
to do fifty years ago.
This is all the more likely if, as seems overwhelmingly probable, the US withdraws from the Balkans
- as it has already done in Macedonia - leaving Europeans with no good reason to require a US military
presence on their continent. At the same time, the cultural gap between Europeans and Republican
America (which does not mean a majority of Americans, but the dominant strain of policy) will continue
to widen. 'Who says we share common values with the Europeans?' a senior US politician remarked recently.
'They don't even go to church!' Among other harmful effects, the destruction of this relationship
could signal the collapse of whatever hope still exists for a common Western approach to global environmental
issues - which would, in the end, pose a greater danger to humanity than that of terrorism.
· Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington
DC.
"... A key justification of the Bush administration's purported strategy of 'democratising' the Middle East is the argument that democracies are pacific, and that Muslim democracies will therefore eventually settle down peacefully under the benign hegemony of the US. ..."
"... The president's title of 'commander-in-chief' is used by administration propagandists to suggest, in a way reminiscent of German militarists before 1914 attempting to defend their half-witted Kaiser, that any criticism of his record in external affairs comes close to a betrayal of the military and the country. ..."
"... The new American militarism is the handiwork of several disparate groups that shared little in common apart from being intent on undoing the purportedly nefarious effects of the 1960s. Military officers intent on rehabilitating their profession; intellectuals fearing that the loss of confidence at home was paving the way for the triumph of totalitarianism abroad; religious leaders dismayed by the collapse of traditional moral standards; strategists wrestling with the implications of a humiliating defeat that had undermined their credibility; politicians on the make; purveyors of pop culture looking to make a buck: as early as 1980, each saw military power as the apparent answer to any number of problems. ..."
"... Two other factors have also been critical: the dependence on imported oil is seen as requiring American hegemony over the Middle East; and the Israel lobby has worked assiduously and with extraordinary success to make sure that Israel's enemies are seen by Americans as also being those of the US. ..."
"... And let's not forget the role played by the entrenched interests of the military itself and what Dwight Eisenhower once denounced as the 'military-industrial-academic complex'. ..."
"... The security elites are obviously interested in the maintenance and expansion of US global military power, if only because their own jobs and profits depend on it. ..."
"... To achieve wider support in the media and among the public, it is also necessary to keep up the illusion that certain foreign nations constitute a threat to the US, and to maintain a permanent level of international tension. ..."
"... They would include the element of messianism embodied in American civic nationalism, with its quasi-religious belief in the universal and timeless validity of its own democratic system, and in its right and duty to spread that system to the rest of the world. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Important sections of contemporary US popular culture are suffused with the language of militarism. ..."
"... Red Storm Rising ..."
"... Indeed, a portrait of US militarism today could be built around a set of such apparently glaring contradictions: the contradiction, for example, between the military coercion of other nations and the belief in the spreading of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. Among most non-Americans, and among many American realists and progressives, the collocation seems inherently ludicrous. But, as Bacevich brings out, it has deep roots in American history. Indeed, the combination is historically coterminous with Western imperialism. Historians of the future will perhaps see preaching 'freedom' at the point of an American rifle as no less morally and intellectually absurd than 'voluntary' conversion to Christianity at the point of a Spanish arquebus. ..."
"... Today, having dissolved any connection between claims to citizenship and obligation to serve, Americans entrust their security to a class of military professionals who see themselves in many respects as culturally and politically set apart from the rest of society. ..."
"... British power was far from unlimited. The British Empire could use its technological superiority, small numbers of professional troops and local auxiliaries to conquer backward and impoverished countries in Asia and Africa, but it would not have dreamed of intervening unilaterally in Europe or North America. ..."
"... As Iraq – and to a lesser extent Afghanistan – has demonstrated, the US can knock over states, but it cannot suppress the resulting insurgencies, even one based in such a comparatively small population as the Sunni Arabs of Iraq. ..."
"... Recognizing this, the army is beginning to imitate ancient Rome in offering citizenship to foreign mercenaries in return for military service – something that the amazing Boot approves, on the grounds that while it helped destroy the Roman Empire, it took four hundred years to do so. ..."
"... The fact that the Democrats completely failed to do this says a great deal about their lack of political will, leadership and capacity to employ a focused strategy. ..."
The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War by
Andrew Bacevich
Oxford, 270 pp, £16.99, August 2005, ISBN 0 19 517338 4
A key justification of the Bush administration's purported strategy of 'democratising' the
Middle East is the argument that democracies are pacific, and that Muslim democracies will therefore
eventually settle down peacefully under the benign hegemony of the US. Yet, as Andrew Bacevich
points out in one of the most acute analyses of America to have appeared in recent years, the United
States itself is in many ways a militaristic country, and becoming more so:
at the end of the Cold War, Americans said yes to military power. The skepticism about arms
and armies that informed the original Wilsonian vision, indeed, that pervaded the American experiment
from its founding, vanished. Political leaders, liberals and conservatives alike, became enamoured
with military might.
The ensuing affair had, and continues to have, a heedless, Gatsby-like aspect, a passion pursued
in utter disregard of any consequences that might ensue.
The president's title of 'commander-in-chief' is used by administration propagandists to suggest,
in a way reminiscent of German militarists before 1914 attempting to defend their half-witted Kaiser,
that any criticism of his record in external affairs comes close to a betrayal of the military and
the country. Compared to German and other past militarisms, however, the contemporary American
variant is extremely complex, and the forces that have generated it have very diverse origins and
widely differing motives:
The new American militarism is the handiwork of several disparate groups that shared little
in common apart from being intent on undoing the purportedly nefarious effects of the 1960s. Military
officers intent on rehabilitating their profession; intellectuals fearing that the loss of confidence
at home was paving the way for the triumph of totalitarianism abroad; religious leaders dismayed
by the collapse of traditional moral standards; strategists wrestling with the implications of
a humiliating defeat that had undermined their credibility; politicians on the make; purveyors
of pop culture looking to make a buck: as early as 1980, each saw military power as the apparent
answer to any number of problems.
Two other factors have also been critical: the dependence on imported oil is seen as requiring
American hegemony over the Middle East; and the Israel lobby has worked assiduously and with extraordinary
success to make sure that Israel's enemies are seen by Americans as also being those of the US.
And let's not forget the role played by the entrenched interests of the military itself and
what Dwight Eisenhower once denounced as the 'military-industrial-academic complex'.
The security elites are obviously interested in the maintenance and expansion of US global
military power, if only because their own jobs and profits depend on it. Jobs and patronage
also ensure the support of much of the Congress, which often authorizes defense spending on weapons
systems the Pentagon doesn't want and hasn't asked for, in order to help some group of senators and
congressmen in whose home states these systems are manufactured. To achieve wider support in
the media and among the public, it is also necessary to keep up the illusion that certain foreign
nations constitute a threat to the US, and to maintain a permanent level of international tension.
That's not the same, however, as having an actual desire for war, least of all for a major conflict
which might ruin the international economy. US ground forces have bitter memories of Vietnam, and
no wish to wage an aggressive war: Rumsfeld and his political appointees had to override the objections
of the senior generals, in particular those of the army chief of staff, General Eric Shinseki, before
the attack on Iraq. The navy and air force do not have to fight insurgents in hell-holes like Fallujah,
and so naturally have a more relaxed attitude.
To understand how the Bush administration was able to manipulate the public into supporting the
Iraq war one has to look for deeper explanations. They would include the element of messianism
embodied in American civic nationalism, with its quasi-religious belief in the universal and timeless
validity of its own democratic system, and in its right and duty to spread that system to the rest
of the world. This leads to a genuine belief that American soldiers can do no real wrong because
they are spreading 'freedom'. Also of great importance – at least until the Iraqi insurgency rubbed
American noses in the horrors of war – has been the development of an aesthetic that sees war as
waged by the US as technological, clean and antiseptic; and thanks to its supremacy in weaponry,
painlessly victorious. Victory over the Iraqi army in 2003 led to a new flowering of megalomania
in militarist quarters. The amazing Max Boot of the Wall Street Journal – an armchair commentator,
not a frontline journalist – declared that the US victory had made 'fabled generals such as Erwin
Rommel and Heinz Guderian seem positively incompetent by comparison'. Nor was this kind of talk restricted
to Republicans. More than two years into the Iraq quagmire, strategic thinkers from the Democratic
establishment were still declaring that 'American military power in today's world is practically
unlimited.'
Important sections of contemporary US popular culture are suffused with the language of militarism.
Take Bacevich on the popular novelist Tom Clancy:
In any Clancy novel, the international order is a dangerous and threatening place, awash with
heavily armed and implacably determined enemies who threaten the United States. That Americans
have managed to avoid Armageddon is attributable to a single fact: the men and women of America's
uniformed military and its intelligence services have thus far managed to avert those threats.
The typical Clancy novel is an unabashed tribute to the skill, honor, extraordinary technological
aptitude and sheer decency of the nation's defenders. To read Red Storm Rising is to
enter a world of 'virtuous men and perfect weapons', as one reviewer noted. 'All the Americans
are paragons of courage, endurance and devotion to service and country. Their officers are uniformly
competent and occasionally inspired. Men of all ranks are faithful husbands and devoted fathers.'
Indeed, in the contract that he signed for the filming of Red October, Clancy stipulated
that nothing in the film show the navy in a bad light.
Such attitudes go beyond simply glorying in violence, military might and technological prowess.
They reflect a belief – genuine or assumed – in what the Germans used to call Soldatentum:
the pre-eminent value of the military virtues of courage, discipline and sacrifice, and explicitly
or implicitly the superiority of these virtues to those of a hedonistic, contemptible and untrustworthy
civilian society and political class. In the words of Thomas Friedman, the ostensibly liberal foreign
affairs commentator of the ostensibly liberal New York Times, 'we do not deserve these people.
They are so much better than the country they are fighting for.' Such sentiments have a sinister
pedigree in modern history.
In the run-up to the last election, even a general as undistinguished as Wesley Clark could see
his past generalship alone as qualifying him for the presidency – and gain the support of leading
liberal intellectuals. Not that this was new: the first president was a general and throughout the
19th and 20th centuries both generals and more junior officers ran for the presidency on the strength
of their military records. And yet, as Bacevich points out, this does not mean that the uniformed
military have real power over policy-making, even in matters of war. General Tommy Franks may have
regarded Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense, as 'the stupidest fucking guy on the planet',
but he took Feith's orders, and those of the civilians standing behind him: Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld
and the president himself. Their combination of militarism and contempt for military advice recalls
Clemenceau and Churchill – or Hitler and Stalin.
Indeed, a portrait of US militarism today could be built around a set of such apparently glaring
contradictions: the contradiction, for example, between the military coercion of other nations and
the belief in the spreading of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. Among most non-Americans, and among many
American realists and progressives, the collocation seems inherently ludicrous. But, as Bacevich
brings out, it has deep roots in American history. Indeed, the combination is historically coterminous
with Western imperialism. Historians of the future will perhaps see preaching 'freedom' at the point
of an American rifle as no less morally and intellectually absurd than 'voluntary' conversion to
Christianity at the point of a Spanish arquebus.
Its symbols may be often childish and its methods brutish, but American belief in 'freedom' is
a real and living force. This cuts two ways. On the one hand, the adherence of many leading intellectuals
in the Democratic Party to a belief in muscular democratization has had a disastrous effect on the
party's ability to put up a strong resistance to the policies of the administration. Bush's messianic
language of 'freedom' – supported by the specifically Israeli agenda of Natan Sharansky and his allies
in the US – has been all too successful in winning over much of the opposition. On the other hand,
the fact that a belief in freedom and democracy lies at the heart of civic nationalism places certain
limits on American imperialism – weak no doubt, but nonetheless real. It is not possible for the
US, unlike previous empires, to pursue a strategy of absolutely unconstrained Machtpolitik.
This has been demonstrated recently in the breach between the Bush administration and the Karimov
tyranny in Uzbekistan.
The most important contradiction, however, is between the near worship of the military in much
of American culture and the equally widespread unwillingness of most Americans – elites and masses
alike – to serve in the armed forces. If people like Friedman accompanied their stated admiration
for the military with a real desire to abandon their contemptible civilian lives and join the armed
services, then American power in the world really might be practically unlimited. But as Bacevich
notes,
having thus made plain his personal disdain for crass vulgarity and support for moral rectitude,
Friedman in the course of a single paragraph drops the military and moves on to other pursuits.
His many readers, meanwhile, having availed themselves of the opportunity to indulge, ever so
briefly, in self-loathing, put down their newspapers and themselves move on to other things. Nothing
has changed, but columnist and readers alike feel better for the cathartic effect of this oblique,
reassuring encounter with an alien world.
Today, having dissolved any connection between claims to citizenship and obligation to
serve, Americans entrust their security to a class of military professionals who see themselves
in many respects as culturally and politically set apart from the rest of society.
This combination of a theoretical adulation with a profound desire not to serve is not of course
new. It characterized most of British society in the 19th century, when, just as with the US today,
the overwhelming rejection of conscription – until 1916 – meant that, appearances to the contrary,
British power was far from unlimited. The British Empire could use its technological superiority,
small numbers of professional troops and local auxiliaries to conquer backward and impoverished countries
in Asia and Africa, but it would not have dreamed of intervening unilaterally in Europe or North
America.
Despite spending more on the military than the rest of the world combined, and despite enjoying
overwhelming technological superiority, American military power is actually quite limited. As
Iraq – and to a lesser extent Afghanistan – has demonstrated, the US can knock over states, but it
cannot suppress the resulting insurgencies, even one based in such a comparatively small population
as the Sunni Arabs of Iraq. As for invading and occupying a country the size of Iran, this is
coming to seem as unlikely as an invasion of mainland China.
In other words, when it comes to actually applying military power the US is pretty much where
it has been for several decades. Another war of occupation like Iraq would necessitate the restoration
of conscription: an idea which, with Vietnam in mind, the military detests, and which politicians
are well aware would probably make them unelectable. It is just possible that another terrorist attack
on the scale of 9/11 might lead to a new draft, but that would bring the end of the US military empire
several steps closer. Recognizing this, the army is beginning to imitate ancient Rome in offering
citizenship to foreign mercenaries in return for military service – something that the amazing Boot
approves, on the grounds that while it helped destroy the Roman Empire, it took four hundred years
to do so.
Facing these dangers squarely, Bacevich proposes refocusing American strategy away from
empire and towards genuine national security. It is a measure of the degree to which imperial thinking
now dominates US politics that these moderate and commonsensical proposals would seem nothing short
of revolutionary to the average member of the Washington establishment.
They include a renunciation of messianic dreams of improving the world through military force,
except where a solid international consensus exists in support of US action; a recovery by Congress
of its power over peace and war, as laid down in the constitution but shamefully surrendered in recent
years; the adoption of a strategic doctrine explicitly making war a matter of last resort; and a
decision that the military should focus on the defense of the nation, not the projection of US power.
As a means of keeping military expenditure in some relationship to actual needs, Bacevich suggests
pegging it to the combined annual expenditure of the next ten countries, just as in the 19th century
the size of the British navy was pegged to that of the next two largest fleets – it is an index of
the budgetary elephantiasis of recent years that this would lead to very considerable spending reductions.
This book is important not only for the acuteness of its perceptions, but also for the identity
of its author. Colonel Bacevich's views on the military, on US strategy and on world affairs were
profoundly shaped by his service in Vietnam. His year there 'fell in the conflict's bleak latter
stages long after an odor of failure had begun to envelop the entire enterprise'. The book is dedicated
to his brother-in-law, 'a casualty of a misbegotten war'.
Just as Vietnam shaped his view of how the US and the US military should not intervene in the
outside world, so the Cold War in Europe helped define his beliefs about the proper role of the military.
For Bacevich and his fellow officers in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, defending the West from possible
Soviet aggression, 'not conquest, regime change, preventive war or imperial policing', was 'the American
soldier's true and honorable calling'.
In terms of cultural and political background, this former soldier remains a self-described Catholic
conservative, and intensely patriotic. During the 1990s Bacevich wrote for right-wing journals, and
still situates himself culturally on the right:
As long as we shared in the common cause of denouncing the foolishness and hypocrisies of the
Clinton years, my relationship with modern American conservatism remained a mutually agreeable
one But my disenchantment with what passes for mainstream conservatism, embodied in the Bush
administration and its groupies, is just about absolute. Fiscal irresponsibility, a buccaneering
foreign policy, a disregard for the constitution, the barest lip service as a response to profound
moral controversies: these do not qualify as authentically conservative values.
On this score my views have come to coincide with the critique long offered by the radical
left: it is the mainstream itself, the professional liberals as well as the professional conservatives,
who define the problem The Republican and Democratic Parties may not be identical,
but they produce nearly identical results.
Bacevich, in other words, is skeptical of the naive belief that replacing the present administration
with a Democrat one would lead to serious changes in the US approach to the world. Formal party allegiances
are becoming increasingly irrelevant as far as thinking about foreign and security policy is concerned.
Bacevich also makes plain the private anger of much of the US uniformed military at the way in
which it has been sacrificed, and its institutions damaged, by chickenhawk civilian chauvinists who
have taken good care never to see action themselves; and the deep private concern of senior officers
that they might be ordered into further wars that would wreck the army altogether. Now, as never
before, American progressives have the chance to overcome the knee-jerk hostility to the uniformed
military that has characterized the left since Vietnam, and to reach out not only to the soldiers
in uniform but also to the social, cultural and regional worlds from which they are drawn. For if
the American left is once again to become an effective political force, it must return to some of
its own military traditions, founded on the distinguished service of men like George McGovern, on
the old idea of the citizen soldier, and on a real identification with that soldier's interests and
values. With this in mind, Bacevich calls for moves to bind the military more closely into American
society, including compulsory education for all officers at a civilian university, not only at the
start of their careers but at intervals throughout them.
Or to put it another way, the left must fight imperialism in the name of patriotism. Barring a
revolutionary and highly unlikely transformation of American mass culture, any political party that
wishes to win majority support will have to demonstrate its commitment to the defense of the country.
The Bush administration has used the accusation of weakness in security policy to undermine its opponents,
and then used this advantage to pursue reckless strategies that have themselves drastically weakened
the US. The left needs to heed Bacevich and draw up a tough, realistic and convincing alternative.
It will also have to demonstrate its identification with the respectable aspects of military culture.
The Bush administration and the US establishment in general may have grossly mismanaged the threats
facing us, but the threats are real, and some at least may well need at some stage to be addressed
by military force. And any effective military force also requires the backing of a distinctive military
ethic embracing loyalty, discipline and a capacity for both sacrifice and ruthlessness.
In the terrible story of the Bush administration and the Iraq war, one of the most morally disgusting
moments took place at a Senate Committee hearing on 29 April 2004, when Paul Wolfowitz – another
warmonger who has never served himself – mistook, by a margin of hundreds, how many US soldiers had
died in a war for which he was largely responsible. If an official in a Democratic administration
had made a public mistake like that, the Republican opposition would have exploited it ruthlessly,
unceasingly, to win the next election. The fact that the Democrats completely failed to do this
says a great deal about their lack of political will, leadership and capacity to employ a focused
strategy.
Because they are the ones who pay the price for reckless warmongering and geopolitical megalomania,
soldiers and veterans of the army and marine corps could become valuable allies in the struggle to
curb American imperialism, and return America's relationship with its military to the old limited,
rational form. For this to happen, however, the soldiers have to believe that campaigns against the
Iraq war, and against current US strategy, are anti-militarist, but not anti-military. We have needed
the military desperately on occasions in the past; we will definitely need them again.
What I do not get is how one can call himself/herself a democrat and be jingoistic monster.
That's the problem with Democratic Party and its supporters. Such people for me are DINO ("Democrats
only in name"). Closet neocons, if you wish. The level of militarism in the current US society
and MSM is really staggering. anti-war forces are completely destroyed (with the abandonment of
draft) and are limited for libertarians (such as Ron Paul) and paleoconservatives. There is almost
completely empty space on the left. Dennis Kucinich is one of the few exceptions
(see
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/10/27/must-read-of-the-day-dennis-kucinich-issues-extraordinary-warning-on-d-c-s-think-tank-warmongers/
)
I think that people like Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland and Dick Cheney can now proudly join
Democratic Party and feel themselves quite at home.
BTW Hillary is actually very pleasant with people of the same level. It's only subordinates,
close relatives and Security Service agents, who are on the receiving end of her wrath. A typical
"kiss up, kick down personality".
The right word probably would not "nasty", but "duplicitous".
Or "treacherous" as this involves breaking of previous agreements (with a smile) as the USA
diplomacy essentially involves positioning the country above the international law. As in "I am
the law".
Obama is not that different. I think he even more sleazy then Hillary and as such is more difficult
to deal with. He also is at his prime, while she is definitely past hers:
== quote ==
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday it was hard for him to work with the current
U.S. administration because it did not stick to any agreements, including on Syria.
Putin said he was ready to engage with a new president however, whoever the American people
chose, and to discuss any problem.
== end of quote ==
Syria is an "Obama-approved" adventure, is not it ? The same is true for Libya. So formally
he is no less jingoistic then Hillary, Nobel Peace price notwithstanding.
Other things equal, it might be easier for Putin to deal with Hillary then Obama, as she
has so many skeletons in the closet and might soon be impeached by House.
"... She [Hillary Clinton] has concurrently this Clinton Foundation business, where she is granting special favors, special partnerships, special government contracts, weapons deals, etc., to Clinton Foundation donors. So, there's just a lot here that represents how the economic and political elite are very much represented, I think, by both of these candidates, and underscores why it's really important for us to exercise our power in a democracy . ..."
"... To present a no-fly zone here as a solution is extremely dangerous. A no-fly zone means we are going to war with Russia, because it means we will be shooting down planes in the sky in order to create this no-fly zone, which is where Russia has a commitment to defending the Assad government. So, remember, there was a ceasefire, which was very hard-won, and that ceasefire was destroyed by the action of the Americans bombing, apparently by mistake, although some people say not by mistake, but it was our bombing of the Syrian troops that destroyed that ceasefire . ..."
"... That was our part, the U.S., in allowing the nuclear arms race to re-engage . Mikhail Gorbachev, the former premier of the Soviet Union, said last week that we are now at a more dangerous period regarding nuclear war than we have ever been. So, it's really important for the warmongers in the Democratic and Republican parties to be cooling their jets now and for us to be moving forward towards a weapons embargo and a freeze on the funding of those countries that are continuing to fund terrorist enterprises . ..."
'There was a ceasefire, which was very hard-won, and that ceasefire was destroyed by the action
of the Americans bombing, apparently by mistake, although some people say not by mistake, but it
was our bombing of the Syrian troops that destroyed that ceasefire'
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! explains again the process, in this second presidential debate:
" We spend the rest of today's show airing excerpts of the Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton debate
and give Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein a chance to respond to the same questions
posed to the major-party candidates. Again, Dr. Stein and Libertarian presidential candidate Gary
Johnson were excluded from the debate under stringent rules set by the Commission on Presidential
Debates, which is controlled by the Democratic and Republican parties. We invited both Stein and
Johnson to join us on the program; only Stein took us up on the offer. "
In this last part of the second debate, Jill Stein, again, was the only presidential candidate
that told the whole truth to the American people without hesitation.
Concerning the Syrian mess and the Russian intervention, Hillary Clinton showed again why she
is the most dangerous to be the next US president. She avoided again to admit the huge responsibility
of the US intervention and their allies in Libya and the Middle East which created absolute chaos.
She blamed again the Russians, although - as Jill Stein stated very correctly - it was the US that
destroyed the hard-won ceasefire in Syria. Hillary showed again her absolute devotion to the neocon/neoliberal
agenda, therefore, start a war with Russia. She showed again how dangerous she is.
On the contrary, Jill Stein stated very clearly that war with Russia is out of question.
Key points:
She [Hillary Clinton] has concurrently this Clinton Foundation business, where she is granting
special favors, special partnerships, special government contracts, weapons deals, etc., to Clinton
Foundation donors. So, there's just a lot here that represents how the economic and political elite
are very much represented, I think, by both of these candidates, and underscores why it's really
important for us to exercise our power in a democracy . We have a right to know who we can vote
for, as well as a right to vote.
Syria is a disaster, and it's a very complicated disaster. It is a civil war. It is a proxy war
among many nations. It is a pipeline war also between Russia and the Gulf states, who are competing
to run their pipelines with fracked gas into Europe across Syria. So, this is a very complicated
situation, and there is a hornets' nest, a real circular firing squad of alliances here that's, you
know, extremely, extremely complicated.
To present a no-fly zone here as a solution is extremely dangerous. A no-fly zone means we
are going to war with Russia, because it means we will be shooting down planes in the sky in order
to create this no-fly zone, which is where Russia has a commitment to defending the Assad government.
So, remember, there was a ceasefire, which was very hard-won, and that ceasefire was destroyed by
the action of the Americans bombing, apparently by mistake, although some people say not by mistake,
but it was our bombing of the Syrian troops that destroyed that ceasefire .
We need to redouble our efforts here. And we need to acknowledge that war with Russia is not an
option. There are 2,000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert. And who was it that dropped out of
the nuclear arms control? That was George Bush. That was our part, the U.S., in allowing the
nuclear arms race to re-engage . Mikhail Gorbachev, the former premier of the Soviet Union, said
last week that we are now at a more dangerous period regarding nuclear war than we have ever been.
So, it's really important for the warmongers in the Democratic and Republican parties to be cooling
their jets now and for us to be moving forward towards a weapons embargo and a freeze on the funding
of those countries that are continuing to fund terrorist enterprises .
As
an old SDS-er, I found it hard to see Tom Hayden go. However meandering his path, he was at the heart
of radical history in the 60s, an erstwhile companion, if not always a comrade, on the route of every
boomer lefty.
One of his finer moments for me, which I've never seen mentioned (including among this week's
encomia) since he wrote it, was his 2006
article
, published on CounterPunch with an introduction by Alexander Cockburn, in which he apologized
for a "descent into moral ambiguity and realpolitick that still haunts me today." It would be respectful
of Hayden's admirers and critics, on the occasion of his passing, to remember which of his actions
"haunted" him the most.
The title of the article says it clearly: "I Was Israel's Dupe." In the essay, Hayden apologizes
for his support of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which was for him that "descent into
moral ambiguity" More importantly, he explains why he did it, in a detailed narrative that everyone
should read.
Hayden sold out, as he tells it, because, in order to run as a Democratic candidate for the California
State Assembly, he had get the approval of the influential Democratic congressman Howard Berman.
Berman is a guy who, when he became Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was proud to
tell the
Forward that he took the job because of his "interest in the Jewish state" and that: "Even before
I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist."
Hayden had to meet with Howard's brother Michael, who, acting as "the gatekeeper protecting
Los Angeles' Westside for Israel's political interests," told Hayden: "I represent the Israeli Defense
Forces"-a sentence that could serve as the motto of most American congress critters today. The "Berman-Waxman
machine," Hayden was told, would deign to "rent" him the Assembly seat on the "one condition: that
I always be a 'good friend of Israel.'"
But American congressmen were not the only "gatekeepers" through whose hands Hayden had to pass
before being allowed to run for Congress. Other "certifiers" included "the elites, beginning with
rabbis and heads of the multiple mainstream Jewish organizations, the American-Israel Political
Action Committee (AIPAC), [and].. Israeli ambassadors, counsels general and other officials."
In fact, Hayden had to, in his words, be "declared 'kosher' by the ultimate source, the region's
representative of the state of Israel," Benjamin Navon, Israel's Counsul-general in Los Angeles.
In other words, in this article Hayden was describing, in an unusually concrete way, how the
state of Israel, through its state officials and their compliant American partners, was effectively
managing-exercising veto power over Democratic Party candidates, at the very least-American elections
down to the level of State Assembly . In any constituency "attuned to the question of Israel,
even in local and state elections," Hayden knew he "had to be certified 'kosher,' not once but over
and over again."
This experience prompted Hayden to express a "fear that the 'Israeli lobby' is working overtime
to influence American public opinion on behalf of Israel's military effort to 'roll back the clock'
and 'change the map' of the region." Hayden warned of the "trepidation and confusion among rank-and-file
voters and activists, and the paralysis of politicians, especially Democrats," over support of Israel.
He vowed to "not make the same mistake again," and said: "Most important, Americans must not be timid
in speaking up, as I was 25 years ago."
Whatever else he did-and he was never particularly radical about Palestine-this article was a
genuinely honest and unusual intervention, and it deserves a lot more notice-as a moment in Tom Hayden's
history and that of the American left-than it has got. Looking back and regretfully acknowledging
that one had been duped and morally compromised by what seemed the least troublesome path 25 years
earlier, saying "I woulda, shoulda, coulda done the right thing," is a haunting moment for anyone.
Doing it in a way that exposes in detail how a foreign country constantly manipulates American elections
over decades is worthy of everyone's notice.
I doubt Hillary and her Democratic supporters will have anything to say about this "interference
"in American elections, even local and state. But I do hope many of those who are touched by the
loss of Tom Hayden heed these words from him, and don't wait another 25 years to overcome their "fear
and confusion" about saying and doing the right thing regarding the crimes of Israel, troublesome
as that might be.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday it was hard for him to work with the current U.S.
administration because it did not stick to any agreements, including on Syria.
Putin said he was ready to engage with a new president however, whoever the American people chose,
and to discuss any problem.
Trump
claims that Clinton's policy on Syria would lead to World War 3.
Let's fact check …
The Washington Post
points out that a vote for Clinton is a vote for escalating military confrontation in Syria and
elsewhere:
In the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy establishment, President Obama's departure
from the White House - and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton
- is being met with quiet relief.
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork
for a more assertive American foreign policy, via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who
are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House .
***
The studies, which reflect Clinton's stated views, break most forcefully with Obama on Syria
…. call[ing] for stepped-up military action to deter President Bashar al-Assad's regime and Russian
forces in Syria.
***
Most of the studies propose limited American airstrikes with cruise missiles to punish Assad
….
***
Last year, Obama dismissed calls for a no-fly zone in northwestern Syria - a position advocated
by Clinton - as "
half-baked ."
***
Even pinprick cruise-missile strikes designed to hobble the Syrian air force or punish Assad
would risk a direct confrontation with Russian forces, which are scattered throughout the key
Syrian military bases that would be targeted.
"You can't pretend you can go to war against Assad and not go to war against the Russians,"
said a senior administration official who is involved in Middle East policy and was granted anonymity
to discuss internal White House deliberations.
The most liberal presidential candidate still running – Green Party candidate Jill Stein – says:
Hillary Clinton wants to start an air war with Russia. Let's be clear: That's what a no-fly
zone means. It is tantamount to a declaration of war against Russia.
***
Clearly the Democrats are incredibly embarrassed about the nature of these revelations, and
they've created a smokescreen here to try and distract from that. But that smokescreen is pushing
us to the brink of warfare with Russia now, where you have the U.S. head of defense, Ashton Carter,
talking about nuclear war. We just did a dry run dropping fake nuclear bombs over Nevada. This
is really dangerous stuff; this is not pretend. So we need to take a deep breath here, we need
to step back and stop beating the war drums. In this context, Hillary Clinton is talking about
starting an air war with Russia. Which could slide-you know, we're on the verge of nuclear war
right now.
***
The most likely nuclear threat right now is with Russia. There's no doubt about that. When
you have Mikhail Gorbachev, who was the prime minister of the Soviet Union during the Cold War,
saying that the threat of nuclear war is hotter now than it has ever been in all of history, you've
got to take that pretty seriously. And when you have Hillary Clinton then beating the war drums
against Russia, and essentially saying that if she's elected that we will declare war on Russia-because
that's what a no-fly zone over Syria amounts to. Shooting down Russian warplanes.
***
Hillary Clinton is a disastrous nuclear threat right now in a context where we're already off-the-charts
in the risk of nuclear war. She has stated in this context that she's essentially opening up a
battlefront with Russia. So to my mind, this emerges as the clearest and most present danger.
Prominent liberal economist Jeffrey Sachs
writes in the Huffington Post, in an essay bannered " Hillary Is the Candidate of the War
Machine ":
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.
Just as the last Clinton presidency set the stage for financial collapse, it also set the stage
for unending war. On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the
Iraq
Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support "regime change" in Iraq.
It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed
by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to
replace that regime.
Thus were laid the foundations for the Iraq War in 2003.
Of course, by 2003, Hillary was a Senator and a staunch supporter of the Iraq War, which has
cost the US trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and done more to create ISIS and Middle
East instability than any other single decision of modern foreign policy. In defending her vote,
Hillary parroted the phony propaganda of the CIA:
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein
has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability,
and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including
Al Qaeda members… "
After the Iraq Liberation Act came the 1999 Kosovo War, in which Bill Clinton called in NATO
to bomb Belgrade, in the heart of Europe, and unleashing another decade of unrest in the Balkans.
Hillary, traveling in Africa, called Bill: "I urged him to bomb," she told reporter Lucinda Frank.
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."
Perhaps the crowning disaster of this long list of disasters has been Hillary's relentless
promotion of CIA-led regime change in Syria . Once again Hillary bought into the CIA propaganda
that regime change to remove Bashir al-Assad would be quick, costless, and surely successful.
In August 2011, Hillary led the US into disaster with her declaration Assad must
"get out of the way," backed by
secret CIA operations.
Five years later, no place on the planet is more ravaged by unending war, and no place poses
a great threat to US security. More than 10 million Syrians are displaced, and the refugees are
drowning in the Mediterranean or undermining the political stability of Greece, Turkey, and the
European Union. Into the chaos created by the secret CIA-Saudi operations to overthrow Assad,
ISIS has filled the vacuum, and has used Syria as the base for worldwide terrorist attacks.
The list of her incompetence and warmongering goes on. Hillary's support at every turn for
NATO expansion, including even into Ukraine and Georgia against all common sense, was a trip wire
that violated the post-Cold War settlement in Europe in 1991 and that led to Russia's violent
counter-reactions in both Georgia and Ukraine. As Senator in 2008, Hilary co-sponsored
2008-SR439 , to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO. As Secretary of State, she then presided
over the restart of the Cold War with Russia.
It is hard to know the roots of this record of disaster. Is it chronically bad judgment? Is
it her preternatural faith in the lying machine of the CIA? Is it a repeated attempt to show that
as a Democrat she would be more hawkish than the Republicans? Is it to satisfy her hardline campaign
financiers? Who knows? Maybe it's all of the above. But whatever the reasons, hers is a record
of disaster. Perhaps more than any other person, Hillary can lay claim to having stoked the violence
that stretches from West Africa to Central Asia and that threatens US security .
Trump would probably be the better choice in the question of war and peace than Clinton.
Clinton has expressly expressed the wish to establish a flight ban on Syria, or parts of it.
*** In truth, it would be an act of war. The risks are unpredictable. Above all, the risk of a
military conflict with Russia.
***
The highest soldier of the United States of America, General Joseph Dunford, President of the
United States General Staff of the United States Forces, is certain. To control the entire airspace
over Syria would mean war with Syria and Russia. Dunford's predecessor in office estimated a few
years ago that an effective flight bomb over Syria would involve the use of 70,000 soldiers and
a monthly cost of $ 1 billion.
But the bottom line is Clinton's proven historical track record … she's at least partly responsible
for war after catastrophic war and coup after disastrous coup in
Libya, Syria, Kosovo, Haiti, Honduras and
other countries
around the world.
"... Hillary has suggested on several occasions publicly that Trump cannot be trusted with the 'Nuclear Codes' because he is erratic and unstable. Now that most people agree that no matter where they came from the Wikileaks is telling the truth we can see how Hillary's own people are scared of her 'mood swings' and her health problems.... ..."
"... She is the one who should not have access to the Nuclear Codes much less be running for President ..."
"... Hillary's own campaign team is waging a war on women. ..."
"... The American media, nothing but despicable State Sycophant Propaganda Ministry runt traitors! ..."
"... Whether Russia is behind it or not is irrelevant. Its not like the USA is an innocent player in hacking other countries. What's of importance is the contents of the emails. Whoever hacked them - if any at all (they were most likely provided by disgruntled DNC insiders) did not alter them (as proven by security checks). HRC, the DNC and her campaign team are deeply corrupt, hence she is unqualified to lead the USA. ..."
"... So here's the REAL story. Amb. Stevens was sent to Benghazi post haste in order to retrieve US made Stinger missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional oversight or permission. Hillary brokered the deal through Stevens and a private arms dealer named Marc Turi. Then some of the shoulder fired missiles ended up in Afghanistan used against our own military. It was July 25th, 2012 when a Chinook helicopter was taken down by one of our own Stingers, but the idiot Taliban didn't arm the missile and the Chinook didn't explode, but had to land anyway. An ordnance team recovered the serial number off the missile which led back to a cache of Stingers being kept in Qatar by the CIA Obama and Hillary were now in full panic mode and Stevens was sent in to retrieve the rest of the Stingers. This was a "do-or-die" mission, which explains the stand down orders given to multiple commando teams. ..."
"... It was the State Dept, not the CIA that supplied them to our sworn enemies, because Petraeus wouldn't supply these deadly weapons due to their potential use on commercial aircraft. Then, Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus after he refused to testify that he OK'd the BS talking points about a spontaneous uprising due to a Youtube video. ..."
"... Obama and Hillary committed treason...and THIS is what the investigation is all about, why she had a private server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and why Obama, two weeks after the attack, told the UN that the attack was because of a Youtube video, even though everyone knew it was not. Further...the Taliban knew that this administration aided and abetted the enemy without Congressional approval when Boehner created the Select Cmte, and the Taliban began pushing the Obama Administration for the release of 5 Taliban Generals. Bowe Bergdahl was just a pawn...everyone KNEW he was a traitor. ..."
Hillary has suggested on several occasions publicly that Trump cannot be trusted with the 'Nuclear
Codes' because he is erratic and unstable. Now that most people agree that no matter where they came
from the Wikileaks is telling the truth we can see how Hillary's own people are scared of her 'mood
swings' and her health problems....
She is the one who should not have access to the Nuclear
Codes much less be running for President because she also is a Criminal and belongs in Federal
Prison.
This is coded speech microaggression. They are discriminating against her because she is a
woman, implying she is 'moody' you know 'hysterical'... hysterectomy... its sexist, its misogynist
its harassment, its abuse, its hate speech.
Come on Liberal media, where are you ... call it out... this is your bread and butter...
Hillary's own campaign team is waging a war on women.
They did it to Sarah Palin and Barbara Bachman... You know they'd do it if Trump said Hillary
was 'moody'.
The American media, nothing but despicable State Sycophant Propaganda Ministry runt traitors!
Whether Russia is behind it or not is irrelevant. Its not like the USA is an innocent player
in hacking other countries. What's of importance is the contents of the emails. Whoever hacked
them - if any at all (they were most likely provided by disgruntled DNC insiders) did not alter
them (as proven by security checks). HRC, the DNC and her campaign team are deeply corrupt, hence
she is unqualified to lead the USA.
Wikileaks needs to get this out (I have not verified the info sent to me last night):
So here's the REAL story. Amb. Stevens was sent to Benghazi post haste in order to retrieve
US made Stinger missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional oversight or permission.
Hillary brokered the deal through Stevens and a private arms dealer named Marc Turi. Then some
of the shoulder fired missiles ended up in Afghanistan used against our own military. It was July
25th, 2012 when a Chinook helicopter was taken down by one of our own Stingers, but the idiot
Taliban didn't arm the missile and the Chinook didn't explode, but had to land anyway. An ordnance
team recovered the serial number off the missile which led back to a cache of Stingers being kept
in Qatar by the CIA Obama and Hillary were now in full panic mode and Stevens was sent in to
retrieve the rest of the Stingers. This was a "do-or-die" mission, which explains the stand down
orders given to multiple commando teams.
It was the State Dept, not the CIA that supplied them to our sworn enemies, because Petraeus
wouldn't supply these deadly weapons due to their potential use on commercial aircraft. Then,
Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus after he refused to testify that he OK'd the BS talking
points about a spontaneous uprising due to a Youtube video.
Obama and Hillary committed treason...and THIS is what the investigation is all about,
why she had a private server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and why Obama, two weeks
after the attack, told the UN that the attack was because of a Youtube video, even though everyone
knew it was not. Further...the Taliban knew that this administration aided and abetted the enemy
without Congressional approval when Boehner created the Select Cmte, and the Taliban began pushing
the Obama Administration for the release of 5 Taliban Generals. Bowe Bergdahl was just a pawn...everyone
KNEW he was a traitor.
So we have a traitor as POTUS that is not only corrupt, but compromised...and a woman that
is a serial liar, perjured herself multiple times at the Hearing whom is running for POTUS. Only
the Dems, with their hands out, palms up, will support her. Perhaps this is why no military aircraft
was called in…because the administration knew our enemies had Stingers.
Tim Kaine: "I don't think we can dignify documents dumped by WikiLeaks and just assume that they're
all accurate and true,"
They were confirmed true when John Podesta's Twitter password was distributed in one of the
WikiLeaks email releases and his Twitter account was hijacked the same day by a troll saying,
"Trump 2016! Hi pol". Checkmate b!tch. see more DNC Russian Hacker Pepe
Regular Guy •
12 minutes ago The way they parse words, the Kaine statement still doesn't state the documents
are not accurate. He makes an editorial statement to mislead the listener into thinking there
is some reason to question the facts.
Sounds pretty much like poor temperament to me when you have mood problems. Can we please put
national security on hold for now, we have to check her mood ring. It is imperative for the best
outcome that we check her head space. WOW! That's a real dumb explanation. Maybe if we use the
word mood instead of temperament that will be better than telling people she has health problems
in her head.
"... Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just penned an extremely powerful warning about the warmongers in Washington D.C. Who funds them, what their motives are, and why it is imperative for the American people to stop them. ..."
"... Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality by banding together, declaring themselves "think tanks," and raising money from external interests, including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life concerns of the American people. ..."
"... As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and foremost a profitable racket. ..."
"... According to the front page of this past Friday's Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of "liberal" hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya along with allied powers working through NATO. ..."
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only
one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and
the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority
of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit
of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just penned an extremely powerful warning about the
warmongers in Washington D.C. Who funds them, what their motives are, and why it is imperative for
the American people to stop them.
Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality
by banding together, declaring themselves "think tanks," and raising money from external interests,
including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life
concerns of the American people.
As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings
where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking
devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to
reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged
a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and
foremost a profitable racket.
How else to explain that in the past 15 years this city's so called bipartisan foreign policy
elite has promoted wars in Iraq and Libya, and interventions in Syria and Yemen, which have opened
Pandora's box to a trusting world, to the tune of trillions of dollars, a windfall for military
contractors. DC's think "tanks" should rightly be included in the taxonomy of armored war vehicles
and not as gathering places for refugees from academia.
According to the
front page of this past Friday's Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends
the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of "liberal"
hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya
along with allied powers working through NATO.
The think tankers fell in line with the Iraq invasion. Not being in the tank, I did my own
analysis of the call for war in October of 2002, based on readily accessible information, and
easily concluded that there was no justification for war. I distributed it widely in Congress
and led 125 Democrats in voting against the Iraq war resolution. There was no money to be made
from a conclusion that war was uncalled for, so, against millions protesting in the United States
and worldwide, our government launched into an abyss, with a lot of armchair generals waving combat
pennants. The marching band and chowder society of DC think tanks learned nothing from the Iraq
and Libya experience.
The only winners were arms dealers, oil companies, and jihadists. Immediately after the fall
of Libya, the black flag of Al Qaeda was raised over a municipal building in Benghazi, Gadhafi's
murder was soon to follow, with Secretary Clinton quipping with a laugh, "We came, we saw, he
died." President Obama apparently learned from this misadventure, but not the Washington policy
establishment, which is spoiling for more war.
The self-identified liberal
Center for American Progress (CAP) is now calling for Syria to be bombed, and estimates America's
current military adventures will be tidied up by 2025, a tardy twist on "mission accomplished."
CAP, according to
a report in The Nation, has received funding from war contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing,
who make the bombers that CAP wants to rain hellfire on Syria.
As the drumbeat for an expanded war gets louder, Allen and Lister
jointly signed an op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post, calling for an attack on Syria. The
Brookings Institute,
in a report to Congress , admitted it received $250,000 from the US Central Command, Centcom,
where General Allen shared leadership duties with General David Petraeus. Pentagon money to think
tanks that endorse war? This is academic integrity, DC-style.
And why is Central Command, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department
of transportation, and the US Department of Health and Human Services giving money to Brookings?
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who famously
told Colin
Powell , "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we
can't use it," predictably
says of this current moment , "We do think there needs to be more American action." A former
Bush administration top adviser is also
calling for the United States to launch a cruise missile attack on Syria.
The American people are fed up with war, but a concerted effort is being made through fearmongering,
propaganda, and lies to prepare our country for a dangerous confrontation, with Russia in Syria.
The demonization of Russia is a calculated plan to resurrect a raison d'être for stone-cold
warriors trying to escape from the dustbin of history by evoking the specter of Russian world
domination.
It's infectious. Earlier this year the BBC broadcast
a fictional show that contemplated
WWIII, beginning with a Russian invasion of Latvia (where 26 percent of the population is ethnic
Russian and 34 percent of Latvians speak Russian at home).
The imaginary WWIII scenario conjures Russia's targeting London for a nuclear strike. No wonder
that by the summer of 2016
a poll showed two-thirds of UK citizens approved the new British PM's launching a nuclear
strike in retaliation. So much for learning the lessons detailed in the Chilcot report.
As this year's presidential election comes to a conclusion, the Washington ideologues are regurgitating
the same bipartisan consensus that has kept America at war since 9/11 and made the world a decidedly
more dangerous place.
The DC think tanks provide cover for the political establishment, a political safety net, with
a fictive analytical framework providing a moral rationale for intervention, capitol casuistry.
I'm fed up with the DC policy elite who cash in on war while presenting themselves as experts,
at the cost of other people's lives, our national fortune, and the sacred honor of our country.
Any report advocating war that comes from any alleged think tank ought to be accompanied by
a list of the think tank's sponsors and donors and a statement of the lobbying connections of
the report's authors.
It is our patriotic duty to expose why the DC foreign-policy establishment and its sponsors
have not learned from their failures and instead are repeating them, with the acquiescence of
the political class and sleepwalkers with press passes.
It is also time for a new peace movement in America, one that includes progressives and libertarians
alike, both in and out of Congress, to organize on campuses, in cities, and towns across America,
to serve as an effective counterbalance to the Demuplican war party, its think tanks, and its
media cheerleaders. The work begins now, not after the Inauguration. We must not accept war as
inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the
White House, must face visible opposition.
Just like Ron Paul (with whom he agrees on matters of foreign policy and the Fed), he was painted
by MSM as a kook. I wonder why. While I understand that many here would never vote for him because
he believes in things like social programs, so do all of the Republicans in Congress. He would
have made a far better president than zero or McCain.
"... Any analysis that starts with the assumption reactionaries still has a great deal to its agenda to achieve, such as promoting regressive taxation; privatization of Social Security; limiting Medicare; privatization of education; expansion of the police state; using the military to support the dollar, banking, world markets, etc., rather than Corey Robin's belief that "the Right" has won is in my view an improvement on the OP. ..."
"... In the end, Putin will be done in by his oligarchs, despite the care he has taken to give them their share if they just refrain from wrecking everything with their excesses. Again, no need for NGOs. ..."
This is a very good analyses. But I am less pessimistic: the blowback against neoliberal globalization
is real and it is difficult to swipe it under the carpet.
There are some signs of the "revolutionary situation" in the USA in a sense that the neoliberal
elite lost control and their propaganda loss effectiveness, despite dusting off the "Red scare"
trick with "Reds in each computer" instead of "Reds under each bed". With Putin as a very convenient
bogeyman.
As somebody here said Trump might be a reaction of secular stagnation, kind of trump card put
into play by some part of the elite, because with continued secular stagnation, the social stability
in the USA is under real threat.
But the problem is that Hillary with her failing health is our of her prime and with a bunch
of neocons in key positions in her administration, she really represents a huge threat to world
peace. She might not last long as the level of stress inherent in POTUS job make it a killing
ground for anybody with advanced stage of Parkinson or similar degenerative neurological disease.
But that might make her more impulsive and more aggressive (and she always tried to outdo male
politicians in jingoism, real John McCain is the red pantsuit).
All-in-all it looks like she in not a solution for neoliberal elite problems, she is a part
of the problem
Adventurism of the US neoliberal elite, and especially possible aggressive moves in Syria by
Hillary regime ("no fly zone"), makes military alliance of Russia and China very likely (with
Pakistan, Iran and India as possible future members). So Hillary might really work like a powerful
China lobbyist, because the alliance with Russia will be on China terms.
Regime change via color revolution in either country requires at dense network of subservient
to the Western interests and financed via shadow channels MSM (including TV channels), strong
network of NGO and ability to distribute cash to selected members of the fifth column of neoliberal
globalization. All those condition were made more difficult in Russia and impossible in mainland
China. In Russia the US adventurism in Ukraine and the regime change of February 2014 (creation
of neo-fascist regime nicknamed by some "Kaganat of Nuland" (Asia Times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-100315.html
)) essentially killed the neoliberal fifth column in Russia and IMHO it no longer represent
a viable political force.
Also Russians probably learned well lesson of unsuccessful attempt of regime change by interfering
into Russian Presidential election process attempted by Hillary and Obama in 2011-2012. I would
like to see the US MSM reaction if Russian ambassador invited Sanders and Trump into the embassy
and promised full and unconditional support for their effort to remove criminal Obama regime,
mired in corruption and subservient to Wall Street interests, the regime that produced misery
for so many American workers, lower middle class and older Americans ;-)
Ambassador McFaul soon left the country, NED was banned and screws were tightened enough to
make next attempt exceedingly difficult. Although everything can happen I would discount the possibility
of the next "White Revolution" in Russia. So called "Putin regime" survived the period of low
oil prices and with oil prices over $60 in 2017 Russian economy might be able to grow several
percent a year. At the same time the US "post-Obama" regime might well face the winds of returning
higher oil prices and their negative influence of economy growth and unemployment.
In China recent troubles in Hong Cong were also a perfect training ground for "anti color revolution"
measures and the next attempt would much more difficult, unless China experience economic destabilization
due to some bubble burst.
That means that excessive military adventurism inherent in the future Hillary regime might
speed up loss by the USA military dominance and re-alignment of some states beyond Philippines.
Angela Merkel regime also might not survive the next election and that event might change "pro-Atlantic"
balance in Europe.
Although the list in definitely not complete, we can see that there are distinct setbacks for
attempts of further neoliberalization beyond Brexit and TPP troubles.
So there are some countervailing forces in action and my impression that the Triumphal march
of neoliberalism with the USA as the hegemon of the new neoliberal order is either over, or soon
will be over. In certain regions of the globe the USA foreign policy is in trouble (Syria, Ukraine)
and while you can do anything using bayonets, you can't sit on them.
So while still there is no viable alternative to neoliberalism as a social system, the ideology
itself is discredited and like communism after 1945 lost its hold of hearts and minds of the USA
population. I would say that in the USA neoliberalism entered Zombie stage.
My hope is that reasonable voices in foreign policy prevail, and the disgust of unions members
toward DemoRats (Neoliberal Democrats) could play the decisive role in coming elections. As bad
as Trump is for domestic policy, it represent some hope as for foreign policy unless co-opted
by Republican establishment.
#70 But the problem is that Hillary with her failing health is our of her prime and with a bunch
of neocons in key positions in her administration, she really represents a huge threat to world
peace. She might not last long as the level of stress inherent in POTUS job make it a killing
ground for anybody with advanced stage of Parkinson or similar degenerative neurological disease.
But that might kale her more impulsive and more aggressive (and she always tried to outdo her
male politicians in jingoism, real John McCain is the red pantsuit).
Does the new CT moderation regime have any expectations about the veracity of claims made by
commenters? Because I think it would be useful in cases like this.
Yes, it was late and I was tired, or I wouldn't have said something so foolish. Still, the
point is that after centuries of constant war, Europe went 70 years without territorial conquest.
That strikes me as a significant achievement, and one whose breach should not be taken lightly.
phenomenal cat @64
So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them? I'd give
a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections. Those have been slowly crushed
in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great. Personally, I don't believe that
Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of
Russians do.
Russian leaders have always complained about "encirclement," but we don't have to believe them.
Do you really believe Russia's afraid of an attack from Estonia? Clearly what Putin wants is to
restore as much of the old Soviet empire as possible. Do you think the independence of the Baltic
states would be more secure or less secure if they weren't members of NATO? (Hint: compare to
Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova.)
' .makes military alliance of Russia and China very likely '
Any analysis which arrives at this conclusion is profoundly ignorant.
Meta-comment: Is it permitted to say that a moderation scheme which objects to engels as a
troll, while permitting this tripe from likbez has taken a wrong turn somewhere. Seriously, some
explanation called for.
Does the new CT moderation regime have any expectations about the veracity of claims made
by commenters? Because I think it would be useful in cases like this.
I would like to apologize about the number of typos, but I stand by statements made. Your implicit
assumption that I am lying was not specific, so let's concentrate on three claims made:
1. "Hillary has serious neurological disease for at least four years", 2. "Obama and Hillary tried to stage color revolution in Russia in 2011-2012 interfering in Russian
Presidential elections" 3. "Hillary Clinton is a neocon, a warmonger similar to John McCain"
1. Hillary Health : Whether she suffers from Parkinson disease or not in unclear, but signs
of some serious neurological disease are observable since 2012 (for four years). Parkinson is just
the most plausible hypothesis based on symptoms observed. Those symptoms suggests that she is at
Stage 2 of the disease due to an excellent treatment she gets:
http://www.viartis.net/parkinsons.disease/news/100312.htm
The average time taken to progress from Stage 1 (mild) to Stage 2 (mild but various symptoms)
was 1 year 8 months. The average time taken to progress from Stage 2 to Stage 3 (typical) was
7 years and 3 months. From Stage 3 to Stage 4 (severe) took 2 years. From Stage 4 to Stage 5 (incapacitated)
took 2 years and 2 months. So the stage with typical symptoms lasts the longest. Those factors
associated with faster progression were older age at diagnosis, and longer disease duration. Gender
and ethnicity were not associated with the rate of Parkinson's Disease progression.
These figures are only averages. Progression is not inevitable. Some people with Parkinson's
Disease have either : stayed the same for decades, reduced their symptoms, rid their symptoms,
or worsened at a rapid rate. For more current news go to Parkinson's Disease News.
Concern about Hillary health were voiced in many publications and signs of her neurological disease
are undisputable:
3. The opinion that Hillary as a neocon is supported by facts from all her career , but
especially during her tenure as the Secretary of State. She voted for Iraq war and was instrumental
in unleashing Libya war and Syria war. The amount of evidence can't be ignored:
If you have more specific concerns please voice them and I will try to support my statements with
references and known facts.
stevenjohnson 10.26.16 at 1:50 pm
likbez @70 Any analysis that starts with the assumption reactionaries still has a great
deal to its agenda to achieve, such as promoting regressive taxation; privatization of Social
Security; limiting Medicare; privatization of education; expansion of the police state; using
the military to support the dollar, banking, world markets, etc., rather than Corey Robin's
belief that "the Right" has won is in my view an improvement on the OP. But whether mine
is actually a deep analysis seems doubtful even to me.
But the OP is really limiting itself solely to domestic politics, and in that context the
resistance to "neoliberal globalization," (Why not use the term "imperialism?") is more or
less irrelevant. The OP seems to have some essentialist notion of the "Right" as openly aimed
at restoring the past, ignoring the content of policies. Reaction would be something blatant
like restoring censorship of TV and movies, instead of IP laws that favor giant
telecommunications companies, or abolition of divorce, instead of discriminatory enforcement
of child protection laws that break up poor families. This
cultural/psychological/moralizing/spiritual approach seems to me to be fundamentally a
diversion from a useful understanding.
There may be some sort of confused notions about popular morals and tastes clearly evolving
in a more leftish direction. Free love was never a conservative principle for instance, yet
many of its tenets are now those of the majority of the population. Personally I can only
observe that there's nothing quite like the usefulness of laws and law enforcement,
supplemented by the occasional illicit violence, to change social attitudes. The great model
of course is the de facto extermination of the Left by "McCarthyism." No doubt the
disappearance of the left targeted by "McCarthyism" is perceived to be a purification of the
real left. It is customary for the acceptable "left" to agree with the McCarthys that
communism lost its appeal to the people, rather than being driven out by mass repression. As
to populism, such reactionary goals as the abolition of public education are notoriously sold
as service to the people against the hifalutin' snobs, starting of course with lazy ass
teachers. It seems to me entirely mistaken to see the populist reactionaries as out of
ammunition because the old forms of race-baiting aren't working so well.
By the way, there already is a Chinese bourgeoisie, in Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, as well as elements in SEZs in China proper and select circles
in various financial capitals. Restoration of capitalism in China has run into the difficulty
that capitalism isn't holding up its end. President Xi Jinping is finding it difficult for
capitalism to keep the mainland economy growing at a sufficiently rapid rate to keep the
working class pacific, much less generate the so-called middle class whose stock market
portfolios will bind them to the new ruling class forever. These are the sources for a
revolution in China, not NGOs or a color revolution. In the end, Putin will be done in by
his oligarchs, despite the care he has taken to give them their share if they just refrain
from wrecking everything with their excesses. Again, no need for NGOs.
Val @72 I remember that there were only rare, vague hints about Reagan, not factual
evidence. So unless you are committed to the proposition his Alzheimer's disease only set in
January 21, 1992, demanding factual evidence about the mental and physical health of our
elective divinities seems unduly restrictive I think.
Layman @79 The Shanghai Cooperation Organization alone makes an analysis that a military
alliance between Russia and China reasonable enough. Even if incorrect in the end, it is not
"profoundly ignorant."
Meta-comment: Engels post was perceived as mocking, which was its offense. As for "trolling,"
that's an internet thing...
"... There are some signs of the "revolutionary situation" in the USA in a sense that the neoliberal elite lost control and their propaganda loss effectiveness, despite dusting off the "Red scare" trick with "Reds in each computer" instead of "Reds under each bed". With Putin as a very convenient bogeyman. ..."
"... But it looks like newly formed shadow "Committee for Saving [neo]Liberal Order" (with participation of three latter agencies, just read the recent "Red scare" memorandum ( https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-press-releases-2016/1423-joint-dhs-odni-election-security-statement ) want Hillary to be the POTUS. ..."
1. An ABC news poll says that Clinton has 50% of somebody (the electorate, likely voters?)
supporting her rabidly reactionary rhetoric. She demonizes Putin, imputes treason to a major party
candidate in a way hitherto seen only in Birch Society attacks on Eisenhower, shrieks that it
is utterly impossible to even hint that the current electoral system has no real legitimacy.
The only real criticisms acceptable in the face of her reactionary screeds are hints that
she is a traitor for Clinton Foundation cash and that she is lax on security . (The claim
that Clinton is pro-war are regressions to the Obama primary campaign in 2008. Since he promptly
proved the irrelevance of an anti-war rhetoric, the observations that Clinton has none are equally
irrelevant.)
2. The high levels of indecision suggest that a Trump defeat may well leave the Republican
establishment more or less as it was. Depending on turnout, which even at this late date is highly
uncertain, it is entirely possible the Republicans will maintain control of the Senate. At this
point it is probable they will keep the House. In any event, Clinton has openly committed to
a bipartisan a campaign against the Trump hijacking of the Republican party.
3. Consider the longevity of reactionary leaderships in the major parties. The Democratic
Leadership Council approach has dominated its party for decades. The Republican party projects
like ALEC, the Federalist Society, the Mighty Wurlitzer, the designated superstar talk personality
(no, shifting from Limbaugh to Beck is not a sea change,) everywhere you look behind the scenes
you see the same faces. What new faces appear turn out (like Obama) to be employees of the same
old political establishments. Alleged exceptions like Sanders and Warren are notable primarily
for their lack of commitment.
4. There are bold thinkers willing to imagine the conservative future. Think Jason Brennan
and his book Against Democracy. Even worse, the real strength of the conservatives lies in the
bottom line, not in polemics. Tragically, it's when the bottom line is written in read that it
shrieks the loudest, with the most conviction and the most urgent desire for the masters to unite
against the rest of us.
5. California politics has set the pace once again, demonstrating the absolute irrelevance
of a "Left" defined as a spiritual posture. The annihilation of an ugly materialist Left by "McCarthyism"
has purified the souls of the righetous, leaving socialism/communism unthinkable. California leftism
is entirely safe for capitalism, imperialism and a free market of ideas where the refined consumers
of ideas can have their gated neighborhoods of ideas.
6. The majority support for a more tolerant society makes no difference in policy. Being nicer
is not politics.
There is a fundamental reason for despair, the failures of the right to win the Holy Grail
of a functional capitalist society. Despite their successes in destroying organized labor (with
the help of counter-revolutionary "leftists" to be sure,) in limiting women's rights, in blunting
the real world effects of desegregation, the short-run prospects of capital are disquieting. And
the long run prospects, insofar as these people can see past the quarterly statement, are even
more frightening. Urged by their fears, the system will be ever more destabilized by desperate
adventures. The replacement of Social Security of course will be high on the agenda. The absolutely
vital need for ever more control over the world, including regime change in Russia and China,
has driven foreign policy in direct support of the dollar and banking since at least Bush 41.
But in the end, it is not the madness of the owners that is the cause for despair, but the
absolute indifference of the spiritual leftists who have joined in the rabidly reactionary campaign
against Clinton from the right. (You would have thought it rather difficult to criticize Clinton
from the right, but never underestimate the exigencies of struggle against totalitarianism.) Win
or lose, this campaign has endorsed reaction, top to bottom. On the upside, the likelihood of
a Clinton impeachment offers much value for your entertainment dollar.
likbez 10.26.16 at 1:10 am
stevenjohnson
@58
This is a very good analyses. But I am less pessimistic: the blowback against neoliberal globalization
is real and it is difficult to swipe it under the carpet.
There are some signs of the "revolutionary situation" in the USA in a sense that the neoliberal
elite lost control and their propaganda loss effectiveness, despite dusting off the "Red scare"
trick with "Reds in each computer" instead of "Reds under each bed". With Putin as a very convenient
bogeyman.
As somebody here said Trump might be a reaction to secular stagnation, kind of trump card put
into play by some part of the elite, because with continued secular stagnation, the social stability
in the USA is under a real threat.
But the problem is that Hillary with her failing health is our of her prime and with a bunch
of neocons in key positions in her administration, she really represents a huge threat to world
peace. She might not last long as the level of stress inherent in POTUS job make it a killing
ground for anybody with advanced stage of Parkinson or similar degenerative neurological disease.
But that might kale her more impulsive and more aggressive (and she always tried to outdo her
male politicians in jingoism, real John McCain is the red pantsuit).
All-in-all it looks like she in not a solution of neoliberal elite problems, she is a part
of the problem
Adventurism of the US neoliberal elite, and especially possible aggressive moves in Syria by
Hillary regime ("no fly zone"), makes military alliance of Russia and China very likely (with
Pakistan, Iran and India as possible future members). So Hillary might really work like a powerful
China lobbyist, because the alliance with Russia will be on China terms.
Regime change via color revolution in either country requires at dense network of subservient
to the Western interests and financed via shadow channels MSM (including TV channels), NGO and
ability to distribute cash to selection members of fifth column of neoliberalism. All those condition
were made more difficult in Russia and impossible in mainland China. In Russia the US adventurism
in Ukraine and the regime change of February 2014 (creation of neo-fascist regime nicknamed by
some "Kaganat of Nuland" (Asia times
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-100315.html
) essentially killed the neoliberal fifth column in Russia and IMHO it no longer represent
a viable political force.
Also Russians probably learned well lesson of unsuccessful attempt of regime change by interfering
into Russian Presidential election process attempted by Hillary and Obama in 2011-2012. I would
like to see the US MSM reaction if Russian ambassador invited Sanders and Trump into the embassy
and promised full and unconditional support for their effort to remove criminal Obama regime,
mired in corruption and subservient to Wall Street interest, the regime that produced misery for
so many American workers, lower middle class and older Americans ;-)
Ambassador McFaul soon left the country, NED was banned and screws were tightened enough to
make next attempt exceedingly difficult. Although everything can happen I would discount the possibility
of the next "While Revolution" in Russia. So called "Putin regime" survived the period of low
oil prices and with oil prices over $60 in 2017 Russian economy might be able to grow several
percent a year. At the same time the US "post-Obama" regime might well face the winds of returning
higher oil prices and their negative influence of economy growth and unemployment.
In China recent troubles in Hong Cong were also a perfect training ground for "anti color revolution"
measures and the next attempt would much more difficult, unless China experience economic destabilization
due to some bubble burst.
that means that excessive military adventurism inherent in the future Hillary regime might
speed up loss by the USA military dominance and re-alignment of some states beyond Philippines.
Angela Merkel regime also might not survive the next election and change "pro-Atlantic" balance
in Europe.
Although the list in definitely not complete, we can see that there are distinct setbacks for
attempts of further neoliberalization - Brexit and TPP troubles.
So there are some countervailing forces in action and my impression that the Triumphal march
of neoliberalism with the USA as a hegemon of the new neoliberal order is either over or soon
will be over. In certain regions of the globe the USA foreign policy is in trouble (Syria, Ukraine)
and while you can do anything using bayonets, you can't sit on them.
So while still there is no viable alternative to neoliberalism as social system, the ideology
itself is discredited and like communism after 1945 lost its hold of hearts and minds of the USA
population. I would say that in the USA neoliberalism entered Zombie stage.
My hope is that reasonable voices in foreign policy prevail, and the disgust of unions members
toward DemoRats (Neoliberal Democrats) could play the decisive role in coming elections. As bad
as Trump is for domestic policy, it represent some hope as for foreign policy unless co-opted
by Republican establishment.
likbez :
October 24, 2016 at 12:00 PM
My impression is that that key issue is as following: a vote
for Hillary is a vote for the War Party and is incompatible
with democratic principles.
She is way too militant, and is not that different in this
respect from Senator McCain. That creates a real danger of
unleashing the war with Russia.
Trump with all his warts gives us a chance to get some
kind of détente with Russia.
Just a hunch: a lot of this hoo-hah will simmer down after
the election.
But yeah, I'm really bummed that we are going
to be seeing a return of a lot of the same creeps who gave us
the foreign policy of the 90's that went belly up in 2001-03.
Just a reminder: I called attention several times to this
article in 2014 and 2015:
The Next Act of the Neocons
Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton?
By JACOB HEILBRUNN
WASHINGTON - AFTER nearly a decade in the political
wilderness, the neoconservative movement is back, using the
turmoil in Iraq and Ukraine to claim that it is President
Obama, not the movement's interventionist foreign policy that
dominated early George W. Bush-era Washington, that bears
responsibility for the current round of global crises.
Even as they castigate Mr. Obama, the neocons may be
preparing a more brazen feat: aligning themselves with
Hillary Rodham Clinton and her nascent presidential campaign,
in a bid to return to the driver's seat of American foreign
policy.
To be sure, the careers and reputations of the older
generation of neocons - Paul D. Wolfowitz, L. Paul Bremer
III, Douglas J. Feith, Richard N. Perle - are permanently
buried in the sands of Iraq. And not all of them are eager to
switch parties: In April, William Kristol, the editor of The
Weekly Standard, said that as president Mrs. Clinton would
"be a dutiful chaperone of further American decline."
But others appear to envisage a different direction - one
that might allow them to restore the neocon brand, at a time
when their erstwhile home in the Republican Party is turning
away from its traditional interventionist foreign policy.
It's not as outlandish as it may sound. Consider the
historian Robert Kagan, the author of a recent, roundly
praised article in The New Republic that amounted to a
neo-neocon manifesto. He has not only avoided the vitriolic
tone that has afflicted some of his intellectual brethren but
also co-founded an influential bipartisan advisory group
during Mrs. Clinton's time at the State Department.
Mr. Kagan has also been careful to avoid landing at
standard-issue neocon think tanks like the American
Enterprise Institute; instead, he's a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution, that citadel of liberalism headed by
Strobe Talbott, who was deputy secretary of state under
President Bill Clinton and is considered a strong candidate
to become secretary of state in a new Democratic
administration. (Mr. Talbott called the Kagan article
"magisterial," in what amounts to a public baptism into the
liberal establishment.)
Perhaps most significantly, Mr. Kagan and others have
insisted on maintaining the link between modern
neoconservatism and its roots in muscular Cold War
liberalism. Among other things, he has frequently praised
Harry S. Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, drawing a
line from him straight to the neocons' favorite president:
"It was not Eisenhower or Kennedy or Nixon but Reagan whose
policies most resembled those of Acheson and Truman."
Other neocons have followed Mr. Kagan's careful centrism
and respect for Mrs. Clinton. Max Boot, a senior fellow at
the Council on Foreign Relations,noted in The New Republic
this year that "it is clear that in administration councils
she was a principled voice for a strong stand on
controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or
the intervention in Libya."
And the thing is, these neocons have a point. Mrs. Clinton
voted for the Iraq war; supported sending arms to Syrian
rebels; likened Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, to
Adolf Hitler...
This former associate of Dick Cheney managed to completely
destroy pretty nice European county, unleashing the horror of
real starvation on the population.
Ukraine now is essentially Central African country in the
middle of the Europe. Retirees often live on less then $1 a
day. most adults (and lucky retirees) on less then $3 a day.
$6 a day is considered a high salary. At the same time
"oligarchs" drive on Maybachs, and personal jets.
Sex tourism is rampant. Probably the only "profession"
that prospered since "Maydan".
Young people try to get university education and emigrate
to any county that would accept them (repeating the story of
Baltic countries and Poland).
Now this a typical IMF debt slave with no chances to get
out of the hole.
Politically this is now a protectorate of the USA with the
USA ambassador as the real, de-facto ruler of the country.
Much like Kosovo is.
Standard of living dropped approximately three times since
2014.
"If the country continues on its present course, Odessa's
reformist governor Mikheil Saakashvili has noted
sarcastically, Ukraine will not reach the level of GDP it had
under former president Viktor Yanukovych for another fifteen
years"
"In Kiev, which is by far the wealthiest city in Ukraine,
payment arrears for electricity have risen by 32 percent
since the beginning of this year."
The Next Act of the Neocons
Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton?
By JACOB HEILBRUNN
WASHINGTON - AFTER nearly a decade in the political wilderness, the neoconservative movement
is back, using the turmoil in Iraq and Ukraine to claim that it is President Obama, not the movement's
interventionist foreign policy that dominated early George W. Bush-era Washington, that bears
responsibility for the current round of global crises.
Even as they castigate Mr. Obama, the neocons may be preparing a more brazen feat: aligning
themselves with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her nascent presidential campaign, in a bid to return
to the driver's seat of American foreign policy.
To be sure, the careers and reputations of the older generation of neocons - Paul D. Wolfowitz,
L. Paul Bremer III, Douglas J. Feith, Richard N. Perle - are permanently buried in the sands of
Iraq. And not all of them are eager to switch parties: In April, William Kristol, the editor of
The Weekly Standard, said that as president Mrs. Clinton would "be a dutiful chaperone of further
American decline."
But others appear to envisage a different direction - one that might allow them to restore
the neocon brand, at a time when their erstwhile home in the Republican Party is turning away
from its traditional interventionist foreign policy.
It's not as outlandish as it may sound.
Consider the historian Robert Kagan, the author
of a recent, roundly praised article in The New Republic that amounted to a neo-neocon manifesto.
He has not only avoided the vitriolic tone that has afflicted some of his intellectual brethren
but also co-founded an influential bipartisan advisory group during Mrs. Clinton's time at the
State Department.
Mr. Kagan has also been careful to avoid landing at standard-issue neocon think tanks like
the American Enterprise Institute; instead, he's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution,
that citadel of liberalism headed by Strobe Talbott, who was deputy secretary of state under President
Bill Clinton and is considered a strong candidate to become secretary of state in a new Democratic
administration. (Mr. Talbott called the Kagan article "magisterial," in what amounts to a public
baptism into the liberal establishment.)
Perhaps most significantly, Mr. Kagan and others have insisted on maintaining the link between
modern neoconservatism and its roots in muscular Cold War liberalism. Among other things, he has
frequently praised Harry S. Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, drawing a line from him
straight to the neocons' favorite president: "It was not Eisenhower or Kennedy or Nixon but Reagan
whose policies most resembled those of Acheson and Truman."
Other neocons have followed Mr. Kagan's careful centrism and respect for Mrs. Clinton. Max
Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted in The New Republic this year
that "it is clear that in administration councils she was a principled voice for a strong stand
on controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or the intervention in Libya."
And the thing is, these neocons have a point. Mrs. Clinton voted for the Iraq war; supported
sending arms to Syrian rebels; likened Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, to Adolf Hitler...
Anne and I have seen this for a while.
Nothing new Strobe Talbott was closeted [neocon], and
brought Mrs Kagan aka Victoria Nuland in to State in 1993.
Bill bearded the bear breaking Kosovo and Bosinia out of Serbia... The down payment for
Kyiv in 2012 was in 1996.
This former associate of Dick Cheney managed to completely destroy pretty nice European county,
unleashing the horror of real starvation on the population.
Ukraine now is essentially Central African country in the middle of the Europe. Retirees often
live on less then $1 a day. most adults (and lucky retirees) on less then $3 a day. $6 a day is
considered a high salary. At the same time "oligarchs" drive on Maybachs, and personal jets.
Sex tourism is rampant. Probably the only "profession" that prospered since "Maydan".
Young people try to get university education and emigrate to any county that would accept them
(repeating the story of Baltic countries and Poland).
Now this a typical IMF debt slave with no chances to get our the hole.
Politically this is now a protectorate of the USA with the USA ambassador as the real, de-facto
ruler of the county. Much like Kosovo is.
Standard of living dropped approximately three times since 2014.
"If the country continues on its present course, Odessa's reformist governor Mikheil
Saakashvili has noted sarcastically, Ukraine will not reach the level of GDP it had under former
president Viktor Yanukovych for another fifteen years"
"In Kiev, which is by far the wealthiest city in Ukraine, payment arrears for electricity
have risen by 32 percent since the beginning of this year."
"... There are a variety of potential threats around the world today: tensions in the South China Seas, a nuclear North Korea, conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and civil wars in the Middle East are just a few. In order to better think about these challenges and how they relate to U.S. national security, the Center for the National Interest partnered with the Charles Koch Institute to host a foreign policy roundtable which addressed the question: What is the most pressing issue for America's foreign policy? ..."
"... Mearsheimer argues that the second problematic dimension of U.S. foreign policy is that the United States is "heavily into transformation." By "transformation," Mearsheimer means that "We believe that what we should do in the process of running the world is topple governments that are not liberal democracies and transform them into [neo]liberal democracies." ..."
"... according to Mearsheimer, the United States is pursuing "a hopeless cause; there is a huge literature that makes it clear that promoting democracy around the world is extremely difficult to do, and doing it at the end of a rifle barrel is almost impossible." ..."
"... "It's remarkably difficult to understand why we still continue to think we can dominate the world and pursue the same foreign policy we've been pursuing at least since 2001, when it has led to abject failure after abject failure." ..."
"... Andrew Bacevich opines that the United States needs to "come to some understanding of who we are and why we do these things – a critical understanding of the American identity." Notre Dame's Michael Desch agrees: "That cuts to the core of American political culture. I think the root of the hubris is deep in the software that animates how we think about ourselves, and how we think about the world." ..."
There are a variety of potential threats around the world today: tensions in the South China
Seas, a nuclear North Korea, conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and civil wars in the Middle East
are just a few. In order to better think about these challenges and how they relate to U.S. national
security, the Center for the National Interest partnered with the Charles Koch Institute to host
a foreign policy roundtable which addressed the question: What is the most pressing issue for America's
foreign policy?
Watch the rest of the videos in the "Grand Strategy" series.
John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago doesn't shy away from a bold answer: The most pressing
issue is that the United States has a "fundamentally misguided foreign policy." Mearsheimer argues
that there are two dimensions to U.S. foreign policy that get the United States into "big trouble."
First, he says, "We believe that we can dominate the globe, that we can control what happens in every
nook and cranny of the world." The problem with this is that "the world is simply too big and nationalism
is much too powerful of a force to make it possible for us to come close to doing that."
Mearsheimer argues that the second problematic dimension of U.S. foreign policy is that the United
States is "heavily into transformation." By "transformation," Mearsheimer means that "We believe
that what we should do in the process of running the world is topple governments that are not liberal
democracies and transform them into [neo]liberal democracies."
The United States has engaged in numerous international military interventions over the past fifteen
years, primarily in the Middle East. Proponents of these interventions argue that they are necessary
in order to build stable democracies in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. However, according to Mearsheimer,
the United States is pursuing "a hopeless cause; there is a huge literature that makes it clear that
promoting democracy around the world is extremely difficult to do, and doing it at the end of a rifle
barrel is almost impossible."
So why has the United States continued to pursue policies and strategies that fail to convert
U.S. military might into political ends?
Eugene Gholz of the University of Texas at Austin suggests that the root of the issue could be
American hubris. The United States has made the mistake of "thinking we can control things we can't
control." Mearsheimer agrees with Gholz, although he finds the situation perplexing: "It's remarkably
difficult to understand why we still continue to think we can dominate the world and pursue the same
foreign policy we've been pursuing at least since 2001, when it has led to abject failure after abject
failure."
Several other scholars chime in to offer their own thoughts on this thorny issue. Boston University's
Andrew Bacevich opines that the United States needs to "come to some understanding of who we are
and why we do these things – a critical understanding of the American identity." Notre Dame's Michael Desch agrees: "That cuts to the core of American political culture. I think the root of the hubris
is deep in the software that animates how we think about ourselves, and how we think about the world."
Harvard University's Stephen Walt offers yet another possibility. Walt asks if the U.S. commitment
to its current misguided and damaging foreign policy is due to "deep culture" or if it is result
of "the national security apparatus we built after World War II." Walt thinks it is the latter: the
United States "was not a highly interventionist country until after the Second World War." After
World War II, "we built a large national security state, we had bases everywhere, and then we discovered
that we can't let go of any of that, even though the original reason for building it is gone."
Did the other panelists agree with Walt? Did anyone suggest a different problem as a candidate
for the most pressing issue? Watch the full video above to see and be sure to check out the other
videos of CNI and CKI's panel of nationally acclaimed foreign policy scholars addressing additional
questions.
They are the same neocon creeps... They forgot nothing and learn nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... My impression is that that key issue is as following: a vote for Hillary is a vote for the War Party and is incompatible with democratic principles. ..."
"... Trump with all his warts gives us a chance to get some kind of détente with Russia. ..."
"... In other words no real Democrat can vote for Hillary. ..."
"... Why do you think "wet kiss with neocons" is compatible with democratic principles ? ..."
"... I'm really bummed that we are going to be seeing a return of a lot of the same creeps who gave us the foreign policy of the 90's that went belly up in 2001-03. ..."
"... But most of the liberal bloggers obediently kept their mouths shut about it. ..."
Just a hunch: a lot of this hoo-hah will simmer down after the election.
But yeah, I'm really bummed that we are going to be seeing a return of a lot of the same
creeps who gave us the foreign policy of the 90's that went belly up in 2001-03.
Just a reminder: I called attention several times to this article in 2014 and 2015:
"... The Democratic nominee in the final debate reiterated her bellicose stance towards Syria. Combined with her 2003 vote for war in Iraq, and her central role in getting the U.S. into the 2011 war in Libya, Clinton could become the most hawkish candidate elected president in most Americans' lifetimes. ..."
"... Enforcing a no-fly zone is "basically an act of war," Michael Knights, a no-fly-zone expert at the Washington Institute told me in the run up to the Libyan war. ..."
"... "Hillary's War," was the Washington Post's headline for a flattering feature on the Secretary of State's central role in driving the U.S. to intervene in Libya's civil war in 2011. ..."
"... Clinton staff, published emails have shown, worked hard to get Clinton credit for the war. Clinton's confidante at the State Department Jake Sullivan drafted a memo on her "leadership/ownership/stewardship of this country's Libya policy from start to finish." ..."
"... Hillary's war was illegal-because the administration never obtained congressional authorization for it-and it was also disastrous. "Libya is in a state of meltdown," John Lee Anderson wrote in the Atlantic last summer. ..."
"... Yet somehow, through three general election debates, she never got a single question on Libya. Consider that: a former Secretary of State touted a war as a central achievement of hers, is running on her foreign-policy chops, and she is escaping accountability for that disastrous war. ..."
"... Clinton, of course, also voted for the Iraq War in 2003. She says now she thinks that war was a mistake because it destabilized region. But somehow she doesn't apply that supposed lesson to Libya or to Syria. ..."
"... The pattern is clear: Hillary Clinton is consistently and maybe blindly pro-war. She is now the clear frontrunner to become our next president. The antiwar movement that flourished under President George W. Bush has disappeared under President Obama . Will it revive under Hillary? Will Republicans have the power or the desire to check her ambitious interventionism. ..."
Hillary Clinton
can change her views in an instant on trade, guns, gay marriage, and all sorts of issues, but
she's consistent in this: she wants war.
The Democratic nominee in the final debate reiterated her bellicose stance towards Syria. Combined
with her 2003 vote for war in Iraq, and her central role in getting the U.S. into the 2011 war in
Libya, Clinton could become the most hawkish candidate elected president in most Americans' lifetimes.
"I am going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria," Clinton said
Wednesday night. Totally separate from the fight against ISIS, Clinton's "no-fly zones and safe havens"
are U.S. military intervention in the bloody and many-sided conflict between Syria's brutal government,
terrorist groups, and rebel groups.
Enforcing a no-fly zone is "basically an act of war," Michael Knights, a no-fly-zone expert at
the Washington Institute told me in the run up to the Libyan war. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, vice
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate that a no-fly zone created "the
potential of a direct conflict with the Syrian integrated air defense system or Syrian forces or,
by corollary, a confrontation with the Russians."
Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified in the same hearing that "safe zones" would require significant
U.S. boots on the ground.
So while Hillary says she doesn't want war with Russia or Syria, or boots on the ground in Syria,
she pushes policies that the Pentagon says risk war and require boots on the ground.
Hillary showed that same cavalier attitude toward war earlier this decade, laughingly
declaring "we came, we
saw, he died." This was her version of George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment, and Libya
was her smaller - and less legal - version of Bush's Iraq War.
"Hillary's War," was the Washington Post's headline for a flattering feature on the Secretary
of State's central role in driving the U.S. to intervene in Libya's civil war in 2011.
Clinton staff, published emails have shown, worked hard to get Clinton credit for the war.
Clinton's confidante at the State Department Jake Sullivan drafted a memo on her "leadership/ownership/stewardship
of this country's Libya policy from start to finish."
Sullivan listed, point-by-point, how Clinton helped bring about and shape the war. Before Obama's
attack on Moammar Gadhafi, "she [was] a leading voice for strong UNSC action and a NATO civilian
B5 protection mission," the memo explained.
Hillary's war was illegal-because the administration never obtained congressional authorization
for it-and it was also disastrous. "Libya is in a state of meltdown," John Lee Anderson wrote in
the Atlantic last summer.
ISIS has spread, no stable government has arisen, and the chaos has led to refugee and terrorism
crises.
Clinton nevertheless calls her war "smart power at its best," declaring during the primary season,
"I think President
Obama made the right decision at the time."
Yet somehow, through three general election debates, she never got a single question on Libya.
Consider that: a former Secretary of State touted a war as a central achievement of hers, is running
on her foreign-policy chops, and she is escaping accountability for that disastrous war.
Clinton, of course, also voted for the Iraq War in 2003. She says now she thinks that war
was a mistake because it destabilized region. But somehow she doesn't apply that supposed lesson
to Libya or to Syria.
The pattern is clear:
Hillary Clinton
is consistently and maybe blindly pro-war. She is now the clear frontrunner to become our next
president. The antiwar movement that flourished under President George W. Bush has disappeared under
President Obama
. Will it revive under Hillary? Will Republicans have the power or the desire to check her ambitious
interventionism.
If Hillary wins big and sweeps in a Senate majority with her, we could be in for four more years
of even more war.
Timothy P. Carney, the Washington Examiner's senior political columnist, can be contacted at
[email protected]. His column appears
Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
"... US-Russia-China cooperation will eliminate for the US the threat of war with the only two powers whose nuclear capabilities could pose existential threats to the US. ..."
"... Simultaneously, Trump will put an end to "the prevailing view that the U.S. is, and always must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its allies, satellites-and even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits, and knowhow…a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over the well-being of the larger U.S. population…Instead of sacrificing American economic interests on the altar of U.S. 'leadership,' [Trump] will view the strengthening of the American economy as central to American greatness." ..."
"... President Trump will rebuild the decimated US manufacturing sector and return to Americans those tens of millions of jobs that America's globalist elites were allowed to ship overseas. Rebuilding the US economy – and jobs! – will be the centerpiece of a Donald Trump presidency. ..."
"... The problem is that everyone wants to call themselves a Realist, even the Neocons. The Neocons proclaim that promoting Democracy, nation building, and being the world's policeman is 'realism' because if you withdraw from the world the problems follow you home. Tom Rogan bellowed that we needed to destroy Syria in the name of realism. They are totally wrong but the point is that everyone wants to claim this mantle which is why I tend to avoid this term. ..."
"... I think we should embrace the Putin Doctrine but that name is toxic. Basically, he eschews destroying standing govts because it is highly destabilizing. This is common sense. ..."
"... Oh, when I hear 'Bush kept us safe' it tears my heart out when I see guys in their 20/30's walking around with those titanium prosthetics. Do the 4,000+ men who died in Iraq and 10,000+ severely wounded count? And this does not even start to count the chaos and death in the M.E. ..."
"... Mainstream media are besides themselves at the prospect of their masters having to relinquish their special entitlements; namely, designer wars, selection of the few to govern the many (Supreme Court and the Fed), and putting foreign dictates over American interests at an incredible cost to the U.S. in human and non-human resources. ..."
Donald Trump played a wily capitalistic trick on his Republican opponents in the primary fights
this year-he served an underserved market.
By now it's a cliché that Trump, while on his way to the GOP nomination, tapped into an unnoticed
reservoir of right-of-center opinion on domestic and economic concerns-namely, the populist-nationalists
who felt left out of the reigning market-libertarianism of the last few decades.
Indeed, of the 17 Republicans who ran this year, Trump had mostly to himself the populist issues:
that is, opposition to open borders, to free trade, and to earned-entitlement cutting. When the other
candidates were zigging toward the familiar-and unpopular-Chamber of Commerce-approved orthodoxy,
Trump was zagging toward the voters.
Moreover, the same sort of populist-nationalist reservoir-tapping was evident in the realm of
foreign affairs. To put it in bluntly Trumpian terms, the New Yorker hit 'em where they weren't.
The fact that Trump was doing something dramatically different became clear in the make-or-break
Republican debate in Greenville, S.C., on February 13. Back in those early days of the campaign,
Trump had lost one contest (Iowa) and won one (New Hampshire), and it was still anybody's guess who
would emerge victorious.
During that debate, Trump took what seemed to be an extraordinary gamble: he ripped into George
W. Bush's national-security record-in a state where the 43rd president was still popular. Speaking
of the Iraq War, Trump said, "George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was
a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East."
And then Trump went further, aiming indirectly at the former president, while slugging his brother
Jeb directly: "The World Trade Center came down during your brother's reign, remember that."
In response, Jeb intoned the usual Republican line, "He kept us safe." And others on the stage
in Greenville that night rushed to associate themselves with Bush 43.
In the aftermath of this verbal melee, many thought that Trump had doomed himself. As one unnamed
Republican "strategist" chortled to Politico , "Trump's attack on President George W. Bush
was galactic-level stupid in South Carolina."
Well, not quite: Trump triumphed in the Palmetto State primary a week later, winning by a 10-point
margin.
Thus, as we can see in retrospect, something had changed within the GOP. After 9/11, in the early
years of this century, South Carolinians had been eager to fight. Yet by the middle of the second
decade, they-or at least a plurality of them-had grown weary of endless foreign war.
Trump's victory in the Palmetto State was decisive, yet it was nevertheless only a plurality,
32.5 percent. Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio, running as an unabashed neocon hawk, finished second.
So we can see that the Republican foreign-policy "market" is now segmented. And while Trump proved
effective at targeting crucial segments, they weren't the only segments-because, in actuality, there
are four easily identifiable blocs on the foreign-policy right. And as we delineate these four segments,
we can see that while some are highly organized and tightly articulate, others are loose and inchoate:
First, the libertarians. That is, the Cato Institute and other free-market think tanks, Reason
magazine, and so on. Libertarians are not so numerous around the country, but they are strong
among the intelligentsia.
Second, the old-right "isolationists." These folks, also known as "paleocons," often find common
ground with libertarians, yet their origins are different, and so is their outlook. Whereas the libertarians
typically have issued a blanket anathema to all foreign entanglements, the isolationists have been
more selective. During World War I, for example, their intellectual forbears were hostile to U.S.
involvement on the side of the Allies, but that was often because of specifically anti-English or
pro-German sentiments, not because they felt guided by an overall principle of non-intervention.
Indeed, the same isolationists were often eager to intervene in Latin America and in the Far East.
More recently, the temperamentally isolationist bloc has joined with the libertarians in opposition
to deeper U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
Third, the traditional hawks. On the proverbial Main Street, USA, plenty of people-not limited
to the active-duty military, veterans, and law-enforcers-believe that America's national honor is
worth fighting for.
Fourth, the neoconservatives. This group, which takes hawkishness to an avant-garde extreme, is
so praised, and so criticized, that there's little that needs be added here. Yet we can say this:
as with the libertarians, they are concentrated in Washington, DC; by contrast, out beyond the Beltway,
they are relatively scarce. Because of their connections to big donors to both parties, however,
they have been powerful, even preeminent, in foreign-policy circles over the last quarter-century.
Yet today, it's the neocons who feel most threatened by, and most hostile to, the Trump phenomenon.
We can pause to offer a contextual point: floating somewhere among the first three categories-libertarians,
isolationists, hawks-are the foreign-policy realists. These, of course, are the people, following
in the tradition of the great scholar Hans Morgenthau, who pride themselves on seeing the world as
it is, regarding foreign policy as just another application of Bismarckian wisdom-"the art of the
possible."
The realists, disproportionately academics and think-tankers, are a savvy and well-credentialed
group-or, according to critics, cynical and world-weary. Yet either way, they have made many alliances
with the aforementioned trio of groups, even as they have usually maintained their ideological flexibility.
To borrow the celebrated wisdom of the 19th-century realpolitiker Lord Palmerston, realists don't
have permanent attachments; they have permanent interests. And so it seems likely that if Trump wins-or
anyone like Trump in the future-many realists will be willing to emerge from their wood-paneled precincts
to engage in the hurly-burly of public service.
Returning to our basic quartet of blocs, we can quickly see that two of them, the libertarians
and the neocons, have been loudly successful in the "battle of ideas." That is, almost everyone knows
where the libertarians and the neocons stand on the controversies of the moment. Meanwhile, the other
two groups-the isolationists and the traditional hawks-have failed to make themselves heard. That
is, until Trump.
For the most part, the isolationists and hawks have not been organized; they've just been clusters
of veterans, cops, gun owners, and like-minded souls gathering here and there, feeling strongly about
the issues but never finding a national megaphone. Indeed, even organized groups, such as the American
Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, sizable as they might be, have had little impact, of late,
on foreign affairs.
This paradoxical reality-that even big groups can be voiceless, allowing smaller groups to carry
the day-is well understood. Back in 1839, the historian Thomas Carlyle observed of his Britain, "The
speaking classes speak and debate," while the "deep-buried [working] class lies like an Enceladus"-a
mythological giant imprisoned under a volcano. Yet, Carlyle continued, the giant under the volcano
will not stay silent forever; one day it will erupt, and the inevitable eruption "has to produce
earthquakes!"
In our time, Trump has provoked the Enceladus-like earthquake. Over the past year, while the mainstream
media has continued to lavish attention on the fine points of libertarianism and neoconservatism,
the Peoples of the Volcano have blown up American politics.
Trump has spoken loudly to both of his groups. To the isolationists, he has highlighted his past
opposition to the Iraq and Libya misadventures, as well as his suspicions about NATO and other alliances.
(Here the libertarians, too, are on board.) At the same time, he has also talked the language of
the hawks, as when he has said, "Take the oil" and "Bomb the [bleep] out of them." Trump has also
attacked the Iran nuclear agreement, deriding it as "one of the worst deals ever made."
Thus earlier this year Trump mobilized the isolationists and the hawks, leaving the libertarians
to Rand Paul and the neocons to Rubio.
Now as we move to the general election, it appears that Trump has kept the loyalty of his core
groups. Many libertarians, meanwhile, are voting for Gary Johnson-the former Republican governor
at the top of the Libertarian Party's ticket-and they are being joined, most likely as a one-off,
by disaffected Republicans and Democrats. Meanwhile, the neocons, most of them, have become the objective
allies, if not the overt supporters, of Hillary Clinton.
Even if Trump loses, his energized supporters, having found their voice, will be a new and important
force within the GOP-a force that could make it significantly harder for a future president to, say,
"liberate" and "democratize" Syria.
♦♦♦
Yet now we must skip past the unknown unknowns of the election and ask: what might we expect if
Trump becomes president?
One immediate point to be borne in mind is that it will be a challenge to fill the cabinet and
the sub-cabinet-to say nothing of the thousands of "Schedule C" positions across the administration-with
true Trump loyalists. Yes, of course, if Trump wins that means he will have garnered 50 million or
more votes, but still, the number of people who have the right credentials and can pass all the background
checks-including, for most of the top jobs, Senate confirmation-is minuscule.
So here we might single out the foreign-policy realists as likely having a bright future in a
Trump administration: after all, they are often well-credentialed and, by their nature, have prudently
tended to keep their anti-Trump commentary to a minimum. (There's a piece of inside-the-Beltway realist
wisdom that seems relevant here: "You're for what happens.")
Yet the path to realist dominion in a Trump administration is not smooth. As a group, they have
been in eclipse since the Bush 41 era, so an entire generation of their cadres is missing. The realists
do not have long lists of age-appropriate alumni ready for another spin through the revolving door.
By contrast, the libertarians have lots of young staffers on some think-tank payroll or another.
And of course, the neocons have lots of experience and contacts-yes, they screwed up the last time
they were in power, but at least they know the jargon.
Thus, unless president-elect Trump makes a genuinely heroic effort to infuse his administration
with new blood, he will end up hiring a lot of folks who might not really agree with him-and who
perhaps even have strongly, if quietly, opposed him. That means that the path of a Trump presidency
could be channeled in an unexpected direction, as the adherents of other foreign-policy schools-including,
conceivably, schools from the left-clamber aboard. As they say in DC, "personnel is policy."
Still, Trump has a strong personality, and it's entirely possible that, as president, he will
succeed in imprinting his unique will on his appointees. (On the other hand, the career government,
starting with the State Department's foreign service officers, might well prove to be a different
story.)
Looking further ahead, as a hypothetical President Trump surveys the situation from the Sit Room,
here are nine things that will be in view:
1.
Trump will recall, always, that the Bush 43 presidency drove itself into a ditch on Iraq. So he
will surely see the supreme value of not sending U.S. ground troops-beyond a few advisors-into Middle
Eastern war zones.
2.
Trump will also realize that Barack Obama, for all his talk about hope and change, ended up preserving
the bulk of Bush 43's policies. The only difference is that Obama did it on the cheap, reducing defense
spending as he went along.
Obama similar to Bush-really? Yes. To be sure, Obama dropped all of Bush's democratic messianism,
but even with his cool detachment he kept all of Bush's alliances and commitments, including those
in Afghanistan and Iraq. And then he added a new international commitment: "climate change."
In other words, America now has a policy of "quintuple containment": Russia, China, Iran, ISIS/al-Qaeda,
and, of course, the carbon-dioxide molecule. Many would argue that today we aren't managing any of
these containments well; others insist that the Obama administration, perversely, seems most dedicated
to the containment of climate change: everything else can fall apart, but if the Obamans can maintain
the illusion of their international CO2 deals, as far as they are concerned all will be well.
In addition, Uncle Sam has another hundred or so minor commitments-including bilateral defense
treaties with countries most Americans have never heard of, along with special commitments to champion
the rights of children, women, dissidents, endangered species, etc. On a one-by-one basis, it's possible
to admire many of these efforts; on a cumulative basis, it's impossible to imagine how we can sustain
all of them.
3. A populist president like Trump will further realize that if the U.S. has just 4 percent of the
world's population and barely more than a fifth of world GDP, it's not possible that we can continue
to police the planet. Yes, we have many allies-on paper. Yet Trump's critique of many of them as
feckless, even faithless, resonated for one big reason: it was true.
So Trump will likely begin the process of rethinking U.S. commitments around the world. Do we
really want to risk nuclear war over the Spratly Islands? Or the eastern marches of Ukraine? Here,
Trump might well default to the wisdom of the realists: big powers are just that-big powers-and so
one must deal with them in all their authoritarian essentiality. And as for all the other countries
of the world-some we like and some we don't-we're not going to change them, either. (Although in
some cases, notably Iraq and Syria, partition, supervised by the great powers, may be the only solution.)
4.
Trump will surely see world diplomacy as an extension of what he has done best all his life-making
deals. This instinct will serve him well in two ways: first, he will be sharply separating himself
from his predecessors, Bush the hot-blooded unilateralist war-of-choicer and Obama the cool and detached
multilateralist leader-from-behind. Second, his deal-making desire will inspire him do what needs
to be done: build rapport with world leaders as a prelude to making things happen.
To cite one immediate example: there's no way that we will ever achieve anything resembling "peace
with honor" in Afghanistan without the full cooperation of the Taliban's masters in Pakistan. Ergo,
the needed deal must be struck in Islamabad, not Kabul.
Almost certainly, a President Trump will treat China and Russia as legitimate powers, not as rogue
states that must be single-handedly tamed by America.
Moreover, Trump's deal-making trope also suggests that instead of sacrificing American economic
interests on the altar of U.S. "leadership," he will view the strengthening of the American economy
as central to American greatness.
5.
Trump will further realize that his friends the realists have had a blind spot of late when it
comes to eco nomic matters. Once upon a time-that is, in the 19th century-economic nationalism was
at the forefront of American foreign-policy making. In the old days, as America's Manifest Destiny
stretched beyond the continental U.S., expansionism and Hamiltonianism went together: as they used
to say, trade follows the flag. Theodore Roosevelt's digging of the Panama Canal surely ranks as
one of the most successful fusions of foreign and economic policy in American history.
Yet in the past few decades, the economic nationalists and the foreign-policy realists have drifted
apart. For example, a Reagan official, Clyde Prestowitz of the Economic Strategy Institute, has been
mostly ignored by the realists, who have instead embraced the conventional elite view of free trade
and globalization.
So a President Trump will have the opportunity to reunite realism and economic nationalism; he
can once again put manufacturing exports, for example, at the top of the U.S. agenda. Indeed, Trump
might consider other economic-nationalist gambits: for example, if we are currently defending such
wealthy countries as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Norway, why aren't they investing some of the trillions
of dollars in their sovereign-wealth funds into, say, American infrastructure?
6.
Trump will also come into power realizing that he has few friends in the foreign-policy establishment;
after all, most establishmentarians opposed him vehemently. Yet that could turn out to be a real
plus for the 45th president because it could enable him to discard the stodgy and outworn thinking
of the "experts." In particular, he could refute the prevailing view that the U.S. is, and always
must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its allies, satellites-and
even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits, and knowhow. That was
always, of course, a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over
the well-being of the larger U.S. population-and maybe Trump can come up with a better and fairer
vision.
7.
As an instinctive deal-maker, Trump will have the capacity to clear away the underbrush of accumulated
obsolete doctrines and dogmas. To cite just one small but tragic example, there's the dopey chain
of thinking that has guided U.S. policy toward South Sudan. Today, we officially condemn both sides
in that country's ongoing civil war. Yet we might ask, how can that work out well for American interests?
After all, one side or the other is going to win, and we presumably want a friend in Juba, not a
Chinese-affiliated foe.
On the larger canvas, Trump will observe that if the U.S., China, and Russia are the three countries
capable of destroying the world, then it's smart to figure out a modus vivendi among this
threesome. Such practical deal-making, of course, would undermine the moralistic narrative that Xi
Jinping and Vladimir Putin are the potentates of new evil empires.
8.
Whether or not he's currently familiar with the terminology, Trump seems likely to recapitulate
the "multipolar" system envisioned by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Back then,
the multipolar vision included the U.S., the USSR, Western Europe, China, and Japan.
Yet multipolarity was lost in the '80s, as the American economy was Reaganized, the Cold War grew
colder, and the Soviet Union staggered to its self-implosion. Then in the '90s we had the "unipolar
moment," when the U.S. enjoyed "hyper-power" primacy.
Yet as with all moments, unipolarity soon passed, undone by the Iraq quagmire, America's economic
stagnation, and the rise of other powers. So today, multipolarity seems destined to re-emerge with
a slightly upgraded cast of players: the U.S., China, Russia, the European Union, and perhaps India.
9.
And, of course, Trump will have to build that wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
♦♦♦
Some might object that I am reading too much into Trump. Indeed, the conventional wisdom, even
today, maintains that Trump is visceral, not intellectual, that he is buffoonish, not Kissingerian.
To such critics, this Trump supporter feels compelled to respond: when has the conventional wisdom
about the New Yorker been proven correct?
It's not easy to become president. In all of U.S. history, just 42 individuals have been elected
to the presidency-or to the vice presidency and succeeded a fallen president. That is, indeed, an
exclusive club. Or as Trump himself might say, it's not a club for dummies.
If Trump does, in fact, become the 45th president, then by definition, he will have proven himself
to be pretty darn strategic. And that's a portent that bodes well for his foreign policy.
James P. Pinkerton is a contributor to the Fox News Channel.
Among James Pinkerton's most compelling reasons to hope for a Trump presidency are these two:
[1] "Almost certainly, a President Trump will treat China and Russia as legitimate powers, not
as rogue states that must be single-handedly tamed by America…Trump will observe that if the U.S.,
China, and Russia are the three countries capable of destroying the world, then it's smart to
figure out amodus vivendi among this threesome…"
US-Russia-China cooperation will eliminate for the US the threat of war with the only two
powers whose nuclear capabilities could pose existential threats to the US.
[2] Simultaneously, Trump will put an end to "the prevailing view that the U.S. is,
and always must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its
allies, satellites-and even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits,
and knowhow…a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over the
well-being of the larger U.S. population…Instead of sacrificing American economic interests on
the altar of U.S. 'leadership,' [Trump] will view the strengthening of the American economy as
central to American greatness."
President Trump will rebuild the decimated US manufacturing sector and return to Americans
those tens of millions of jobs that America's globalist elites were allowed to ship overseas.
Rebuilding the US economy – and jobs! – will be the centerpiece of a Donald Trump presidency.<
The problem is that everyone wants to call themselves a Realist, even the Neocons. The Neocons
proclaim that promoting Democracy, nation building, and being the world's policeman is 'realism'
because if you withdraw from the world the problems follow you home. Tom Rogan bellowed that we
needed to destroy Syria in the name of realism. They are totally wrong but the point is that everyone
wants to claim this mantle which is why I tend to avoid this term.
I think we should
embrace the Putin Doctrine but that name is toxic. Basically, he eschews destroying standing govts
because it is highly destabilizing. This is common sense.
Oh, when I hear 'Bush kept us safe' it tears my heart out when I see guys in their 20/30's
walking around with those titanium prosthetics. Do the 4,000+ men who died in Iraq and 10,000+
severely wounded count? And this does not even start to count the chaos and death in the M.E.
Trump just came across as different while maintaining conservative, albeit middle-American values.
Mainstream media are besides themselves at the prospect of their masters having to relinquish
their special entitlements; namely, designer wars, selection of the few to govern the many (Supreme
Court and the Fed), and putting foreign dictates over American interests at an incredible cost
to the U.S. in human and non-human resources.
The song goes on. Trump hit a real nerve. Even if he loses, the American people have had a
small but important victory. We are frustrated with the ruling cabal. A sleeping giant has been
awoken. This election could be the political Perl Harbor….
Pinkerton has spent thousands of words writing about someone who is not the Donald Trump anyone
has ever seen.
In this, he joins every other member of the Right, who wait in hopeful anticipation
to see a Champion for their cause in Donald Trump, and are willing to turn a blind eye to his
ignorance, outright stupidity, lack of self-discipline, and lack of serious intent.
Pinkerton, he will only follow your lead here if he sees what's in it for HIM, not for the
Right and certainly not for the benefit of the American people.
Flawed premise. This opine works its way through the rabbit hole pretzel of current methodologies
in D.C. The ones that don't work. The city of NY had a similar outcome building a certain ice
skating facility within the confines of a system designed to fail.
What Trump does is implode those failed systems, implements a methodology that has proven to
succeed, and then does it. Under budget and before the deadline. Finding the *right* bodies to
make it all work isn't as difficult as is surmised. What that shows is how difficult that task
would be for the author. Whenever I hear some pundit claim that Trump can't possibly do all that
means is the pundit couldn't possibly do it.
The current system is full of youcan'tdoits, what have you got to lose, more of the same?
LOL! "Very few voters that will vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick."
Putin/Russia were by far the most mentioned topics at the debates...yet EMichael has the naivety
to assert that cold war tactics don't matter. What a rube!
As usual, EMichael is as uninformed as ever. For his information, Russia/Putin were mentioned
178 times in the 3 debates, topping the list of topics covered.
By comparison, climate change got four mentions, poverty 10, and US economic performance--hold
onto your hats!--didn't make the list. NSA snooping didn't get mentioned either.
So, EMichael, if Russia/Putin don't matter to voters, why did candidates talk so much about
it? Oh, I know, to distract attention from more serious issues that their paymasters didn't want
them to talk about!
Clinton had attracted a lot of centrist Republicans to her campaign, and I think the hawkish and
old school foreign policy stance has something to do with it.
"As president, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just
like any other attack," the Democratic presidential nominee said. "We will be ready with serious
political, economic and military responses. "
We need to tell everyone that for the sake of the word. do not vote for this
dangerous woman!
"... I would agree that Trump is horrible candidate. The candidate who (like Hillary) suggests complete degeneration of the US neoliberal elite. ..."
"... But the problem is that Hillary is even worse. Much worse and more dangerous because in addition to being a closet Republican she is also a warmonger. In foreign policy area she is John McCain in pantsuit. And if you believe that after one hour in White House she does not abandon all her election promises and start behaving like a far-right republican in foreign policy and a moderate republican in domestic policy, it's you who drunk too much Cool Aid. ..."
"... In other words, the USA [workers and middle class] now is in the political position that in chess is called Zugzwang: we face a choice between the compulsive liar, unrepentant, extremely dangerous and unstable warmonger with failing health vs. a bombastic, completely unprepared to governance of such a huge country crook. ..."
The key problems with Democratic Party and Hillary is that they lost working class and middle
class voters, becoming another party of highly paid professionals and Wall Street speculators
(let's say top 10%, not just 1%), the party of neoliberal elite.
It will be interesting to see if yet another attempt to "bait and switch" working class and
lower middle class works this time. I think it will not. Even upper middle class is very resentful
of Democrats and Hillary. So many votes will be not "for" but "against". This is the scenario
Democratic strategists fear the most, but they can do nothing about it.
She overplayed "identity politics" card. Her "identity politics" and her fake feminism are
completely insincere. She is completely numb to human suffering and interests of females and minorities.
Looks like she has a total lack of empathy for other people.
"What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the
generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not
hesitate to pull the trigger. An illuminating article in the NY Times (
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html ) revealed
that she always advocates the most muscular and reckless dispositions of U.S. military forces
whenever her opinion is solicited. "
Usually people are resentful about Party which betrayed them so many times. It would be interesting
to see how this will play this time.
Beverly Mann October 23, 2016 12:00 pm
It will be interesting to see if yet another attempt to "bait and switch" working class and
lower middle class works this time?
Yup. The Republicans definitely have the interests of the working class and lower middle class
at heart when they give, and propose, ever deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, the repeal of the
estate tax that by now applies only to estates of more than $5 million, complete deregulation
of the finance industry, industry capture of every federal regulatory agency and cabinet department
and commission or board, from the SEC, to the EPA, to the Interior Dept. (in order to hand over
to the oil, gas and timber industries vast parts of federal lands), the FDA, the FTC, the FCC,
the NLRB, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Justice Dept. (including the Antitrust
Division)-to name only some.
And OF COURSE it's to serve the interests of the working class and lower middle class that
they concertedly appoint Supreme Court justices and lower federal court judges that are unabashed
proxies of big business.
And then there's the incessant push to privatize Social Security and Medicare. It ain't the
Dems that are pushing that.
You're drinking wayyy too much Kool Aid, likbez. Or maybe just reading too much Ayn Rand, at
Paul Ryan's recommendation.
beene October 23, 2016 10:31 am
I would suggest despite most of the elite in both parties supporting Hillary, and saying
she has the election in the bag is premature. In my opinion the fact that Trump rallies still
has large attendance; where Hillary's rallies would have trouble filling up a large room is a
better indication that Trump will win.
Even democrats are not voting democratic this time to be ignored till election again.
likbez October 23, 2016 12:56 pm
Beverly,
=== quote ===
Yup. The Republicans definitely have the interests of the working class and lower middle class
at heart when they give, and propose, ever deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, the repeal of the
estate tax that by now applies only to estates of more than $5 million, complete deregulation
of the finance industry, industry capture of every federal regulatory agency and cabinet department
and commission or board, from the SEC, to the EPA, to the Interior Dept. (in order to hand
over to the oil, gas and timber industries vast parts of federal lands), the FDA, the FTC,
the FCC, the NLRB, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Justice Dept. (including
the Antitrust Division) -- to name only some.
And OF COURSE it's to serve the interests of the working class and lower middle class that
they concertedly appoint Supreme Court justices and lower federal court judges that are unabashed
proxies of big business.
=== end of quote ===
This is all true. But Trump essentially running not as a Republican but as an independent on
(mostly) populist platform (with elements of nativism). That's why a large part of Republican
brass explicitly abandoned him. That does not exclude that he easily will be co-opted after the
election, if he wins.
And I would not be surprised one bit if Dick Cheney, Victoria Nuland, Paul Wolfowitz and Perle
vote for Hillary. Robert Kagan and papa Bush already declared such an intention. She is a neocon.
A wolf in sheep clothing, if we are talking about real anti-war democrats, not the USA brand of
DemoRats. She is crazy warmonger, no question about it, trying to compensate a complete lack of
diplomatic skills with jingoism and saber rattling.
The problem here might be that you implicitly idealize Hillary and demonize Trump.
I would agree that Trump is horrible candidate. The candidate who (like Hillary) suggests
complete degeneration of the US neoliberal elite.
But the problem is that Hillary is even worse. Much worse and more dangerous because in
addition to being a closet Republican she is also a warmonger. In foreign policy area she is John
McCain in pantsuit. And if you believe that after one hour in White House she does not abandon
all her election promises and start behaving like a far-right republican in foreign policy and
a moderate republican in domestic policy, it's you who drunk too much Cool Aid.
That's what classic neoliberal DemoRats "bait and switch" maneuver (previously executed
by Obama two times) means. And that's why working class now abandoned Democratic Party. Even unions
members of unions which endorses Clinton are expected to vote 3:1 against her. Serial betrayal
of interests of working class (and lower middle class) after 25 years gets on nerve. Not that
their choice is wise, but they made a choice. This is "What's the matter with Kansas" all over
again.
It reminds me the situation when Stalin was asked whether right revisionism of Marxism (social
democrats) or left (Trotskyites with their dream of World revolution) is better. He answered "both
are worse" :-).
In other words, the USA [workers and middle class] now is in the political position that
in chess is called Zugzwang: we face a choice between the compulsive liar, unrepentant, extremely
dangerous and unstable warmonger with failing health vs. a bombastic, completely unprepared to
governance of such a huge country crook.
Of course, we need also remember about existence of "deep state" which make each of
them mostly a figurehead, but still the power of "deep state" is not absolute and this is a very
sad situation.
Beverly Mann, October 23, 2016 1:57 pm
Good grace.
Two points: First, you apparently are unaware of Trump's proposed tax plan, written by Heritage
Foundation economists and political-think-tank types. It's literally more regressively extreme
evn than Paul Ryan's. It gives tax cuts to the wealthy that are exponentially more generous percentage-wise
than G.W. Bush's two tax cuts together were, it eliminates the estate tax, and it gives massive
tax cuts to corporations, including yuge ones.
Two billionaire Hamptons-based hedge funders, Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, have
been funding a super PAC for Trump and since late spring have met with Trump and handed him policy
proposals and suggestions for administrative agency heads and judicial appointments. Other yuge
funders are members of the Ricketts family, including Thomas Ricketts, CEO of TD Ameritrade and
a son of its founder.
Two other billionaires funding Trump: Forrest Lucas, founder of Lucas Oil and reportedly Trump's
choice for Interior Secretary if you and the working class and lower middle class folks whose
interests Trump has at heart get their way.
And then there's Texas oil billionaire Harold Hamm, Trump's very first billionaire mega-donor.
One of my recurring pet peeves about Clinton and her campaign is her failure to tell the public
that these billionaires are contributing mega-bucks to help fund Trump's campaign, and to tell
the public who exactly they are. As well as her failure to make a concerted effort to educate
the public about the the specifics of Trump's fiscal and deregulatory agenda as he has published
it.
As for your belief that I idealize Clinton, you obviously are very new to Angry Bear. I was
a virulent Sanders supporter throughout the primaries, to the very end. In 2008 I originally supported
John Edwards during the primaries and then, when it became clear that it was a two-candidate race,
supported Obama. My reason? I really, really, REALLY did not want to see another triangulation
Democratic administration. That's largely what we got during Obama's first term, though, and I
was not happy about it.
Bottom line: I'm not the gullible one here. You are.
likbez, October 23, 2016 2:37 pm
You demonstrate complete inability to weight the gravity of two dismal, but unequal in their
gravity options.
All your arguments about Supreme Court justices, taxes, inheritance and other similar things
make sense if and only if the country continues to exist.
Which is not given due to the craziness and the level of degeneration of neoliberal elite and
specifically Hillary ("no fly zone in Syria" is one example of her craziness). Playing chickens
with a nuclear power for the sake of proving imperial dominance in Middle East is a crazy policy.
Neocons rule the roost in both parties, which essentially became a single War Party with two
wings. Trump looks like the only chance somewhat to limit their influence and reach some détente
with Russia.
Looks like you organically unable to understand that your choice in this particular case is
between the decimation of the last remnants of the New Deal and a real chance of WWIII.
This is not "pick your poison" situation. Those are two events of completely difference magnitude:
one is reversible (and please note that Trump is bound by very controversial obligations to his
electorate and faces hostile Congress), the other is not.
We all should do our best to prevent the unleashing WWIII even if that means temporary decimation
of the remnants of New Deal.
Neoliberalism after 2008 entered zombie state, so while it is still strong, aggressive and
bloodthirsty it might not last for long. And in such case the defeat of democratic forces on domestic
front is temporary.
"As president, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just
like any other attack," the Democratic presidential nominee said. "We will be ready with serious
political, economic and military responses. "
We need to tell everyone that for the sake of the word. do not vote for this
dangerous woman!
A vote for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, the Clinton campaign has suggested in broad ways
and subtle ones, isn't just a vote for a Democrat over a Republican: It's a vote for safety over
risk, steady competence over boastful recklessness, psychological stability in the White House
over ungovernable passions.
This theme has been a winning one for Hillary, in her debates and in the wider campaign, and
for good reason. The perils of a Trump presidency are as distinctive as the candidate himself,
and a vote for Trump makes a long list of worst cases - the Western alliance system's unraveling,
a cycle of domestic radicalization, an accidental economic meltdown, a civilian-military crisis
- more likely than with any normal administration.
Indeed, Trump and his supporters almost admit as much. "We've tried sane, now let's try crazy,"
is basically his campaign's working motto. The promise to be a bull in a china shop is part of
his demagogue's appeal. Some of his more eloquent supporters have analogized a vote for Trump
to storming the cockpit of a hijacked plane, with the likelihood of a plane crash entirely factored
in.
But passing on the plane-crash candidate doesn't mean ignoring the dangers of his rival.
The dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency are more familiar than Trump's authoritarian
unknowns, because we live with them in our politics already. They're the dangers of elite groupthink,
of Beltway power worship, of a cult of presidential action in the service of dubious ideals. They're
the dangers of a recklessness and radicalism that doesn't recognize itself as either, because
it's convinced that if an idea is mainstream and commonplace among the great and good then it
cannot possibly be folly.
Almost every crisis that has come upon the West in the last 15 years has its roots in this
establishmentarian type of folly. The Iraq War, which liberals prefer to remember as a conflict
conjured by a neoconservative cabal, was actually the work of a bipartisan interventionist consensus,
pushed hard by George W. Bush but embraced as well by a large slice of center-left opinion that
included Tony Blair and more than half of Senate Democrats.
Likewise the financial crisis: Whether you blame financial-services deregulation or happy-go-lucky
housing policy (or both), the policies that helped inflate and pop the bubble were embraced by
both wings of the political establishment. ...
(Crises happen. How are these two linked? The first came about because we were in the throes
of 9/11. The 2nd arguably because we were in the delayed throes of a dot.com bubble collapse.
And with a president who was out of his depth.)
likbez -> Fred C. Dobbs...
== quote ===
The dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency are more familiar than Trump's authoritarian unknowns,
because we live with them in our politics already. They're the dangers of elite groupthink, of
Beltway power worship, of a cult of presidential action in the service of dubious ideals. They're
the dangers of a recklessness and radicalism that doesn't recognize itself as either, because
it's convinced that if an idea is mainstream and commonplace among the great and good then it
cannot possibly be folly.
=== end of quote ===
That looks like indirect attack on neocons which is atypical for NYT.
IMHO the main danger of Hillary presidency is the danger of WWIII due to her own jingoism and
recklessness as well as outsize neocons influence in her administration (she is the person who
promoted Cheney's associate Victoria Nuland, who got us into Ukrainian mess).
As such outweighs all possible dangers of Trump presidency by a wide margin.
Voting for Hillary is like voting for John McCain in a pantsuit in order to prevent decimation
of the remnants of the New Deal inherent in Trump administration.
Trump at least gives us some chance of détente with Russia.
Also he faces hostile Congress and "deep state", while Hillary is a creature of "deep state",
a marionette, if you wish, which will continue the current disastrous interventionist foreign
policy.
Of course Trump can be co-opted by "deep state" too. That's also a danger.
There is a nice cartoon, probably from Times, that I found at
There was another part of the Post
article I cited in my
last post that I wanted to address:
"The dynamic is totally different from what I saw a decade ago" when Democratic and Republican
elites were feuding over the invasion of Iraq, said Brian Katulis, a senior Middle East analyst
at the Center for American Progress. Today, the focus among the foreign policy elite is on rebuilding
a more muscular and more "centrist internationalism," he said [bold mine-DL].
Every term used in that last sentence is either misleading or flat-out wrong. A more aggressive
policy in Syria or anywhere else
shouldn't be described as "muscular" for a few reasons. For one thing, committing the U.S. to
short-sighted and ill-conceived military interventions does nothing to enhance the strength or security
of the country. Such a policy doesn't build strength–it wastes it. Calling an aggressive policy "muscular"
betrays a bias that aggressive measures are the ones that demonstrate strength, when they usually
just demonstrate policymakers' crude and clumsy approach to foreign problems. One might just as easily
describe these policies as meat-headed instead.
"Centrist" is one of the most overused and abused words in our politics. The term is often used
to refer to positions that are supposedly moderate, pragmatic, and relatively free of ideological
bias, but here we can see that it refers to something very different. Many people that are considered
to be "centrists" on the normal left-right political spectrum are frequently in favor of a much more
aggressive foreign policy than the one we have now, but that doesn't make their foreign policy a
moderate or pragmatic one. In fact, this "centrism" is not really a position in between the two partisan
extremes, both of which would be satisfied with a less activist and interventionist foreign policy
than we have today, but represents an extreme all its own.
Besides, there's nothing moderate or pragmatic about being determined to entangle the U.S.
deeper in foreign wars, and that is what this so-called "centrist" foreign policy aims to do.
Likewise, it is fairly misleading to call what is being proposed here internationalist. It
shows no respect for international law. Hawkish proposals to attack Syria or carve out "safe zones"
by force simply ignore that the U.S. has no right or authority to do either of these things.
There appears to be scant interest in pursuing international cooperation, except insofar as it is
aimed at escalating existing conflicts. One would also look in vain for working through international
institutions. The only thing that is international about this "centrist internationalism" seems to
be that it seeks to inflict death and destruction on people in other countries.
I keep trying to imagine what special interest is so invested in the no-fly zone that they
can force Hillary to keep proposing it, even though it is obviously no longer feasible. Is it
just inertia? She is so used to pushing the idea that she brings it up without thinking, and then
has to dodge out of the way? But the whole situation has passed out of the realm of rational thought.
It reminds me of Vietnam.
The idea the South and North Vietnam were separate countries was never
true, but John Foster Dulles insisted on repeating the lie at every opportunity and after a while
the Village all started to believe it.
None of the stated goals in Syria make any sense any longer
(if the ever did), but we keep pursuing them. Scary.
Please note that Hillary's path to the top was marked by proved beyond reasonable doubt DNC fraud.
With information contained in recent email leaks some DNC honchos probably might go to jail for
violation of elections laws. So for them this is a death match and people usually fight well when
they are against the wall. The same in true about Obama and his entourage.
And while this Nobel Peace Price winner managed to bomb just eight countries, Hillary might
improve this peace effort, which was definitely insufficient from the point of view of many diplomats
in State Department. Also the number of humanitarian bombs could be much greater. Here Hillary
election can really help.
From the other point of view this might well be a sign of the crisis of legitimacy of the US
ruling neoliberal elite (aka financial oligarchy).
After approximately 50 years in power the level of degeneration of the US neoliberal elite
reached the level when the quality of candidates reminds me the quality of candidates from the
USSR Politburo after Brezhnev death. Health-wise Hillary really bear some resemblance to Andropov
and Chernenko. And inability of the elite to replace either of them with a more viable candidate
speaks volumes.
The other factor that will not go away is that Obama effectively pardoned Hillary for emailgate
(after gentle encouragement from Bill via Loretta Lynch). Otherwise instead of candidate to POTUS,
she would be a viable candidate for orange suit too. Sure, the rule of law is not applicable to
neoliberal elite, so why Hilary should be an exception? But some naive schmucks might think that
this is highly improper. And be way too much upset with the fruits of neoliberal globalization.
Not that Brexit is easily repeatable in the USA, but vote against neoliberal globalization (protest
vote) might play a role.
Another interesting thing to observe is when (and if) the impeachment process starts, if she
is elected. With some FBI materials in hands of the Congress Republicans she in on the hook. A
simple majority of those present and voting is required for each article of impeachment, or the
resolution as a whole, to pass.
All-in-all her win might well be a Pyrrhic victory. And the unknown neurological disease that
she has (Parkinson?) makes her even more vulnerable after the election, then before. The role
of POTUS involves a lot of stress and requires substantial physical stamina as POTUS is the center
of intersection of all important government conflicts, conversations and communications. That's
a killing environment for anyone with Parkinson. And remember she was not able to survive the
pressure of the role of the Secretary of State when she was in much better health and has an earlier
stage of the disease.
Another interesting question, if the leaks continue after the election. That also can contribute
to the level of stress. Just anticipation is highly stressful. I do not buy the theory about "evil
Russians." This hypothesis does not survive Occam razor test. I think that there some anti-Hillary
forces within the USA ruling elite, possibly within the NSA or some other three letter agency
that has access to email boxes of major Web mail providers via NSA.
If this is a plausible hypothesis, that makes it more probable that the leaks continue. To
say nothing about possible damaging revelations about Bill (especially related to Clinton Foundation),
who really enjoyed his retirement way too much.
Those who vote for Hillary for the sake of stability need to be reminded that according to
the Minsky Theory stability sometimes can be very destabilizing
When Krugman is appointed to a top government post by Hillary Clinton we will be able to FOIA
his pay and attach a value to all the columns "electioneering" Krugman has written.
likbez -> anne...
Anne,
"An intolerably destructive essay that should never have been posted, and I assume no
such essay will be posted again on this blog. Shameful, shameful essay."
You mean that voting for the female warmonger with some psychopathic tendencies ("We came,
we saw, he died") is not shameful ?
An interesting approach I would say.
I am not fun of Trump, but he, at least, does not have the blood of innocent women and children
on his hands. And less likely to start WWIII unlike this completely out of control warmonger.
With the number of victims of wars of neoliberal empire expansion in Iraq, Libya and Syria,
you should be ashamed of yourself as a women.
Please think about your current position Anne. You really should be ashamed.
"... which may be the story one wishes for. But if there were a spread to compare her win against, it was Bernie who massively beat the spread. I'll leave it as an exercise to others to determine if her unfair advantages were as large as the winning margin. ..."
"... He makes a good point and you dismiss it. You bashed Bernie Sanders and "Bernie Bros" during the primary. Then you lie about it. That's why you're the worst. Dishonest as hell. ..."
"... Remember one thing anne, America is not a country. It is an idea. You cannot arrest it, murder it, or pretend it isn't there. We as a people are not perfect. But Mr Putin is stabbing directly at our democracy, not Hillary Clinton and not Paul Krugman. Time to be a little more objective, of which you are even more capable of than me. ..."
"... It is not exactly McCarthyism as stated (although kthomas with his previous Putin comments looks like a modern day McCarthyist). I think this is a pretty clear formulation of the credo of American Exceptionalism -- a flavor of nationalism adapted to the realities of the new continent. ..."
"... And Robert Kagan explained it earlier much better ... I wonder if Victoria Nuland and Dick Cheney vote for Hillary too. ..."
"...Mrs. Clinton won the Democratic nomination fairly easily..."
which may be the story one wishes for. But if there were a spread to compare her win against,
it was Bernie who massively beat the spread. I'll leave it as an exercise to others to determine
if her unfair advantages were as large as the winning margin.
"Why do people like you pretend to love Sen Sanders so much!?"
Why do you say he is pretending? What did he write to make you think that?
Are you just a dishonest troll centrist totebagger like PGL.
Peter K. -> to pgl...
What does that have to do with anything?
He makes a good point and you dismiss it. You bashed Bernie Sanders and "Bernie Bros" during
the primary. Then you lie about it. That's why you're the worst. Dishonest as hell. Are most
New Yorkers as dishonest as you, Trump, Guiliani, Christie, etc?
No. I am a fan of Sen Sanders, and not even he would believe your nonsense. History will not remember
it that way. What it will remember is how Putin Comrade meddled. And there is a price for that.
Sen Sanders wanted one, stated thing: to push the narrative to the left. He marginally accomplished
this. What he did succeed in was providing an opportunity for false-lefties like you and Mr Putin
who seem to think that America is the root of all evil.
Remember one thing anne, America is not a country. It is an idea. You cannot arrest it,
murder it, or pretend it isn't there. We as a people are not perfect. But Mr Putin is stabbing
directly at our democracy, not Hillary Clinton and not Paul Krugman. Time to be a little more
objective, of which you are even more capable of than me.
Sen Sanders wanted one stated thing: to push the narrative to the left. He marginally accomplished
this. What he did succeed in was providing an opportunity for false-lefties like --- and -- -----
who seem to think that America is the root of all evil....
[ Better to assume such an awful comment was never written, but the McCarthy-like tone to a
particular campaign has been disturbing and could prove lasting. ]
It is not exactly McCarthyism as stated (although kthomas with his previous Putin comments
looks like a modern day McCarthyist). I think this is a pretty clear formulation of the credo
of American Exceptionalism -- a flavor of nationalism adapted to the realities of the new continent.
BS, a remarkable.
No, I am sure he will be remembered more than that.
Bernard Sanders, last romantic politician to run his campaign on an average of $37 from 3,284,421
donations (or whatever Obama said at The Dinner). Remarkable but ineffectual. A good orator in
empty houses means he was practicing, not performing.
Why does Obama succeed and Sanders fail? Axelrod and co.
Peter K. -> cal... , -1
He was written off by the like of Krugman, PGL, you, KThomas etc.
He won what 13 million votes. Young people overwhelmingly voted for Sanders. He won New Hampshire,
Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, etc. etc. etc. And now the "unromantic"
complacent people have to lie about the campaign.
"... The presidential candidate also tweeted the words of her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, who said, "It should [be] clear to everyone that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for war." ..."
"... Regrettably for Americans, Stein is right about the Democratic nominee. Those concerned about the future of America with someone as erratic as Donald Trump in the Oval Office are justified in their worry, but to believe Hillary is somehow a "better option" is not only a naive assumption - but a reckless one. A vote for Hillary is undoubtedly a conscious vote to go war with a nuclear-armed superpower. ..."
"... US empire is bigger than any President. No president can change it. ..."
Dr. Stein, who has
strongly advocated
for a more
peaceful approach
to U.S. relations in the Middle East - as well as throughout the world - recently took to her
Twitter account to boldly state what may come as a shock to many Americans:
"Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is much scarier than Donald Trump's."
The presidential candidate also tweeted the words of her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, who said,
"It should [be] clear to everyone that a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for war."
Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is much scarier than Donald Trump's, who does not want to
go to war with Russia.
#PeaceOffensive
Dr. Stein elaborated on her social media statements when asked by a reporter in Texas this week
what she felt a Hillary Clinton presidency would look like.
"Well, we know what kind of Secretary of State she was,"
Stein said in her response.
"[Hillary] is in incredible service to Wall Street and to the war profiteers. She led the way
in Libya and she's trying to start an air war with Russia over Syria, which means, if Hillary
gets elected, we're kinda going to war with Russia, folks…a nuclear-armed power."
While many Americans act as if one's disdain for Hillary Clinton and her policies automatically
make them a supporter of Donald Trump for president - or vice versa - Stein went on to vocalize her
fear of both major party candidates.
"Who will sleep well with Trump in the White House? But you shouldn't sleep well with Hillary
in the White House either. Fortunately, we live in a democracy and we have more than two deadly
choices," Stein said, referring to herself and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.
Regrettably for Americans, Stein is right about the Democratic nominee. Those concerned about
the future of America with someone as erratic as Donald Trump in the Oval Office are justified in
their worry, but to believe Hillary is somehow a "better option" is not only a naive assumption -
but a reckless one. A vote for Hillary is undoubtedly a conscious vote to go war with a nuclear-armed
superpower.
Still not a believer? Watch the video below and see for yourself:
There are so many holes on Dr. Stein observations that I don't even know where to start.
First: US empire is bigger than any President. No president can change it.
Second: Only the naive can think that a neocon (Hillary) can be more dangerous than a bully
(Trump).
Third: Dr. Stein, could you please tell us what will happen when the empire has not enough
energy, food, and resources to give to its people? Tell us your "un-reckless" solution, because
I can't wait to hear.
Ohh. I just remember. You can't, because it doesn't exist.
This well-articulated executive summary (10 minutes of your time) integrates the consequences
of the world's biggest financial bubble with the risk of military escalation with Russia in Syria,
the Balkans, or Ukraine. Hilllary's foreign policy goes head-to-head with Russia's foreign policy:
they are different with respect to use of nuclear weapons, particularly tactical nuclear weapons.
Show me ANY stories from her on ANY of the Million Dicks in a Bag "credible" media.....
<tapping foot>...............
................yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah
But Cankly-pooper has that jag off Air Force cucked dickwad on TeeVee ads every ten fucking
minutes saying Trump is unfit to have his finger on the button.
Just like the moron I talked to a couple of weeks ago, when he said he was voting for Catheter
because "Trump was going to take us to war".....(finding out he gets his "news" from social media,
Google News and the NYT)
MORONS...that's who Clinton has .....fucking morons....
Jill Stein - Green Party candidate, and Gary Johnson - Libtarian candidate .......
[In battleground states] BOTH need to come out and tell their voting supporters to NOT vote
for them but to vote Trump...and only vote for them if they can't vote Trump. Because there is
no point in a Greens platform if the planet is at war or in destruction, likewise their is no
chance of a Libertarian platform for a country in increased wars, or world at war.
The Libertarian and Greens platform assume a peaceful country and world - with Cliinton and
her backers the USA will ge the exact opposite.
This is why the Greens and Libitarians most not only endorse Trump but tell their voters they
must vote for Trump for there to be any hope for the USA's future.
In fact if I were Trump I would be making this pitch to them.
"... a simple fact (that escapes many participants of this forum, connected to TBTF) the that Hillary is an unrepentant neocon, a warmonger that might well bring another war, possibly even WWIII. ..."
"... One of the systemic dangers of psychopathic females in high political positions is that remaining as reckless as they are, they try to outdo men in hawkishness. ..."
"... Enthusiasm of people in this forum for Hillary is mainly enthusiasm for the ability of TBTF to rip people another four years. ..."
"... The level of passive social protest against neoliberal elite (aka "populism" in neoliberal media terms) scared the hell of Washington establishment. Look at neoliberal shills like Summers, who is now ready to abandon a large part of his Washington consensus dogma in order for neoliberalism to survive. ..."
"... And while open revolt in national security state has no chances, Trump with all his warts is a very dangerous development for "status quo" supporters, that might not go away after the elections. ..."
Trump is winning with people in their 50s and they have a higher chance of voting than millennials
do. That plus voter suppression may hand this to Trump yet. There was an LA Times poll this month
that showed a small Trump lead. An outlier, sure, but the same poll was right about Obama in 2012
when other polls were wrong. Just saying
likbez -> Adamski... , -1
> "Trump is winning with people in their 50s and they have a higher chance of voting than millennials
do."
Yes. Thank you for making this point.
Also people over 50 have more chances to understand and reject all the neoliberal bullshit
MSM are pouring on Americans.
As well as a simple fact (that escapes many participants of this forum, connected to TBTF)
the that Hillary is an unrepentant neocon, a warmonger that might well bring another war, possibly
even WWIII.
One of the systemic dangers of psychopathic females in high political positions is that
remaining as reckless as they are, they try to outdo men in hawkishness.
Enthusiasm of people in this forum for Hillary is mainly enthusiasm for the ability of
TBTF to rip people another four years.
Not that Trump is better, but on warmongering side he is the lesser evil, for sure.
The level of passive social protest against neoliberal elite (aka "populism" in neoliberal
media terms) scared the hell of Washington establishment. Look at neoliberal shills like Summers,
who is now ready to abandon a large part of his Washington consensus dogma in order for neoliberalism
to survive.
And while open revolt in national security state has no chances, Trump with all his warts
is a very dangerous development for "status quo" supporters, that might not go away after the
elections.
That's why they supposedly pump Hillary with drugs each debate :-).
Twice in recent days, cruise missiles fired from an American destroyer have rained down
on Yemen.
Whoaaa. There may still be doubts about this. After all, what do the Houthis gain, especially
right after the Saudis have outdone themselves in atrocities.
Officials Saturday night were uncertain about what exactly happened, if there were multiple
incoming missiles or if there was a malfunction with the radar detection system on the destroyer.
Even if the Yemenis did, I fail to see why this is considered shocking and unacceptable. I
get that decades of kowtowing to Israel has conditioned the United States to not understand that
a blockade is inherently an act of war, but quite aside from starving the people of Yemen we've
been directly supporting the Saudi bombing. We've been belligerents in this conflict from the
start.
"... Much of the content of these speeches to U.S. bankers dealt with foreign policy, and virtually all of that with warfare, potential warfare, and opportunities for military-led domination of various regions of the globe. This stuff is more interesting and less insultingly presented than the idiocies spewed out at the public presidential debates. But it also fits an image of U.S. policy that Clinton might have preferred to keep private. Just as nobody advertised that, as emails now show, Wall Street bankers helped pick President Obama's cabinet, we're generally discouraged from thinking that wars and foreign bases are intended as services to financial overlords. "I'm representing all of you," Clinton says to the bankers in reference to her efforts at a meeting in Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa has great potential for U.S. "businesses and entrepreneurs," she says in reference to U.S. militarism there. ..."
"... "We're going to ring China with missile 'defense,'" Clinton tells Goldman Sachs. "We're going to put more of our fleet in the area." ..."
"... In public debates, Clinton demands a "no fly zone" or "no bombing zone" or "safe zone" in Syria, from which to organize a war to overthrow the government. In a speech to Goldman Sachs, however, she blurts out that creating such a zone would require bombing a lot more populated areas than was required in Libya. ..."
"... Clinton also makes clear that Syrian "jihadists" are being funded by Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar. In October 2013, as the U.S. public had rejected bombing Syria, Blankfein asked if the public was now opposed to "interventions" - that clearly being understood as a hurdle to be overcome. Clinton said not to fear. "We're in a time in Syria," she said, "where they're not finished killing each other . . . and maybe you just have to wait and watch it." ..."
"... Regarding China again, Clinton claims to have told the Chinese that the United States could claim ownership of the entire Pacific as a result of having "liberated it." She goes on to claim to have told them that "We discovered Japan for heaven's sake." And: "We have proof of having bought [Hawaii]." Really? From whom? ..."
"... it's fascinating that even the bankers in whom Clinton confides her militarist mania ask her identical questions to those I get asked by peace activists at speaking events: "Is the U.S. political system completely broken?" "Should we scrap this and go with a parliamentary system?" ..."
In the speech transcripts from June 4, 2013, October 29, 2013, and October 19, 2015, Clinton was
apparently paid sufficiently to do something she denies most audiences. That is, she took questions
that it appears likely she was not secretly briefed on or engaged in negotiations over ahead of time.
In part this appears to be the case because some of the questions were lengthy speeches, and in part
because her answers were not all the sort of meaningless platitudes that she produces if given time
to prepare.
Much of the content of these speeches to U.S. bankers dealt with foreign policy, and
virtually all of that with warfare, potential warfare, and opportunities for military-led domination
of various regions of the globe. This stuff is more interesting and less insultingly presented than
the idiocies spewed out at the public presidential debates. But it also fits an image of U.S. policy
that Clinton might have preferred to keep private. Just as nobody advertised that, as emails now
show, Wall Street bankers helped pick President Obama's cabinet, we're generally discouraged from
thinking that wars and foreign bases are intended as services to financial overlords. "I'm representing
all of you," Clinton says to the bankers in reference to her efforts at a meeting in Asia. Sub-Saharan
Africa has great potential for U.S. "businesses and entrepreneurs," she says in reference to U.S.
militarism there.
Yet, in these speeches, Clinton projects exactly that approach, accurately or not, on other nations
and accuses China of just the sort of thing that her "far left" critics accuse her of all the time,
albeit outside the censorship of U.S. corporate media. China, Clinton says, may use hatred of Japan
as a means of distracting Chinese people from unpopular and harmful economic policies. China, Clinton
says, struggles to maintain civilian control over its military. Hmm. Where else have we seen these
problems?
"We're going to ring China with missile 'defense,'" Clinton tells Goldman Sachs. "We're going
to put more of our fleet in the area."
On Syria, Clinton says it's hard to figure out whom to arm - completely oblivious to any options
other than arming somebody. It's hard, she says, to predict at all what will happen. So, her advice,
which she blurts out to a room of bankers, is to wage war in Syria very "covertly."
In public debates, Clinton demands a "no fly zone" or "no bombing zone" or "safe zone" in Syria,
from which to organize a war to overthrow the government. In a speech to Goldman Sachs, however,
she blurts out that creating such a zone would require bombing a lot more populated areas than was
required in Libya. "You're going to kill a lot of Syrians," she admits. She even tries to distance
herself from the proposal by referring to "this intervention that people talk about so glibly" -
although she, before and at the time of that speech and ever since has been the leading such person.
Clinton also makes clear that Syrian "jihadists" are being funded by Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar.
In October 2013, as the U.S. public had rejected bombing Syria, Blankfein asked if the public was
now opposed to "interventions" - that clearly being understood as a hurdle to be overcome. Clinton
said not to fear. "We're in a time in Syria," she said, "where they're not finished killing each
other . . . and maybe you just have to wait and watch it."
That's the view of many ill-meaning and many well-meaning people who have been persuaded that
the only two choices in foreign policy are bombing people and doing nothing. That clearly is the
understanding of the former Secretary of State, whose positions were more hawkish than those of her
counterpart at the Pentagon. It's also reminiscent of Harry Truman's comment that if the Germans
were winning you should help the Russians and vice versa, so that more people would die. That's not
exactly what Clinton said here, but it's pretty close, and it's something she would not say in a
scripted joint-media-appearance masquerading as a debate. The possibility of disarmament, nonviolent
peacework, actual aid on a massive scale, and respectful diplomacy that leaves U.S. influence out
of the resulting states is just not on Clinton's radar no matter who is in her audience.
On Iran, Clinton repeatedly hypes false claims about nuclear weapons and terrorism, even while
admitting far more openly than we're used to that Iran's religious leader denounces and opposes nuclear
weapons. She also admits that Saudi Arabia is already pursuing nuclear weapons and that UAE and Egypt
are likely to do so, at least if Iran does. She also admits that the Saudi government is far from
stable.
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein asks Clinton at one point how a good war against Iran might
go - he suggesting that an occupation (yes, they use that forbidden word) might not be the best move.
Clinton replies that Iran can just be bombed. Blankfein, rather shockingly, appeals to reality -
something Clinton goes on at obnoxious length about elsewhere in these speeches. Has bombing a population
into submission ever worked, Blankfein asks. Clinton admits that it has not but suggests that it
just might work on Iranians because they are not democratic.
Regarding Egypt, Clinton makes clear her opposition to popular change.
Regarding China again, Clinton claims to have told the Chinese that the United States could claim
ownership of the entire Pacific as a result of having "liberated it." She goes on to claim to have
told them that "We discovered Japan for heaven's sake." And: "We have proof of having bought [Hawaii]."
Really? From whom?
This is ugly stuff, at least as damaging to human lives as the filth coming from Donald Trump.
Yet it's fascinating that even the bankers in whom Clinton confides her militarist mania ask her
identical questions to those I get asked by peace activists at speaking events: "Is the U.S. political
system completely broken?" "Should we scrap this and go with a parliamentary system?"
Et cetera.
In part their concern is the supposed gridlock created by differences between the two big parties,
whereas my biggest concern is the militarized destruction of people and the environment that never
seems to encounter even a slight traffic slowdown in Congress. But if you imagine that the people
Bernie Sanders always denounces as taking home all the profits are happy with the status quo, think
again. They benefit in certain ways, but they don't control their monster and it doesn't make them
feel fulfilled.
"... First, Clinton's neoliberalism is so bone deep that she refers to Medicare as a "single market" rather than "single payer"; ..."
"... Clinton frames solutions exclusively ..."
"... Policy Sciences ..."
"... Stalin spent his early days in a seminary. Masters of broken promises. I'm more interested in Clinton's Chinese connections. Probably tied through JP Morgan. The Chinese are very straightforward in their, dare I say, inscrutible way. The ministers are the ministers, and the palace is the palace. ..."
"... SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to be an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and that includes Wall Street and Main Street. ..."
"... Because she wont pay for quality speechwriters or coaching. Because she is a shyster, cheapskate and a fraud. They hired the most inept IT company to 'mange' their office server who then (in a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) hired an inept IT client manager who then (in a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) asked Reddit for a solution. ..."
"... One can say a lot of justifiable bad things about Ronald Reagan, but, he had competent advisors and he used them! With Hillary, Even if she knows she has accessed the best advice on the planet her instinct it to not trust it because "she knows better" and she absolutely will not tolerate dissent. Left to her own devices, she simply copies other people's thinking/ homework instead of building her own ideas with it. ..."
"... What surprises me is that Goldmans paid her for these speeches, you know? Hillary C typically pays "the audience" to listen to, and come to her speeches. You know? You know! ..."
"... I heard Hillary speak in summer '92, when Bill was running for Prez. She. was. amazing. No joke. Great speech, great ideas, great points. I thought then she should be the candidate. But there was in her speech just a tiny undercurrent of "the ends justify the means." i.e. 'we need to get lots of money so we can do good things.' Fast forward 20+ years. Seems to me that for the Clintons the "means" (getting lots of money) has become the end in itself. Reassuring Wall St. is one method for getting money – large, large amounts of money. ..."
"... A fine illustration of the maxim that "crime makes you stupid." ..."
"... in that context ..."
"... So I guess the moral of the story is (a) more deterioration, this time from 2008 to 2016, and (b) Clinton can actually make a good decision, but only when forced to by a catastrophe that will impact her personally. Whether she'll be able to rise to the occasion if elected is an open question, but this post argues not. ..."
"... Bingo! Think about it: She was speaking to a group of people whose time is "valued" at 100's if not 1,000's of dollars per hour. She took up their "valuable" time but provided nothing except politics-as-usual blather tailored to that particular audience. Yet she was paid $225k for a single speech… ..."
"... Hillary is a remarkably inarticulate person, which calls into question her intellectual fitness for the job (amidst many other questions, of course). I entirely agree with your depiction of her speeches as mindless drivel. ..."
"... Not to otherwise compare them, but Bush I's inarticulateness made him seem a buffoon, and that was not the case, either. ..."
"... Matt Tiabbi, Elizabeth Warren, Benie Sanders, Noam Chompsky–all those used to seem like bastions of integrity have, thanks to Hillary, been revealed as slimy little Weasels who should henceforth be completely disregarded. I'd have to thank Hillary for pulling back the nlindets on that; if not for this election I might have been still foolishly listening to these people. ..."
"... What scares me most about Clinton is her belligerence towards Russia and clamoring for a no-fly zone in Syria. The no-fly zone will mean war with Russia. If only Clinton were saying this, we might be safe, but the entire Washington deep state seems to be of one mind in favor of a war. During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear war must not be allowed. This is no longer true and it is terrifying. Every war game the pentagon used to simulate a war with the U.S.S.R. escalated into an all out nuclear war. What is the "plan B" Obama is pursuing in Syria? ..."
"... The current fear/fever over nuclear war with Russia requires madness in the Kremlin - of which there is no evidence. Our Rulers are depending on Putin and his cohorts being the sane ones as rhetoric from the US and the West ratchets ever upwards. ..."
"... But then, the Kremlin is looking for any hint of sanity on US and NATO side and is finding little… ..."
"... Curtis LeMay tried to provoke a nuclear war with the Soviets in the 1950's. By and large, however, the American state understood a nuclear war was unwinnable and avoided such a possibility. A no-fly zone in Syria would start a war with Russia. William Polk, who participated in the Cuban missle crisis and U.S. nuclear war games, argues in this article ..."
"... both of which present a clinical assessment that Hillary suffers from Parkinson's. Seems like an elephant in the room. ..."
"... The absolute vacuousness of Clinton's remarks, coupled with her ease at neoliberal conventional wisdom, make it clear that Goldman's payments were nothing more (or less) than a $675,000 anticipatory "so no quid pro quo ..."
"... The leaked emails confirm - even though she herself never writes them, which is really odd, when you consider that Podesta is her Campaign Chair and close ally going back decades - that she is compulsively secretive, controlling, and resistant to admitting she's wrong. The chain of people talking about how to get her to admit she was wrong about Nancy Reagan and AIDS was particularly fascinating that way; she was flat out factually inaccurate, and it had the potential to do tremendous harm to her campaign with a key donor group, and it was apparently still a major task to persuade her to say "I made a mistake." ..."
"... basically, every real world policy problem is related to every other real world policy problem ..."
"... Most noticeable thing is her subservience to them like a fresh college grad afraid of his boss at his first job ..."
As readers know, WikiLeaks has
released transcripts
of the three speeches to Goldman Sachs that Clinton gave in 2013, and for which she was paid
the eyewatering sum of $675,000. (The link is to an email dated January 23, 2016, from Cllinton staffer
Tony Carrk , Clinton's research director, which pulls out
"noteworthy quotes" from the speeches. The speeches themselves are attachments to that email.)
Readers, I read them. All three of them. What surprises - and when I tell you I had to take a
little nap about halfway through, I'm not making it up! - is the utter mediocrity of Clinton's thought
and mode of expression[1]. Perhaps that explains Clinton's
otherwise inexplicable refusal to release them. And perhaps my sang froid is preternatural,
but I don't see a "smoking gun," unless forking over $675,000 for interminable volumes of shopworn
conventional wisdom be, in itself, such a gun. What can Goldman Sachs possibly have thought they
were paying for?
WikiLeaks has, however, done voters a favor - in these speeches, and in the DNC and Podesta email
releases generally - by giving us a foretaste of what a Clinton administration will be like, once
in power, not merely on policy (the "first 100 days"), but on how they will make decisions. I call
the speeches a "munitions dump," because the views she expresses in these speeches are bombs that
can be expected to explode as the Clinton administration progresses.
With that, let's contextualize and comment upon some quotes from the speeches
The Democrats Are the Party of Wall Street
Of course, you knew that, but it's nice to have the matter confirmed. This material was flagged
by Carrk (as none of the following material will have been). It's enormously prolix, but I decided
to cut only a few paragraphs. From
Clinton's second
Goldman speech at the AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium:
MR. O'NEILL: Let's come back to the US. Since 2008, there's been an awful lot of seismic activity
around Wall Street and the big banks and regulators and politicians.
Now, without going over how we got to where we are right now , what would be your
advice to the Wall Street community and the big banks as to the way forward with those two important
decisions?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I represented all of you for eight years. I had great relations and
worked so close together after 9/11 to rebuild downtown, and a lot of respect for the work you
do and the people who do it, but I do - I think that when we talk about the regulators and the
politicians, the economic consequences of bad decisions back in '08, you know, were devastating,
and they had repercussions throughout the world.
That was one of the reasons that I started traveling in February of '09, so people could, you
know, literally yell at me for the United States and our banking system causing this everywhere.
Now, that's an oversimplification we know, but it was the conventional wisdom [really?!].
And I think that there's a lot that could have been avoided in terms of both misunderstanding
and really politicizing [!] what happened with greater transparency, with greater openness on
all sides, you know, what happened, how did it happen, how do we prevent it from happening?
You guys help us figure it out and let's make sure that we do it right this time .
And I think that everybody was desperately trying to fend off the worst effects institutionally,
governmentally, and there just wasn't that opportunity to try to sort this out, and that
came later .
I mean, it's still happening, as you know. People are looking back and trying to, you know,
get compensation for bad mortgages and all the rest of it in some of the agreements that are being
reached.
There's nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad. How do you get
to the golden key, how do we figure out what works? And the people that know the industry
better than anybody are the people who work in the industry .
…
And we need banking. I mean, right now, there are so many places in our country where
the banks are not doing what they need to do because they're scared of regulations , they're
scared of the other shoe dropping, they're just plain scared, so credit is not flowing the way
it needs to to restart economic growth.
So people are, you know, a little - they're still uncertain, and they're uncertain both because
they don't know what might come next in terms of regulations, but they're also uncertain because
of changes in a global economy that we're only beginning to take hold of.
So first and foremost, more transparency, more openness, you know, trying to figure out,
we're all in this together , how we keep this incredible economic engine in this country
going. And this [finance] is, you know, the nerves, the
spinal column.
And with political people, again, I would say the same thing, you know, there was a lot
of complaining about Dodd-Frank, but there was also a need to do something because for political
reasons , if you were an elected member of Congress and people in your constituency were
losing jobs and shutting businesses and everybody in the press is saying it's all the fault of
Wall Street, you can't sit idly by and do nothing, but what you do is really important.
And I think the jury is still out on that because it was very difficult to sort of sort through
it all.
And, of course, I don't, you know, I know that banks and others were worried about continued
liability [oh, really?] and other problems down the road, so it would be better if we could
have had a more open exchange about what we needed to do to fix what had broken and then try to
make sure it didn't happen again, but we will keep working on it.
MR. O'NEILL: By the way, we really did appreciate when you were the senator from New York and
your continued involvement in the issues (inaudible) to be courageous in some respects to associated
with Wall Street and this environment. Thank you very much.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to be
an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and that
includes Wall Street and Main Street.
And there's a big disconnect and a lot of confusion right now. So I'm not interested in,
you know, turning the clock back or pointing fingers , but I am interested in trying to
figure out how we come together to chart a better way forward and one that will restore confidence
in, you know, small and medium-size businesses and consumers and begin to chip away at the unemployment
rate [five years into the recession!].
So it's something that I, you know, if you're a realist, you know that people have different
roles to play in politics, economics, and this is an important role, but I do think that there
has to be an understanding of how what happens here on Wall Street has such broad consequences
not just for the domestic but the global economy, so more thought has to be given to the process
and transactions and regulations so that we don't kill or maim what works, but we concentrate
on the most effective way of moving forward with the brainpower and the financial power
that exists here.
"Moving forward." And not looking back. (It would be nice to know what "continued liability"
the banks were worried about;
accounting
control fraud ? Maybe somebody could ask Clinton.) Again, I call your attention to the weird
combination of certainty and mediocrity of it; readers, I am sure, can demolish the detail. What
this extended quotation does show is that Clinton and Obama are as one with respect to the
role of the finance sector. Politico describes Obama's famous meeting with the bankster CEOs:
Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs
of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying
high salaries to their employees - and, by extension, to themselves.
"These are complicated companies," one CEO said. Offered another: "We're competing for talent
on an international market.".
But President Barack Obama wasn't in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and
offered a blunt reminder of the public's reaction to such explanations. "Be careful how you make
those statements, gentlemen. The public isn't buying that.".
"My administration," the president added, "is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."
And he did! He did! Clinton, however, by calling the finance sector the "the nerves, the spinal
column" of the country, goes farther than Obama ever did.
So, from the governance perspective, we can expect the FIRE sector to dominate a Clinton administration,
and the Clinton administration to service it. The Democrats are the Party of Wall Street. The bomb
that could explode there is corrupt dealings with cronies (for which the Wikileaks material provides
plenty of leads).
Clinton Advocates a "Night Watchman" State
The next quotes are shorter, I swear! Here's a quote from
Clinton's third
Goldman speech (not flagged by Carrk, no doubt because hearing drivel like this is perfectly
normal in HillaryLand):
SECRETARY CLINTON: And I tell you, I see any society like a three-legged stool. You have to
have an active free market that gives people the chance to live out their dreams by their own
hard work and skills. You have to have a functioning, effective government that provides
the right balance of oversight and protection of freedom and privacy and liberty and all the rest
of it that goes with it . And you have to have an active civil society. Because there's
so much about America that is volunteerism and religious faith and family and community activities.
So you take one of those legs away, it's pretty hard to balance it. So you've got to get back
to getting the right balance.
Apparently, the provision
of public services is not within government's remit -- What are Social Security and Medicare?
"All the rest of it"? Not only that, who said the free market was the only way to "live
out their dreams"? Madison, Franklin, even Hamilton would have something to say about that! Finally,
which one of those legs is out of balance? Civil society? Some would advocate less religion in politics
rather than more, including many Democrats. The markets? Not at Goldman? Government? Too much militarization,
way too little concrete material benefits, so far as I'm concerned, but Clinton doesn't say, making
the "stool" metaphor vacuous.
From a governance perspective, we can expect Clinton's blind spot on government's role in provisioning
servies to continue. Watch for continued privatization efforts (perhaps aided by Silicon Valley).
On any infrastructure projects, watch for "public-private partnerships." The bomb that could explode
there is corrupt dealings with a different set of cronies (even if the FIRE sector does
have a finger in every pie).
Clinton's Views on Health Care Reflect Market Fundamentalism
MR. O'NEILL: [O]bviously the Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the supreme court. It's
clearly having limitation problems [I don't know what that means]. It's unsettling, people still
- the Republicans want to repeal it or defund it. So how do you get to the middle on that clash
of absolutes?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, this is not the first time that we rolled out a big program with the
limitation problems [Clinton apparently does].
I was in the Senate when President Bush asked and signed legislation expanding Medicare benefits,
the Medicare Part D drug benefits. And people forget now that it was a very difficult implementation.
As a senator, my staff spent weeks working with people who were trying to sign up, because
it was in some sense even harder to manage because the population over 65, not the most computer-literate
group, and it was difficult. But, you know, people stuck with it, worked through it.
Now, this is on - it's on a different scale and it is more complex because it's trying to create
a market. In Medicare, you have a single market , you have, you know, the government
is increasing funding through government programs [sic] to provide people over 65 the drugs they
needed.
And there were a few variations that you could play out on it, but it was a much simpler market
than what the Affordable Care Act is aiming to set up.
Now, the way I look at this, Tim, is it's either going to work or it's not going to work.
First, Clinton's neoliberalism is so bone deep that she refers to Medicare as a "single market"
rather than "single payer"; but then
Clinton erases single payer whenever possible . Second, Clinton frames solutions exclusively
in terms of markets (and not the direct provision of services by government);
Obama does the same on health care in JAMA , simply erasing the possibility of single payer.
Third, rather than advocate a simple, rugged, and proven system like Canadian Medicare (single payer),
Clinton prefers to run an experiment ("it's either going to work or it's not going to work")
on the health of millions of people (and, I would urge, without their informed consent).
From a governance perspective, assume that if the Democrats propose
a "public option," it will be miserably inadequate. The bomb that could explode here is the ObamaCare
death spiral.
The Problems Are "Wicked," but Clinton Will Be Unable to Cope With Them
MR. BLANKFEIN: The next area which I think is actually literally closer to home but where American
lives have been at risk is the Middle East, I think is one topic. What seems to be the ambivalence
or the lack of a clear set of goals - maybe that ambivalence comes from not knowing what outcome
we want or who is our friend or what a better world is for the United States and of Syria, and
then ultimately on the Iranian side if you think of the Korean bomb as far away and just the Tehran
death spot, the Iranians are more calculated in a hotter area with - where does that go? And I
tell you, I couldn't - I couldn't myself tell - you know how we would like things to work out,
but it's not discernable to me what the policy of the United States is towards an outcome either
in Syria or where we get to in Iran.
MS. CLINTON: Well, part of it is it's a wicked problem , and it's a wicked
problem that is very hard to unpack in part because as you just said, Lloyd, it's not clear
what the outcome is going to be and how we could influence either that outcome or a different
outcome.
(I say "cope with" rather than "solve" for reasons that will become apparent.) Yes, Syria's bad,
as vividly shown by Blankfein's fumbling question, but I want to focus on the term "wicked problem,"
which comes from the the field of strategic planning, though it's also infiltrated
information technology
and management
theory . The concept originated in a famous paper by Horst W. J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber
entitled: "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning" (PDF), Policy Sciences 4 (1973), 155-169.
I couldn't summarize the literature even if I had the time, but here is Rittel and Webber's introduction:
There are at least ten distinguishing properties of planning-type problems, i.e. wicked ones,
that planners had better be alert to and which we shall comment upon in turn. As you will see,
we are calling them "wicked" not because these properties are themselves ethically deplorable.
We use the term "wicked" in a meaning akin to that of "malignant" (in contrast to "benign") or
"vicious" (like a circle) or "tricky" (like a leprechaun) or "aggressive" (like a lion, in contrast
to the docility of a lamb). We do not mean to personify these properties of social systems by
implying malicious intent. But then, you may agree that it becomes morally objectionable for the
planner to treat a wicked problem as though it were a tame one, or to tame a wicked problem prematurely,
or to refuse to recognize the inherent wickedness of social problems.
And here is a list of Rittel and Webber's ten properties of a "wicked problem" (
and a critique ):
There is no definite formulation of a wicked problem Wicked problems have no stopping rule Solutions
to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad. There is no immediate and no ultimate
test of a solution to a wicked problem. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation";
because there is no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.
Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions,
nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the
plan. Every wicked problem is essentially unique. Every wicked problem can be considered to be
a symptom of another [wicked] problem. The causes of a wicked problem can be explained in numerous
ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution. [With wicked
problems,] the planner has no right to be wrong.
Of course, there's plenty of controversy about all of this, but if you throw these properties
against the Syrian clusterf*ck, I think you'll see a good fit, and can probably come up with other
examples. My particular concern, however, is with property #3:
Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad
There are conventionalized criteria for objectively deciding whether the offered solution to
an equation or whether the proposed structural formula of a chemical compound is correct or false.
They can be independently checked by other qualified persons who are familiar with the established
criteria; and the answer will be normally unambiguous.
For wicked planning problems, there are no true or false answers. Normally, many parties are
equally equipped, interested, and/or entitled to judge the solutions, although none has the power
to set formal decision rules to determine correctness. Their judgments are likely to differ widely
to accord with their group or personal interests, their special value-sets, and their ideological
predilections. Their assessments of proposed solutions are expressed as "good" or "bad" or, more
likely, as "better or worse" or "satisfying" or "good enough."
(Today, we would call these "many parties" "stakeholders.") My concern is that a Clinton administration,
far from compromising - to be fair, Clinton does genuflect toward "compromise" elsewhere - will try
to make wicked planning problems more tractable by reducing the number of parties to policy decisions.
That is, exactly, what "irredeemables" implies[2], which is unfortunate, especially when the cast
out amount to well over a third of the population. The same tendencies were also visible in the Clinton
campaigns approach to Sanders and Sanders supporters, and the general strategy of bringing the Blame
Cannons to bear on those who demonstrate insufficient fealty.
From a governance perspective, watch for many more executive orders acceptable to neither right
nor left, and plenty of decisions taken in secret. The bomb that could explode here is the
legitimacy of a Clinton administration, depending on the parties removed from the policy discussion,
and the nature of the decision taken.
Conclusion
I don't think volatility will decrease on November 8, should Clinton be elected and take office;
if anything, it will increase. A ruling party in thrall to finance, intent on treating government
functions as opportunities for looting by cronies, blinded by neoliberal ideology and hence incapable
of providing truly universal health care, and whose approach to problems of conflict in values is
to demonize and exclude the opposition is a recipe for continued crisis.
NOTES
[1]
Matt Taibbi takes the view that "Speaking to bankers and masters of the corporate universe, she
came off as relaxed, self-doubting, reflective, honest, philosophical rather than political, and
unafraid to admit she lacked all the answers." I don't buy it. It all read like the same old Clinton
to me, and I've read a lot of Clinton (see, e.g.,
here ,
here ,
here ,
here ,
here , and
here ).
[2] One is irresistibly reminded of Stalin's "No man, no problem," although some consider Stalin's
methods to be unsound. oho
October 17, 2016 at 1:14 pm
I had never read this article before. Near perfect diagnosis and even more relevant today than
it was then. For everyone's benefit, the central thesis:
Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason-the
powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market
governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit-and, most of the time,
genteel-oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are
the controlling shareholders.
…
Of course, the U.S. is unique. And just as we have the world's most advanced economy, military,
and technology, we also have its most advanced oligarchy.
In a primitive political system, power is transmitted through violence, or the threat of
violence: military coups, private militias, and so on. In a less primitive system more typical
of emerging markets, power is transmitted via money: bribes, kickbacks, and offshore bank accounts.
Although lobbying and campaign contributions certainly play major roles in the American political
system, old-fashioned corruption-envelopes stuffed with $100 bills-is probably a sideshow today,
Jack Abramoff notwithstanding.
Instead, the American financial industry gained political power by amassing a kind of
cultural capital-a belief system. Once, perhaps, what was good for General Motors was good
for the country. Over the past decade, the attitude took hold that what was good for Wall Street
was good for the country. The banking-and-securities industry has become one of the top contributors
to political campaigns, but at the peak of its influence, it did not have to buy favors the
way, for example, the tobacco companies or military contractors might have to. Instead, it
benefited from the fact that Washington insiders already believed that large financial institutions
and free-flowing capital markets were crucial to America's position in the world.
A hypothesis (at least for "Main Street") proven true between 2009 and 2016:
Emerging-market countries have only a precarious hold on wealth, and are weaklings globally.
When they get into trouble, they quite literally run out of money -- or at least out of foreign
currency, without which they cannot survive. They must make difficult decisions; ultimately,
aggressive action is baked into the cake. But the U.S., of course, is the world's most powerful
nation, rich beyond measure, and blessed with the exorbitant privilege of paying its foreign
debts in its own currency, which it can print. As a result, it could very well stumble along
for years-as Japan did during its lost decade-never summoning the courage to do what it needs
to do, and never really recovering.
Lastly, the "bleak" scenario from 2009 that today looks about a decade too early, but could
with minor tuning (Southern instead of Eastern Europe, for example) end up hitting in a big way:
It goes like this: the global economy continues to deteriorate, the banking system in east-central
Europe collapses, and-because eastern Europe's banks are mostly owned by western European banks-justifiable
fears of government insolvency spread throughout the Continent. Creditors take further hits
and confidence falls further. The Asian economies that export manufactured goods are devastated,
and the commodity producers in Latin America and Africa are not much better off. A dramatic
worsening of the global environment forces the U.S. economy, already staggering, down onto
both knees. The baseline growth rates used in the administration's current budget are increasingly
seen as unrealistic, and the rosy "stress scenario" that the U.S. Treasury is currently using
to evaluate banks' balance sheets becomes a source of great embarrassment.
…
The conventional wisdom among the elite is still that the current slump "cannot be as
bad as the Great Depression." This view is wrong. What we face now could, in fact, be worse
than the Great Depression-because the world is now so much more interconnected and because
the banking sector is now so big. We face a synchronized downturn in almost all countries,
a weakening of confidence among individuals and firms, and major problems for government finances.
If our leadership wakes up to the potential consequences, we may yet see dramatic action on
the banking system and a breaking of the old elite. Let us hope it is not then too late.
That's a good reminder to us at NC that not all our readers have been with us since 2009 and
may not be familiar with the great financial crash and subsequent events. I remember reading the
Johnson article when it came out. And now, almost eight years later…
There's a reason that there's a "Banana Republic" category. Every time I read an article about
the political economy of a second- or third-world country I look for how it applies to this country,
and much of the time, it does, particularly on corruption.
We truly must consider the possibility Goldman wrote the 3 speeches, then paid Hillary to give
them.
Next, leak them to Wiki. Everything in them is pretty close to pure fiction – but it is neolib
banker fiction. Just makes it all seem more real when they do things this way.
Yike's, I'm turning into a crazy conspiracy theorist.
Don't fall for the 'status quo's' language Jedi mind trick crazyboy. I like to call myself
a "sane conspiracy theorist." You can too!
As for H Clinton's 'slavish' adherence to the Bankster Ethos; in psychology, there is the "Stockholm
Syndrome." Here, H Clinton displays the markers of "Wall Street Syndrome."
Ugh. Mindless drivel. Talking points provided by Wall St itself would sound identical.
Then there's this: She did NOT represent Wall St and the Banks while a Senator. They cannot
vote. They are not people. They are not citizens. She represented the PEOPLE. The PEOPLE that
can VOTE. You cannot represent a nonexistent entity like a corporation as an ELECTED official.
You can ONLY represent those who actually can, or do, vote. End of story.
I saw a video in high school years back that mentioned a specific congressional ruling that
gave Congress the equivalent to individual rights. I swear it was also in the 30s but I cannot
recall and have never been able to find what it was I saw. Do you have any insight here?
Historical Background and Legal Basis of the Federal Register / CFR Publications System
Why was the Federal Register System Established ?
New Deal legislation of the 1930's delegated responsibility from Congress to agencies to
regulate complex social and economic issues
Citizens needed access to new regulations to know their effect in advance
Agencies and Citizens needed a centralized filing and publication system to keep track of rules
Courts began to rule on "secret law" as a violation of right to due process under the Constitution
But don't forget. She is the most qualified candidate… EVER . Remind me again
how this species was able to bring three stranded Apollo 13 astronauts back from the abyss, the
vacuum of space with some tape and tubing.
This is like watching a cheap used car lot advertisement where the owner delivers obviously
false platitudes as the store and cars collapse, break, and burst into flames behind them.
Stalin spent his early days in a seminary. Masters of broken promises. I'm more interested
in Clinton's Chinese connections. Probably tied through JP Morgan. The Chinese are very straightforward
in their, dare I say, inscrutible way. The ministers are the ministers, and the palace is
the palace.
The show is disappointing, the debaters play at talking nuclear policy, but have *nothing*
to say about Saudi Arabia's new arsenal.
When politicos talk nuclear, they only mean to allege a threat to Israel, blame Russia, or
fear-monger the North Koreans.
We're in the loop, but only the quietest whispers of the conflict in Pakistan are available.
It sounds pretty serious, but there is only interest in attacking inconvenient Arabs.
On Trump, what an interesting study in communications. The no man you speak of. Even himself
caught between his own insincerity towards higher purpose and his own ego as 'the establishment'
turns on him.
The proles of his support are truely a silent majority. The Republicans promised us Reagan
for twenty years, and it's finally the quasi-Democrat Trump who delivers.
> This is like watching a cheap used car lot advertisement where the owner delivers obviously
false platitudes as the store and cars collapse, break, and burst into flames behind them.
+100
With a wall of American flags waving in the background as the smoke and flames rise.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to
be an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and
that includes Wall Street and Main Street.
this all reads like a cokehead's flow of consciousness on some ethereal topic with no intellectual
content on the matter to express. I would have said extemporaneous, but you know it was all scripted,
so that's even worse.
PHOTOJOURNALIST
"Do you know what the man is saying? Do you? This is dialectics.
It's very simple dialectics. One through nine, no maybes, no
supposes, no fractions - you can't travel in space, you can't go out
into space, you know, without, like, you know, with fractions - what
are you going to land on, one quarter, three-eighths - what are you
going to do when you go from here to Venus or something - that's
dialectic physics, OK? Dialectic logic is there's only love and hate, you
either love somebody or you hate them."
"Da5id's voice is deep and placid, with no trace of stress. The syllables roll off his tongue
like drool. As Hiro walks down the hallway he can hear Da5id talking all the way. 'i ge en i ge
en nu ge en nu ge en us sa tu ra lu ra ze em men….'" –Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Completely agree. When I first read excerpts from her speeches, I was appalled at the constant
use of "you know" peppering most of her sentences. To me, people who constantly bifurcate sentences
with "you know" are simply blathering. They usually don't have any in-depth knowledge of the subject
matter on which they are opining. Compare Hillary being asked to comment on a subject with someone
such as Michael Hudson or Bill Black commenting on a subject and she simply sounds illiterate.
I have this feeling that her educational record is based on an ability to memorize and parrot
back answers rather than someone who can reach a conclusion by examining multiple concepts.
Here's what I don't understand: The lady (and her husband) have LOADS of money. Yet this is
the best that she can do?
Really?
Heck, if I had half the Clintons' money, I'd be hiring the BEST speechwriters, acting coaches,
and fashion consultants on the planet. And I'd be taking their advice and RUNNING with it. Sheesh.
Some people have more money than sense.
Because she wont pay for quality speechwriters or coaching. Because she is a shyster, cheapskate
and a fraud. They hired the most inept IT company to 'mange' their office server who then (in
a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) hired an inept IT client manager who then (in a further
fit of cheapskate stupidity) asked Reddit for a solution.
Its in the culture: Podesta does it, Blumenthal does it
And now they blame the Russians!!!! Imagine the lunacy within the white house if this fool
is elected.
I think she is just not that smart. Maybe intelligent but not flexible enough to do much with
it.
Smart people seek the advice of even smarter people and knowing that experts disagree, they
make sure that there is dissent on the advisory team. Then they make up their mind.
One can say a lot of justifiable bad things about Ronald Reagan, but, he had competent
advisors and he used them! With Hillary, Even if she knows she has accessed the best advice on
the planet her instinct it to not trust it because "she knows better" and she absolutely will
not tolerate dissent. Left to her own devices, she simply copies other people's thinking/ homework
instead of building her own ideas with it.
I don't think so. The "you know" has a name, it's called a "verbal tick" and is one of the
first things that is attacked when one learns how to speak publicly. Verbal ticks come in many
forms, the "ums" for example, or repeating the last few words you just said, over and over again.
The brain is complex. The various parts of the brain needed for speech; cognition, vocabulary,
and vocalizations, actually have difficulty synchronizing. The vocalization part tends to be faster
than the rest of the brain and can spit out words faster than the person can put them together.
As a result, the "buffer" if you will runs empty, and the speech part of the brains simply fills
in the gaps with random gibberish.
You can train yourself out of this habit of course – but it's something that takes practice.
So I take HRC's "you know" as evidence that these are unscripted speeches and is directly improvising.
How come her responses during the debates are not peppered with these verbal ticks. At least,
I don't recall her saying you know so many times. Isn't she improvising then?
As Lambert said, HRC doesn't do unscripted. The email leaks even sends us evidence that her
interviews were scripted and town hall events were carful staged. Even sidestepping that however,
dealing with verbal ticks is not all that difficult with a bit of practice and self-awareness.
"You know" is an insidious variation on "like" and "andum", the latter two being bias neutral
forms of mental vapor lock of tbe speech center pausing for higher level intellectual processes
to refill the speech centers tapped out RAM.
The "you know" variant is an end run on the listener's cognitive functions logic filters. Is
essence appropriating a claim to the listener.
I detest "you knows" immediately with "no i dont know, please explain."
The same with "they say" i will always ask "who are they?"
I think this is important to fo do to ppl for no ofher reason thanto nake them think critically
even if it is a fleeting annoyance.
Back on HRC, i have maintai we that many people overrate her intellectual grasp. Personally
I think she is a hea ily cosched parrot. "The US has achieved energy independence"…. TILT. Just
because you state things smugly doesnt mean its reality.
I think what I call the lacunae words are really revealing in people's speech. When she says
"you know" she is emphasizing that she and the listener both know what she is "talking around."
Shared context as a form of almost - encryption, you could say. "This" rather than '"finance"
Here rather than at Goldman.I don't know what you'd call it exactly- free floating referent? A
habit, methinks, of avoiding being quoted or pinned down. It reminds me of the leaked emails…everyone
is very careful to talk around things and they can because they all know what they are talking
about. Hillary is consistently referred to, in an eerie H. Rider Haggard way, as "her" - like
some She Who Must Not Be Named.
What surprises me is that Goldmans paid her for these speeches, you know?
Hillary C typically pays "the audience" to listen to, and come to her speeches. You know? You
know!
This election cycle just proves how bad things have become. The two top presidential candidates
are an egotistical ignoramus and the quintessential establishment politician and they are neck
and neck because the voting public is Planet Stupid. Things will just continue to fall apart in
slow motion until some spark (like another financial implosion) sets off the next revolution.
"Now, without going over how we got to where we are right now, what would be your advice
to the Wall Street community and the big banks as to the way forward with those two important
decisions?
"SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I represented all of you [Wall St] for eight years."
I heard Hillary speak in summer '92, when Bill was running for Prez. She. was. amazing.
No joke. Great speech, great ideas, great points. I thought then she should be the candidate.
But there was in her speech just a tiny undercurrent of "the ends justify the means." i.e. 'we
need to get lots of money so we can do good things.' Fast forward 20+ years. Seems to me that
for the Clintons the "means" (getting lots of money) has become the end in itself. Reassuring
Wall St. is one method for getting money – large, large amounts of money.
I heard similar impressions of her at the time, from women who had dealt with her: Book smart.
Street smart. Likeable. But what might have been the best compromise you could get in one decade,
may have needed re-thinking as you moved along in time. The cast of players changes. Those who
once ruled are now gone. Oh, but the money! And so old ideas can calcify. I'm not suggesting that
Trump is even in the ballpark in terms of making compromises, speeches, life changes or anything
else to have ever been proud of. Still, the capacity to grow and change is important in a leader.
So where are we going now?
A fine illustration of the maxim that "crime makes you stupid."
I've said this once, but I'll say it again: After the 2008 caucus debacle, Clinton fired the
staff and rejiggered the campaign. They went to lots of small venues, like high school
gyms - in other words, "deplorables" territory - and Clinton did her detail, "I have a plan" thing,
which worked really well in that context because people who need government to deliver
concrete material benefits like that, and rightly. They also organized via cheap phones, because
that was how to reach their voters, who weren't hanging out at Starbucks. And, history being written
by the winners, we forget that using that strategy, Clinton won all the big states and (if all
the votes are counted) a majority of the popular vote. So, good decision on her part. And so from
that we've moved to the open corruption of the Clinton Foundation and Clinton campaign apparatus
that takes 11 people to polish and approve a single tweet.
So I guess the moral of the story is (a) more deterioration, this time from 2008 to 2016,
and (b) Clinton can actually make a good decision, but only when forced to by a catastrophe that
will impact her personally. Whether she'll be able to rise to the occasion if elected is an open
question, but this post argues not.
"Apparently, the provision of public services is not within government's remit! What are Social
Security and Medicare? "
What is the US Post Office? Rumor has it that the PO is mentioned in the US Constitution, a
fact that is conveniently forgotten by Strict Constructionists.
With respect to regulation, I think it should be less a case of quantity, and more one of quality,
but Clinton seems to want to make it about finding the sweet spot of exactly how many regulations
will be the right amount.
In general, when companies are willing to spot you $225,000 to speak for some relatively short
period of time, willing to meet your demands regarding transportation, hotel accommodations, etc.,
why would you take the chance of killing the goose that's laying those golden eggs by saying anything
likely to tick them off?
I'd like to think she's kind of embarrassed to have people see how humdrum/boring her speeches
were for how much she was paid to give them, but I think there's got to be more "there" somewhere
that she didn't want people to be made aware of – and it doesn't necessarily have to be Americans,
it could be something to do with foreign governments, foreign policy, trade, etc.
After learning how many people it takes to send out a tweet with her name on it, I have no
idea how she managed this speech thing, unless one of her requirements was that she had to be
presented with all questions in advance, so she could be prepared.
I am more depressed by the day, as it's really beginning to sink in that she's going to be
president, and it all just makes me want to stick needles in my eyes.
Also the "Wicked Problems" definitions are very, very interesting. Thank you for bringing those
in! I would add that these wicked problems lead to more wicked problems. It is basically dishonesty,
and to protect the lie you double down with more, and more, and more…. Most of Clinton's decisions
and career seem to be knots of wicked problems.
The wicked problem is quickly becoming our entire system of governance. Clinton has been described
as the malignant tumor here before, but even she is a place holder for the rot. One head of the
Hydra that I feel Establishment players would generally be okay with sacrificing if it came to
it (and maybe I am wrong there–but it seems as if a lot of the push fro her comes from her inner
circle and others play along).
Hail Hydra! Immortal Hydra! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off one limb and two more shall
take its place! We serve the Supreme Hydra, as the world shall soon serve us!
I've heard/read in some places Hillary Clinton described as a "safe pair of hands". I don't
understand where this characterization comes from. She's dangerous.
If she wins with as strong of an electoral map as Obama in '08, she'll take it as a strong
mandate and she'll have an ambitious agenda and likely attempt to overreach. I've been meaning
to call my congressional reps early and say "No military action on Syria, period!"
She might use a "public option" as an ACA stealth bailout scheme, but I don't think the public
has much appetite to see additional resources being thrown at a "failed experiment". I worry that
Bernie's being brought on board for this kind of thing. He should avoid it.
Is she crazy enough to go for a grand bargain right away? That seems nutty and has been a "Waterloo"
for many presidents.
Remember how important Obama's first year was. Bailouts and ACA were all done that first year.
How soon can we put President Clinton II in lame duck status?
Not really surprised by the intellectual and rhetorical poverty demonstrated by these speeches.
Given the current trajectory of our politics, the bar hasn't really been set very high. In fact
it looks like we're going to reach full Idiocracy long before originally predicted.
You ask, " What can Goldman Sachs possibly have thought they were paying for? "
But I think you know. Corruption has become so institutionalized that it is impossible to point
to any specific Quid Pro Quo. The Quo is the entire system in which GS operates and the care and
feeding of which the politicians are paid to administer.
We focus on HRC's speeches and payments here but I wonder how many other paid talks are given
to GS each year by others up and down the influence spectrum. As Bill Black says, a dollar given
to a politician provides the largest possible Return on Investment of any expenditure. It is Wall
Street's long-term health insurance plan.
Yeah we know which part of the "stool" we'll be getting.If the finance sector is "the nerves,
the spinal column" of the country, I suggest the country find a shallow pool in which to shove
it – head first.
I skimmed the /. comments on a story about this yesterday; basically everyone missed the obvious
and went with vox-type responses ("she's a creature of the system / in-fighter / Serious Person").
"So I'm not interested in, you know, turning the clock back or pointing fingers,
but I am interested in trying to figure out how we come together to chart a better way
forward and one that will restore confidence in, you know, small and medium-size businesses and
consumers and begin to chip away at the unemployment rate [five years into the recession!]."
Basically, even better than a get out of jail free card, in that it is rather a promise that
we won't go back and ever hold you responsible, and we have done the best we could so far to avoid
having you own up to anything or be held accountable in any way beyond some niggling fines, which
of course, you are happy to pay, because in the end, that is simply a handout to the legal industry,
who are your best drinking buddies.
The latter part of that quote is just mumbo jumbo non-sequitir blathering. Clinton appears
to know next to nothing about finance, only that it generates enormous amounts of cash for the
oh so deserving work that God told them to do.
+1 exactly: There will be no retrospective prosecutions and none in the future either, trust
me! Not the she is any better than Eric Holder but she is certain she should be paid more than
him.
Bingo! Think about it: She was speaking to a group of people whose time is "valued" at
100's if not 1,000's of dollars per hour. She took up their "valuable" time but provided nothing
except politics-as-usual blather tailored to that particular audience. Yet she was paid $225k
for a single speech…
I've only skimmed through the speech transcripts; did I miss something of substance?
Hillary is a remarkably inarticulate person, which calls into question her intellectual
fitness for the job (amidst many other questions, of course). I entirely agree with your depiction
of her speeches as mindless drivel.
However, you may be overthinking the "wicked problem" language. While it is certainly
possible that she is familiar with the literature that you cite, nothing else in her speeches
suggests that she commands that level of intellectual detail. This makes me think that somewhere
along the line she befriended someone from the greater Boston area who uses "wicked" the way Valley
Girls use "like". When I first heard the expression decades ago, I found it charming and incorporated
it into my own common usage. And I don't use it anything like you describe. To me it is simply
used for emphasis. Nothing more or less than that, but I am amused to see an entire literature
devoted to the concept of a "wicked problem".
I remain depressed by this election. No matter how it turns out, it's going to wicked suck
; )
I think the inarticulateness/cliche infestation is a ploy and a deflection; this is a very
intelligent woman who can effectively marshall language when she feels the need. That need was
more likely felt in private meetings with the inner cabal at Goldman.
Not to otherwise compare them, but Bush I's inarticulateness made him seem a buffoon, and
that was not the case, either.
Finally, as a thought experiment, I'd like to suggest that, granting that Clintonismo will
privilege those interests which best fortify their arguments with cash, it's also true that Bill
and Hillary are all about Bill and Hillary. In other words, it could be that she has the same
hustler's disregard toward the lumpen Assistant Vice Presidents filling that room at GS as she
does for the average voter. Thus, the empty, past-their-expiration-date calories.
Sure, she'll take their money and do their bidding, but why even bother to make any more effort
than necessary? On a very primal level with these two, it's all about the hustle and the action,
and everyone's a potential rube.
As in, when Bill put his presidency on the line, the base were expected to circle the wagons.
As in, "I'm With Her". Not "She's With Us", natch. It's *always* about the Clintons.
"Speaking to bankers and masters of the corporate universe, she came off as relaxed, self-doubting,
reflective, honest, philosophical rather than political, and unafraid to admit she lacked all
the answers."
seriously, matt taibbi? next, i would like to hear about the positive, feelgood, warmfuzzy
qualities of vampire squids (hugs cthulhu doll).
Matt Tiabbi, Elizabeth Warren, Benie Sanders, Noam Chompsky–all those used to seem like
bastions of integrity have, thanks to Hillary, been revealed as slimy little Weasels who should
henceforth be completely disregarded. I'd have to thank Hillary for pulling back the nlindets
on that; if not for this election I might have been still foolishly listening to these people.
agree w you except about Bernie. he always said he'd support the nominee. the suddenness of
his capitulation has led many of us to believe he was threatened. somewhere I read something about
"someone" planting kiddieporn on his son's computer if he didn't do…… I dunno. I reserve judgement
on Sanders until I learn more,…. if i ever do
Clinton's remarks were typically vague, as one might expect from a politician; she doesn't
want to be pinned down. This may be part of the banality of her remarks.
What scares me most about Clinton is her belligerence towards Russia and clamoring for
a no-fly zone in Syria. The no-fly zone will mean war with Russia. If only Clinton were saying
this, we might be safe, but the entire Washington deep state seems to be of one mind in favor
of a war. During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear
war must not be allowed. This is no longer true and it is terrifying. Every war game the pentagon
used to simulate a war with the U.S.S.R. escalated into an all out nuclear war. What is the "plan
B" Obama is pursuing in Syria?
In the Russian press every day for a long time now they have been discussing the prospect of
a conflict. Russia has been conducting civil defense drills in its cities and advised its citizens
to recall any children living abroad. This is never reported in our press, which only presents
us with caricatures of Putin. Russians are not taken seriously.
During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear war
must not be allowed.
No it wasn't. Far from it. By some miracle, the globe escaped instant incineration but only
barely. The Soviets, to their credit, were not about to risk nuclear annihilation to get one
up on the US of Perfidy. Our own Dauntless Warriors were more than willing, and I believe it's
only through dumb luck that a first strike wasn't launched deliberately or by deliberate "accident."
Review the Cold War concept of Brinkmanship.
The current fear/fever over nuclear war with Russia requires madness in the Kremlin - of
which there is no evidence. Our Rulers are depending on Putin and his cohorts being the sane
ones as rhetoric from the US and the West ratchets ever upwards.
But then, the Kremlin is looking for any hint of sanity on US and NATO side and is finding
little…
Curtis LeMay tried to provoke a nuclear war with the Soviets in the 1950's. By and large,
however, the American state understood a nuclear war was unwinnable and avoided such a possibility.
A no-fly zone in Syria would start a war with Russia. William Polk, who participated in the Cuban
missle crisis and U.S. nuclear war games, argues in this article
" "the nerves, the spinal column" of the country, goes farther than Obama ever did."
But this description is technically true. That is finance's proper function, co-ordinating
the flow of capital and resources, especially from where they're in excess to where they're needed.
It's a key decision-making system – for the economy, preferably not for society as a whole. That
would be the political system.
So on this basic level, the problem is that finance, more and more, has put its own institutional
and personal interests ahead of its proper function. It's grown far too huge, and stopped performing
its intended function – redistributing resources – in favor of just accumulating them, in the
rather illusory form of financial instruments, some of them pure vapor ware.
So yes, this line reflects a very bad attitude on Hillary's part, but by misappropriating a
truth – pretty typical propaganda.
No, finance does NOT "channel resources". Wash your mouth out. This is more neoliberal cant.
Financiers do not make investments in the real economy. The overwhelming majority of securities
trading is in secondary markets, which means it's speculation. And when a public company decides
whether or not to invest in a new project, it does not present a prospectus on that new project
to investors. It runs the numbers internally. For those projects, the most common source of funding
is retained earnings.
Clinton shows that she is either a Yale Law grad who does not have the slightest idea that
Wall Street does very little in the economy but fleece would-be investors, or that she is an obsequious
flatterer of those from whom she openly takes bribes.
Having heard Hillary, Chelsea (yes, she's being groomed) and many, many other politicians over
the years, including a stint covering Capitol Hill, Mme C's verbal style does not surprise to
me at all but rather strikes me as perfectly serviceable. It is a mellifluous drone designed to
lull the listener into thinking that she is on their side, and the weakness of the actual statements
only becomes clear when reading them on the page later (which rarely happens). The drowsy listener
will catch, among the words strung together like Christmas lights, just the key terms and concepts
that demonstrate knowledge of the brief and a soothing layer of vague sympathy. Those who can
award her $600K can assume with some confidence that, rhetoric aside, she will be in the tank
when needed. The rest of us have to blow away the chaff and peer into the yawning gaps lurking
behind the lawyerly parsing. In all fairness, this applies to 90% of seekers of public office.
The absolute vacuousness of Clinton's remarks, coupled with her ease at neoliberal conventional
wisdom, make it clear that Goldman's payments were nothing more (or less) than a $675,000 anticipatory
"so no quid pro quo here" bribe.
Who on earth gives up their vote to a politician who is so shameless an corrupt that she openly
accepts bribes from groups who equally shamelessly and corruptly are looting the commons? Apparently
many, but not me.
Nothing like making lemons out of lemonade, is there?
There really is a question why she didn't do this doc dump herself when Bernie asked. Yeah,
sure, she would have been criticized ("damned if you do, damned if you don't") but because of
who she is she'll be criticized no matter what. There is nothing she can do to avoid it.
Not only is there no smoking gun, it's almost as if she's trying to inject a modicum of social
conscience into a culture that has none. And no, she isn't speaking artfully; nor is she an orator.
Oh. Not that we didn't know already.
The most galling aspect is her devotion to the neoLibCon status quo. Steady as she goes. Apparently
a lot of people find the status quo satisfactory. Feh.
If this document dump came out during the primary campaign, then HRC may have lost. Even Black,
Southern ladies can smell the corrupting odor clinging to these "speeches".
Given the way DNC protected her during the primaries, and what looked like a pretty light touch
by Bernie and (who? O'Malley was it?) toward her, I doubt these speeches would have been her undoing.
Dull and relatively benign, and policy-wise almost identical to Obama's approach to the bankers'
role in the economic unpleasantness. "Consensus" stuff with some hint of a social conscience.
Not effective and not enough to do more than the least possible ("I told them they ought to
behave better. Really!") on behalf of the Rabble.
But not a campaign killer. Even so, by not releasing transcripts during the primary, she faced
- and still faces - mountains of criticism over it. No escape. Not for her.
I'm not sure that's an appropriate strategy for dealing with multiple interlocking wicked problems,
but I'm not sure why. Suppose we invoke the Precautionary Principle - is incremental change
really the way to avoid harm?
The Consensus (of Opinions That Matter) says it is. On the other hand, blowing up the System
leads to Uncertainty, and as we know, we can't have that. Mr. Market wouldn't like it…
The leaked emails confirm - even though she herself never writes them, which is really
odd, when you consider that Podesta is her Campaign Chair and close ally going back decades -
that she is compulsively secretive, controlling, and resistant to admitting she's wrong. The chain
of people talking about how to get her to admit she was wrong about Nancy Reagan and AIDS was
particularly fascinating that way; she was flat out factually inaccurate, and it had the potential
to do tremendous harm to her campaign with a key donor group, and it was apparently still a major
task to persuade her to say "I made a mistake."
So while I think you are wrong that the speeches wouldn't have hurt her in the primary, I also
think Huma would have had to knock her out and tie her up (not in a fun way) to get those speeches
released.
I can't imagine a worse temperament to govern, particularly under the conditions she'll be
facing. But she'll be fully incompetent before too long, so I don't suppose it matters that much.
I'm morbidly curious to see how long they can keep her mostly hidden and propped up for limited
appearances, before having to let Kaine officially take over. Will we be able to figure out who's
actually in power based on the line-up on some balcony?
Fair points, though the "temperament" issue may be one that follows from the nature of the
job - even "No Drama Obama" is said to have a fierce anger streak, and secrecy, controlling behavior,
and refusing to admit error is pretty typical of presidents, VPs, and other high officials. The
King/Queen can do no wrong, dontchaknow. (cf: Bush, GW, and his whole administration for recent
examples. History is filled with them, though.)
As for Hillary's obvious errors in judgment, I think they speak for themselves and they don't
speak well of her.
TINA vs WATA (we are the alternative)…the next two years are gonna be interesting…evil is often
a cover for total incompetence and exposure…our little tsarina will insist brigades that dont
exist move against enemies that are hardly there…when she & her useless minions were last in/on
the seat of power(j edger version of sop) the netizens of the world were young and dumb…now not
so much…
I got into wicked problems 35 years ago in the outstanding book by Ian Mitroff and R. O. Mason,
"Challenging Strategic Planning Assumptions." First page of Chapter One has subsection title COMPLEXITY,
followed by "A Little Experiment" Lets try the experiment with current problems.
One could come up with a list of major problems, but here is the one used by C. West Churchman
mentioned along with Horst Riddle. Churchman back in the 80's said that the problems of the world
were M*P**3, or M, P cubed, or M * P * P *P with the letters standing for Militarism, Population,
Poverty and Pollution.
Here is how they ran the exercise
1. Suppose there were a solution to any of these 4 problems, would that solution be related
to the other problems. Clearly.
2. Thus 'whenever a policy maker attempts to solve a complex policy problem, it is related
to all the others
Repeated attempts in other contexts give the same result: basically, every real world
policy problem is related to every other real world policy problem
This is from page 4, the second page of the book.
I ran this exercise for several years in ATT Bell Labs and ATT.
List major problems
How long have they been around? (most for ever except marketing was new after breakup in
'84
If one was solved, would that solution be related in any way to the other ones?
Do you know of any program that is making headway? (occasionally Quality was brought up)
This could be done in a few minutes, often less than 5 minutes
5. Conclusion: long term interdependent problems that are not being addressed
Thus the only grade that matters in this course on Corporate Transformation that now begins
is that you have new insights on these problems. This was my quest as an internal consultant in
ATT to transform the company. I failed.
I was a Sanders supporter. Many here will disagree, but if Clinton wins I don't think she's
going to act as she might have acted in 2008, if she had won.
Clinton is a politician, and *all* politicians dissemble in private, unless they're the mayor
of a small town of about 50 people – and even then! Politicians – in doing their work – *must*
compromise to some degree, with the best politicians compromising in ways that bring their constituents
more benefit, than not.
That said, Clinton is also a human being who is capable of change. This election cycle has
been an eye opener for both parties. If Clinton wins (and, I think she will), the memory of how
close it was with Sanders and the desperate anger and alienation she has experienced from Trump
supporters (and even Sanders' supporters) *must* have already gotten her thinking about what she
is going to have to get done to insure a 2020 win for Democrats, whether or not she is running
in 2020.
In sum, I think Clinton is open to change, and I don't believe that she is some deep state
evil incarnate; sge's *far* from perfect, and she's not "pure" in her positioning – thank god!,
because in politics, purists rarely accomplish anything.
If Clinton reverts to prior form (assuming she makes (POTUS), 2020 will make 2016 look like
a cakewalk, for both parties – including the appearance of serious 3rd party candidates with moxy,
smarts, and a phalanx of backers (unlike the current crop of two – Johnson and Stein).
"... The trees, the forest and pretty much the entire landscape are screaming 2000 and 2004 didn't matter a damn. ..."
"... All the same media outlets and elites that were screaming for the invasion of Iraq are now howling for evil Syrian blood and the removal of another 'monster' before he destroys all the peace and stability we bring to the region. ..."
"... This time, of course, there's no Bush/Cheney in charge. But no matter, the decisions and the rationale are identical. Democracy will flower in the region once America and the UK kill enough of the bad guys and install their own puppets (I mean 'good guys') ..."
"... Hillary and the democrats are in charge of the killing, so all the death must be both necessary and humanitarian. The possibility that more death and more wars and more invasions and more regime change is pretty much built into the 'solution' is unthinkable. ..."
"... Watching all the cheering for 'victory in Mosul' and over the 'hold-outs' in Libya has actually driven me to turn off the nets ..."
"... Violent regime-change is 'unavoidable' regardless of which party is in power. And the current war is always better, safer, and less prone to blow-back than all those other earlier stupid wars ..."
Reading thru the link, my favorite part was the stated purpose of the cocktail party for elite
NY reporters: "Give reporters their first thoughts . . ."
@244 Good eye, Bruce. The trees, the forest and pretty much the entire landscape are screaming
2000 and 2004 didn't matter a damn.
All the same media outlets and elites that were screaming for the invasion of Iraq are
now howling for evil Syrian blood and the removal of another 'monster' before he destroys all
the peace and stability we bring to the region.
This time, of course, there's no Bush/Cheney in charge. But no matter, the decisions and
the rationale are identical. Democracy will flower in the region once America and the UK kill
enough of the bad guys and install their own puppets (I mean 'good guys') .
Hillary and the democrats are in charge of the killing, so all the death must be both necessary
and humanitarian. The possibility that more death and more wars and more invasions and more regime
change is pretty much built into the 'solution' is unthinkable.
Watching all the cheering for 'victory in Mosul' and over the 'hold-outs' in Libya has
actually driven me to turn off the nets .
Violent regime-change is 'unavoidable' regardless of which party is in power. And the current
war is always better, safer, and less prone to blow-back than all those other earlier stupid wars
.
I learned that reading the pro-Hillary 'liberal' press.
Groupinggate was essentially an attempt to distract votes from a more serious issue, especially
Hillary warmongering, her role in mass rape of women in Syria and Libya, and latest Podesta emails leaks.
This was a defensive strike with material that was specifically reserved for this purpose.
Notable quotes:
"... there are many more than two sides in Syria's civil war. First of all the civil war is not limited to Syria. ISIL, Hezbollah, and arguably Kurdish Rojava are belligerents not particularly invested in the borders of long defunct Mandate Syria. ..."
"... The rebel forces arrayed against or for Assad in any particular area are various in their motivations and political identities and they never divide neatly into two opposed camps. ..."
"... In short, you either support US violent regime change in the ME, or you do not. ..."
"... All who are voting for Hillary Clinton are voting for US violent regime change in Syria. That's been the stated policy of the Obama administration for some years, Hillary was played a key role in formulating that policy as Secretary of State. Now, as candidate for President she has explicitly promised more US violent regime change in Iraq. ..."
"... Violent regime change in Syria is the stated policy of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate most US members of the CT community plan to vote for in November. ..."
intervene in a civil war on the side of the rebels
I apologize if anyone feels I am harping on this too much, but there are many more than
two sides in Syria's civil war. First of all the civil war is not limited to Syria. ISIL, Hezbollah,
and arguably Kurdish Rojava are belligerents not particularly invested in the borders of long
defunct Mandate Syria.
The rebel forces arrayed against or for Assad in any particular area are various in their
motivations and political identities and they never divide neatly into two opposed camps.
kidneystones 10.15.16 at 8:06 am
@ 190 There aren't many times you're this wrong, Bruce. There are only two sides. The side that
holds a UN seat; votes or abstains on UN resolutions; borrows or does not borrow from the World
Bank; has the authority to sign, or abrogate international treaties along, for example, the Golan
heights – and the forces not aligned with the government.
The CT community evidently wants to 'confuse itself' and the issues. You are either in favor
of the US using US military power to unilaterally intercede in a civil war against the Assad government,
which as you and Peter T note, is inextricably linked to Iraq and other regional disputes, or
you oppose the unilateral use of US military power to topple governments in the ME.
In short, you either support US violent regime change in the ME, or you do not.
All who are voting for Hillary Clinton are voting for US violent regime change in Syria.
That's been the stated policy of the Obama administration for some years, Hillary was played a
key role in formulating that policy as Secretary of State. Now, as candidate for President she
has explicitly promised more US violent regime change in Iraq.
Violent regime change in Syria is the stated policy of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic
candidate most US members of the CT community plan to vote for in November.
"... Is the solution supposed to be that HRC's foreign policy team will be much better than Obama's? ..."
"... The US will unilaterally determine to seize sovereignty of Syrian airspace, intervene in a civil war on the side of the rebels, and shoot down Syrian government and Russian planes. ..."
"... Shooting down Russian planes is the plan. ..."
"... If anyone has any doubt how little Hillary and company have learned from invading Iraq, violent regime change in Iraq, and removing inconvenient one-time friends at will, we're living through it real time all over again. ..."
"... This is a community of adults: LFC, Lee, W Berry et al who lecture the rest of us for wankery, emotionalism etc. and who are now fully behind the candidate who is promising a 'do-over' of Iraq with the promise to this time get it right. ..."
"... Trump, whatever his real deficiencies is openly ready to cede Syrian air-space to Assad. Most informed observers I've read argue that the civil war in Syria has been extended by years thanks to US and UK wankery. ..."
"... At some point, the US may decide not to proceed with violent regime-change. Not yet, however, or so it seems. ..."
"... All the responsible US diplomats and generals who brought us Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria are lined-up to support the only candidate who is running on 4-8 years of violent regime change. ..."
"... With regard to Aleppo, the eastern part of the city has been under the control of the rebels for some years. The majority of the population is in western Aleppo, under government control. Eastern Aleppo is now cut off, and under attack by various pro-government forces supported by the Russian air force. Rebel forces in eastern Aleppo are estimated to be around half al-Qaeda linked Islamists and half local Sunnis. They regularly bombard the western part, as the government does the rebel enclave. ..."
"... The government has opened seven exit corridors for civilians to leave, and repeatedly offered the rebels evacuation to other areas (several similar offers have been accepted and carried through for rebel enclaves around Damascus). The latest news is that the rebels are reported to have mined the exits to prevent civilians leaving. ..."
"... A good foreign policy maxim is to choose a side that has a reasonable chance of winning and stick with it. Anything else prolongs the suffering without changing the outcome. US policy in the Middle East, as earlier in South-East Asia, seems unable to grasp this basic. ..."
"... Obviously you must want to turn a helpless population over to the evil Assad instead of the good(?) Islamists or the nonexistent moderates. Anything that equates to letting Assad win would be the ultimate proof of a love of dictators. ..."
"... I've often noticed that opponents of humanitarian intervention are cast as the ones peddling a simplistic, unrealistic set of fantasies - nonsense, in short. But whenever an actual case comes up, it appears that the reverse is true. The people calling for war are peddling fantastical nonsense. ..."
...I purposefully haven't addressed anything about the recent history of American involvement
in war in Syria, because that would lead to the same old accusations that this is about hating
America.
But now we're talking about the present as a guide to the future. Does anything about the known
history of recent American involvement in Syria indicate that there are detailed expert analyses
available that will do any good once filtered through policy? Is the solution supposed to
be that HRC's foreign policy team will be much better than Obama's?
What crap-for-brains doesn't seem to appreciate is that there are only two sets of pilots
and planes for the US to shoot down: pilots flying under the Syrian flag and those flying under
the Russian flag. There will be no 'random' misunderstandings and miscommunications for Hillary
to hide behind. And that's before Russia decides to flex in the Crimea, the Ukraine, and the Baltic
states.
The US will unilaterally determine to seize sovereignty of Syrian airspace, intervene in
a civil war on the side of the rebels, and shoot down Syrian government and Russian planes.
Shooting down Russian planes is the plan.
If anyone has any doubt how little Hillary and company have learned from invading Iraq,
violent regime change in Iraq, and removing inconvenient one-time friends at will, we're living
through it real time all over again.
This time we have the CT majority in favor of Bush III and her invasions.
@180 I'm extremely grateful, btw, to see you gaming out how the US plays chicken with the Russians
who 'back down' as a 'reason to vote for Hillary.'
This is a community of adults: LFC, Lee, W Berry et al who lecture the rest of us for wankery,
emotionalism etc. and who are now fully behind the candidate who is promising a 'do-over' of Iraq
with the promise to this time get it right.
Trump, whatever his real deficiencies is openly ready to cede Syrian air-space to Assad.
Most informed observers I've read argue that the civil war in Syria has been extended by years
thanks to US and UK wankery.
At some point, the US may decide not to proceed with violent regime-change. Not yet, however,
or so it seems.
All the responsible US diplomats and generals who brought us Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and
Syria are lined-up to support the only candidate who is running on 4-8 years of violent regime
change.
You're voting in favor of invading Iraq all over again. Thanks!!!
The Syrian/Iraqi wars are …complicated. But they are both – from the viewpoint of the major combatants
– the same war, a contest between the two current major streams of political thought in the Islamic
Middle East. Iraqi and Lebanese Shi'a militias are active in support of the regime in Damascus,
as are Sunni Palestinian ones and the Druze. Christian and Yezidi groups and Kurdish nationalists
have lined up behind both Baghdad and Damascus. One the other side is a loose grouping of Salafi
Islamists – ISIS, an-Nusra, the many groups under the FSA umbrella. There are, of course, a few
politiques in the middle, too small to count in the fighting, but much courted by the press, and
always trotted out as the "moderate opposition". Any intervention that tries to slice across the
broad lines of division soon gets hopelessly tangled diplomatically and militarily. As the US
has found out.
With regard to Aleppo, the eastern part of the city has been under the control of the rebels
for some years. The majority of the population is in western Aleppo, under government control.
Eastern Aleppo is now cut off, and under attack by various pro-government forces supported by
the Russian air force. Rebel forces in eastern Aleppo are estimated to be around half al-Qaeda
linked Islamists and half local Sunnis. They regularly bombard the western part, as the government
does the rebel enclave.
The government has opened seven exit corridors for civilians to leave, and repeatedly
offered the rebels evacuation to other areas (several similar offers have been accepted and carried
through for rebel enclaves around Damascus). The latest news is that the rebels are reported to
have mined the exits to prevent civilians leaving.
A good foreign policy maxim is to choose a side that has a reasonable chance of winning
and stick with it. Anything else prolongs the suffering without changing the outcome. US policy
in the Middle East, as earlier in South-East Asia, seems unable to grasp this basic.
Peter T: "A good foreign policy maxim is to choose a side that has a reasonable chance of winning
and stick with it. Anything else prolongs the suffering without changing the outcome. US policy
in the Middle East, as earlier in South-East Asia, seems unable to grasp this basic."
Obviously you must want to turn a helpless population over to the evil Assad instead of
the good(?) Islamists or the nonexistent moderates. Anything that equates to letting Assad win
would be the ultimate proof of a love of dictators.
I've often noticed that opponents of humanitarian intervention are cast as the ones peddling
a simplistic, unrealistic set of fantasies - nonsense, in short. But whenever an actual case comes
up, it appears that the reverse is true. The people calling for war are peddling fantastical nonsense.
kaxitaksi
2
months ago (edited)
Only way to put this right and if DNC and Shillary
really wants the best for the people is to step down
and hand over the nomination to Bernie or Stein. I
don't want to listen to that lying bitch voice for
four years.
Lu A
5
days ago
If this is really Anonymous...I really hate to say
this but...these guys are the right guys for the job
to expose Hillary Clinton. If they wanna stop her
they gotta expose her at a huge hackable event.
Scott Lesley
17
hours ago
there is no humanity in that woman
Unity Anonymous
6
hours ago
remember the civilians, kids, ppl who they kill
Looks like Obama in working overclock to ensure the election of Trump ... anti-Russian hysteria
might have results different that he expects. Whether we are to have a world of sovereign nation-states
or one in which a single imperial superpower contends with increasingly fragmentary post-national and
sub-national threats around the globe will depend on the decisions that are made in the near future:
in the next few years.
Greenwald's astute observations were presumably made in response to Secretary of State John Kerry's
recent remarks that both
Russia and Syria should face war crimes investigations for their recent attacks on Syrian civilians.
"Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting
hospitals, and medical facilities, and women and children," Mr. Kerry said in Washington,
where he spoke alongside French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, as reported by the Independent
.
Unsurprisingly, Russia responded by urging caution regarding allegations of war crimes considering
the United States has been waging wars in a number of countries since the end of World War II. It
has picked up a number of allegations of war crimes in the process.
Kerry's
continuous accusations that Russia bombed hospital infrastructure are particularly hypocritical
in light of the fact the United States has bombed hospitals in
Iraq
and
Afghanistan on more than one occasion over past decade.
Further, former congressman Ron Paul's Institute for Peace and Prosperity hit back at Kerry, accusing
him of completely fabricating the most recent alleged hospital attack. As the Institute
noted :
" In a press event yesterday, before talks with the French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault
about a new UN resolution,
he said
( vid @1:00) about
Syria:
"'Last night, the regime attacked yet another hospital, and 20 people were killed and 100 people
were wounded. And Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they
keep hitting hospitals and medical facilities and children and women. These are acts that beg
for an appropriate investigation of war crimes. And those who commit these would and should be
held accountable for these actions.'
" No opposition group has claimed that such an extremely grave event happened. None. No press
agency has a record of it. The MI-6 disinformation outlet SOHR in Britain, which quite reliably
notes every claimed casualty and is frequently cited in 'western media,' has not said anything
about such an event anywhere in Syria. "
However, the most disturbing aspect of Kerry's allegation is that the accusations against
Russia run in tandem with Saudi Arabia's brutal assault on Yemen. Saudi Arabia, with the
aid of a few regional players - and with
ongoing American and British assistance (not to mention
billion dollar arms sales ) - has been bombing Yemen back into the Stone Age without any legal
basis whatsoever. Often, the Saudi-led coalition has completely decimated civilian infrastructure,
which has led a number of groups to accuse the coalition of
committing war crimes in the process.
Civilians and civilian infrastructure have been struck so routinely that the world has
become increasingly concerned the actual targets of the coalition strikes are civilians
(what could be a greater recruitment tool for al-Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen?) As
noted by Foreign Policy :
"The Houthis and their allies - armed groups loyal to Saleh - are the declared targets of the
coalition's 1-year-old air campaign. In reality, however, it is the civilians, such as Basrallah
and Rubaid, and their children, who are predominantly the victims of this protracted war. Hundreds
of civilians have been killed in airstrikes while asleep in their homes, when going about their
daily activities, or in the very places where they had sought refuge from the conflict. The United
States, Britain, and others, meanwhile, have continued to supply a steady stream of weaponry and
logistical support to Saudi Arabia and its coalition."
Just take one example of the cruel and disproportionate use of force that Saudi Arabia has used
in Yemen (using American-made and supplied aircraft and weapons) - against Judge Yahya Rubaid and
his family. As Foreign Policy
reported in March of this year:
"According to family members, Rubaid was a judge on a case against Yemeni President Abed Rabbo
Mansour Hadi, for treason in absentia. It is unclear whether his house was attacked for this reason.
What is clear, however, is that there was no legally valid basis for bombing his home, as he and
his family were civilians and under international law should not have been deliberately targeted."
At the time this article's publication,
over 140 Yemenis had
been killed and another 500 injured in a Saudi-coalition aerial attack on a funeral over the
weekend. The civilian death toll continues to rise in Yemen, completely unchallenged by any major
players at the U.N.
When the U.N. does attempt to quell Saudi actions , the Saudis threaten
severe
economic retaliation.
How Kerry can accuse Russia of committing war crimes in Syria with a straight face is unclear,
as reports of atrocious crimes committed in Yemen continue to surface.
This is not to say Russia and Syria should not be investigated for war crimes – but maybe, just
maybe, we could live in a world where everyone responsible for committing these gross acts could
be held accountable, instead of just those who
pose an economic
threat to the West . Mango327
38BWD22
Oct 11, 2016 3:47 PM
Madeline Albright, "Yes, I think the death of 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 years
old by US sanctions, was a good price that had to be paid so we could get to Sadam Hussein "???
This bitch along with Kissinger, Soros, Rice, Clinton, Obama, Kerry, and all the news organizations
who have been cheerleaders for the slaughter of innocents should all be charged with Crimes against
humanity and SHOT!
"Who wants to be the last man to die for a mistake?" -- John Kerry, 197x
That was the supposed anti-war Kerry speaking of the Vietnam War, who rode
such comments into a congressional seat. We didn't know then that he was Skull and Bones or what
it might mean. Now we know it in spades.
Now it's clear he's just a lying sack of war mongering, deep state shit.
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe
it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political,
economic and/or military consequences of the lie."
Goebbels used "Gas Lighting" as a form of Psychological manipulation on a population on a mass
scale. Operation Mocking Bird. It continues on today. 365 days a year, 24hrs a day, 7 days a week.
The Psyche Warefare / PsyOp War does not clos
There is an assumption that Russia would never go to war with the US over the Syrian dispute.
But yet, Russia is preparing for war. It has both first-strike and counter-strike capability in
the event the west (US State Dept.) continues with its bullying tactics and further escalates
its hostility. Russia is a sovereign nation; it has both the right and the power to do what is
in the best interests of its citizenry and its allies (Assad).
The US used to be that way until it was over-run in a silent, but effective liberal-coup that
has taken full control and stupidly re-newed the cold war with Russia.
And now America has been left more vulnerable that it ever has been. A simple shut-down of
the electric grid for several months, will, by itself, cut the population in half.
Ultra-liberalism is ultra self-destructive... we're about to see just how destructive that
really is.
Well this is a refreshing start, but only a start. Russia certainly had nothing to do with the
gunships that bombed the hospitals in Afghanistan into powder, killing patients including children,
doctors, nurses and other personell.
I for one would like to know who it was who flew those
planes and have them explain to all of us why they did not refuse orders? What sort of morals
have Americans got to behave ths way? The hospitals bombed in Syria, ditto. The Saudis are the
beasts they are and somebody needs to bomb them into oblivion. (Perhaps take out some other smug
financial centers too!) But Yemen is a very poor sandy country to begin with and Saudi must think
there's oil or something there. If some of the weapons used there weren't tactical nukes they
sure looked like them. Gee. Wonder where they got them?
Chomsky's been saying it for decades, "If they do it, they're terrorists; if we do it,
we're freedom fighters."
My take is that if you are the head of a government, you are a psychopath and any categorization
beyond this is moot.
Clinton / Trump, Obama / Putin, Assad / Erdogan, UN / Nationalism, whoever it may be, they're
all playing the same game, and we're not even allowed to watch, much less comment.
The only thing trickling-down (through a historical perspective) should be blood.
"... If nothing else, the I'm-with-her whole hog approach of the media to this election should put the lie to the notion that we have anything resembling a functioning press. ..."
"... Additionally, the blind adherence by the press to Hillary's spin that Trump would put her in jail amounts to a dictatorship ignores the fact that previous to that statement Trump had said he would push for a special prosecutor. IOW, a completely legalized, judicially approved criminal investigation. ..."
"... I agree about the press becoming so bought over by Hillary. Watched some speech Trump was giving a month or so ago and he talked about Iraq as I recall and the press totally spun it into some different meaning altogether. Funny thing was the next day Trump was giving another speech which I also happened to see and made mention of what he said the day before and what the press turned his comment into – from that point on I became very leery of believing anything they tell me. I too was amazed that almost immediately last night the press began reporting that Trump was talking to a dictatorship by saying he wanted her in jail when in fact that was completely taken out of context as well (as you mentioned above). ..."
"... I think the press has become very scary with all the power it has to twist the truth or what has been said as easily and quickly as they do. They must be very frightened by Trump. ..."
Why is the electorate seemingly more concerned with someone who is antagonistic towards certain
women than someone whose policies are antagonistic to whole nations and regions. Why aren't the
Wikileaks email revelations getting more traction or generating more outrage?
True. BigMedia is barely covering the Wikileaks story. My summary is that HClinton has a fake
"public position" & a genuine private position, that is pro-Grand Ripoff SS & MC cuts, & pro-TPP.
It should be a huge story, in that it calls as questionable any of HClinton's stated policies,
& given that Sanders repeatedly made the Wall $treet transcripts a major issue in the Primaries.
It takes a USian with intellectual curiosity, some free time, & enough critical thinking to
go to one of the few internet sources like nakedcapitalism or SecularTalk that actually will cover
the Wikileaks story honestly. IMHO sadly this is a small minority of the US eligible voter population.
BTW for Sanders to maintain my respect, he needs to "make news" in BigMedia by saying something
like "my support of HClinton is contingent on her 'public position' the approves the 2016 D party
platform, which is anti-TPP & anti-SS & MC cuts. If HClinton is elected & signs the TPP or SS/MC
cuts, she will be strongly primary challenged in 2020, & I will not support her if the Rs ever
impeach her"
If nothing else, the I'm-with-her whole hog approach of the media to this election should
put the lie to the notion that we have anything resembling a functioning press.
Just one example–I listened to some Clinton operative on msnbc radio today who was giving his
weaselly spin on Hillary's private position v. public position statement and who said that it
was only a few sentences out of an entire speech and needed to be viewed in context. Chuck Todd,
I think it was, never made note of the fact that there is no context to those statements since
the speeches have not and will not be released. There is no available context and Chuck just muttered
uh huh and let it pass.
Additionally, the blind adherence by the press to Hillary's spin that Trump would put her
in jail amounts to a dictatorship ignores the fact that previous to that statement Trump had said
he would push for a special prosecutor. IOW, a completely legalized, judicially approved criminal
investigation.
I agree about the press becoming so bought over by Hillary. Watched some speech Trump was
giving a month or so ago and he talked about Iraq as I recall and the press totally spun it into
some different meaning altogether. Funny thing was the next day Trump was giving another speech
which I also happened to see and made mention of what he said the day before and what the press
turned his comment into – from that point on I became very leery of believing anything they tell
me. I too was amazed that almost immediately last night the press began reporting that Trump was
talking to a dictatorship by saying he wanted her in jail when in fact that was completely taken
out of context as well (as you mentioned above).
I think the press has become very scary with all the power it has to twist the truth or
what has been said as easily and quickly as they do. They must be very frightened by Trump.
"... Hillary Clinton and husband Bill will turn the White House and the U.S. Government into their personal bank. ..."
"... If the American electorate selects Hillary as their commander and chief she will immediately demand a No-Fly Zone over Syria. She will impose more economic sanctions on Russia, including an increase in NATO strength on Russia's western borders, just to show she is the Queen bitch. She will give israHell carte blanche to increase and expand further abuse in the Gaza strip. She is a woman scorned. And a very dangerous one. ..."
"... [neo]Liberalism is in terminal decline, and not a moment too soon. ..."
"... Hillary does not have any creative spark at all. She, like Obama is a dud, but one thing is for sure, she is not Donald. ..."
"... These same americans should go back, for once, to his 2008 campaign to defeat first Hillary in the primaries and then the republican McCain. ..."
"... The climate was dominated by the financial meltdown, which really started in the summer of 2007 and was evident by early spring of 2008. Hillary was the candidate of Wall Street, according to Obama, the republicans were one and the same with Wall Street and all the big corporate world, he was Hope and Change. ..."
"... Hope? What hope? And even more: change, what change? There has been little change, if almost half of the nation is now ready to accept Trump as a promise of change. Obama's main financial support came in 2008 from Wall Street, hedge funds in particular, and they were right because nobody like the first Afro-American president, himself inevitably the incarnation of progressivism, could save their ass after all the criminal finance they indulged in. ..."
"... So, Obama's inheritance is a problem, and Hillary is running on Obama's inheritance. ..."
"... Robert Kagan, ringleader of the cabal of neo-cons has endorsed Hillary, who is Roberts wife? why bless me if it isn't Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland, ..."
"... Samantha Powers is a neo-con acolyte, Ashton Carter is too, the State Dept. and the council of foreign relations is riddled with their people, all the horror figures of Dubya's days are lurking there and pulling strings, ..."
"... Kerry isn't really a neo-con, but the Pentagon and CIA sabotage anything half decent he tries to do, ..."
"... Basically Hillary is as genuine, left leaning and honest as Tony Blair.... ..."
"... Also remember the lack of believability of Hillary. She is a politician that has been caught in lies so often that people just don't believe her. She pushed the soda tax in Philly until Coca-Cola complained that they gave too much money to the Foundation to be treated that way. Hillary backed off. She made millions from speaking to Big Banks. So we really believe she will go after Wells Fargo? She is beholden to them (unless Goldman Sachs gets to choose). She says raise taxes to pay fair share, but her biggest supporters are Apple, Google, and their executives that keep billions of income overseas to avoid the highest corporate income tax in the world. Do we really think she will hurt the contributors to the Foundation? And the more the email saga plays out, the longer the untrustworthy issue remains in everyone's mind. MonotonousLanguor , 2016-10-07 20:58:06 Does anyone really believe Hillary Clinton will hold anyone on Wall Street accountable??? She is bought and paid for by Wall Street, starting with all the green backs Hillary and Bill stuffed in their pockets from the those speaking fees. Obama's Justice Department motto was, Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Jail. The Democrats are not going to bite their masters on Wall Street, and of course neither will the Republicans. IanB52 -> NoctilucentGinswig , 2016-10-07 20:41:06 Prosecuting bankers, prosecuting torturers, stopping white collar crime, wars, assassinations, warrantless spying and even scheduling of Marijuana are all under the control of the Executive Branch. Find even one of these where the President did the right thing. Uncle Putin , 2016-10-07 20:26:49 This is exactly what I was thinking during the first presidential debate. Hillary is an old pro at saying all the right things, pushing all the right buttons to get the votes she needs, but can you believe much of what she says? ..."
"... This is why, despite a poor debate performance overall, I thought Trump was spot on when he simply said she was a typical politician--all talk, no action, sounds great, none of it will ever happen. He's correct. ..."
"... What Frank seldom writes of but remains extremely important to many people on the left in the US is that Obama has governed as the effective prisoner of the Pentagon and security establishment. His wars (including on whistleblowers), nuclear build-up, and confrontation with Russia have given added momentum to growing neoconservative bipartisan consensus that will likely see a new President Clinton start a war with Russia in Syria and/or Ukraine. ..."
"... The Democrats are now both so neoliberal and so neoconservative that the only thing that differentiates them from Republicans is social progressivism. Given a choice between the latter and greatly increased likelihood of nuclear war, I have to confess to preferring that Trump win. Trump has been consistent in wanting to lessen tensions with Russia. ..."
"... Not even social progressivism, so much as a set of captive client constituencies whom they name-drop and weaponize. ..."
The puzzle that is currently frustrating the pundit minds of America is this: why is Hillary
Clinton not simply clobbering Donald Trump? How is this ranting, seething buffoon still competitive
with her? Trump has now stumbled through a series of the kind of blunders that break ordinary
political campaigns – the sort of deadly hypocrisies that always kill the demagogue in old movies
– and yet this particular demagogue keeps on trucking. Why?
Let us answer that burning pundit question of today by jumping to what will undoubtedly be
the next great object of pundit ardor: the legacy of President Barack Obama. Two months from now,
when all the TV wise men are playing historian and giving their estimation on where Obama ranks
in the pantheon of the greats, they will probably neglect to mention that his legacy helped to
determine Hillary's fortunes in this election cycle.
"As a beloved figure among Democrats, for example, Obama was instrumental in securing the nomination
for her. As a president who has accomplished little since 2011, however, Obama has pretty much
undermined Clinton's ability to sell us on another centrist Democratic presidency. His legacy
has diluted her promise
…. Or take this headline from just a few days ago: "Clinton promises to hold Wells Fargo accountable".
Go get 'em, Hillary! To see a president get tough with elite bankers and with CEOs in general
– that's something we can all cheer for. But then that nagging voice piped up again: if Democrats
think it is so critical to get tough with crooked banksters, why oh why didn't Barack Obama take
the many, many opportunities he had to do so back in the days when it would have really mattered?"
Senator Elizabeth Warren pronounced on the current state of middle America as follows:
Look around. Americans bust their tails, some working two or three jobs, but wages stay
flat. Meanwhile, the basic costs of making it from month to month keep going up. Housing, healthcare,
child care – costs are out of sight. Young people are getting crushed by student loans. Working
people are in debt. Seniors can't stretch a social security check to cover the basics.
It was a powerful indictment of what Warren called a "rigged" system – except for one thing:
that system is presided over by Barack Obama, a man that same Democratic convention was determined
to apotheosize as one of the greatest politicians of all times.
The larger problem facing them is the terminal irrelevance of their great, overarching campaign
theme. Remember the "man from Hope"? "Hope is on the way"? "Keep hope alive"? Well, this year
"hope" is most assuredly dead. Thanks to Obama's flagrant hope-dealing in the dark days of 2008
– followed up by his failure to reverse the disintegration of the middle class – this favorite
Democratic cliché has finally become just that: an empty phrase.
If the American electorate selects Hillary as their commander and chief she will immediately
demand a No-Fly Zone over Syria. She will impose more economic sanctions on Russia, including
an increase in NATO strength on Russia's western borders, just to show she is the Queen bitch.
She will give israHell carte blanche to increase and expand further abuse in the Gaza strip. She
is a woman scorned. And a very dangerous one.
[neo]Liberalism is in terminal decline, and not a moment too soon. It's far past time
we redeveloped a politics of interests rather than this Christianised values sham.
Hillary will win because she is not Trump. If she wins it is another 4 Obama like years and it
is Bill's Third Term in Office. Hillary does not have any creative spark at all. She, like
Obama is a dud, but one thing is for sure, she is not Donald.
Too many americans are mesmerized by the fact that Obama is young and articulate, plays well
the presidential role, is generally speaking what is called a nice person or at least behaves
formally as if he were one, has but only of late (thanks to Hillary and Trump perhaps, by contrast)
a fairly high popularity score.
These same americans should go back, for once, to his 2008 campaign to defeat first Hillary
in the primaries and then the republican McCain.
The climate was dominated by the financial meltdown, which really started in the summer
of 2007 and was evident by early spring of 2008. Hillary was the candidate of Wall Street, according
to Obama, the republicans were one and the same with Wall Street and all the big corporate world,
he was Hope and Change.
Hope? What hope? And even more: change, what change? There has been little change, if almost
half of the nation is now ready to accept Trump as a promise of change. Obama's main financial
support came in 2008 from Wall Street, hedge funds in particular, and they were right because
nobody like the first Afro-American president, himself inevitably the incarnation of progressivism,
could save their ass after all the criminal finance they indulged in.
And Obama did save their skin, as everybody knows. Obama took on board plenty of Clinton (and
Wall Street) people, starting in June 2008, when Hillary was finished. You cannot change that
much after the financial crisis if you take Lawrence Summers as economic top advisor and you install
young Geithner at the Treasury. Paul Volcker, who inspired so many good and useful judgements
for candidate Obama, was put in the closet.
Obama is a lawyer by education and he knows who is the best customer. That's not the man or
the woman of Main Street. To them, some of them, he gave Obamacare, which is not all bad and something
of it will remain, I think, but it's not at all that major reform he has been boasting about.
By november 8 everybody will know that Obamacare has serious problems.
So, Obama's inheritance is a problem, and Hillary is running on Obama's inheritance.
nice to see the Guardian have a moment of clarity!
I do feel sympathy for Obama, he, and his family, have effectively spent 8 years held hostage
in the White House by those perfidious neo-conservatives,
they existed in Ronnie Raygun's day but he laughed at them, G H Bush referred to them as 'the
crazies in the basement' and kept close tabs on them,
they were happily meddling away during Bill Clintons era helping destroy Yugoslavia and furiously
planning their 'Project for a New American Century' PNAC basically a blueprint and justification
for every shitty thing done since,
G W Bush let loose the neo-cons of war and we know what they've done,
Barack Obama's greatest folly was to not round them up on the first day of his presidency,
put them in a sack with a brick and throw them in the river,
they have infested his government and followed their own agenda whilst laughing at him, so
the story goes, at a private dinner party Barack was asked why he wasn't doing anything to thwart
these shits and his reply was 'you saw what they did to MLK'
now at the transition to Clinton these neo-cons are actively endorsing her, they consider her
'their girl' Clinton may well turn out to be George 'Dubya' with tits,
Robert Kagan, ringleader of the cabal of neo-cons has endorsed Hillary, who is Roberts
wife? why bless me if it isn't Victoria 'fuck the EU' Nuland,
Samantha Powers is a neo-con acolyte, Ashton Carter is too, the State Dept. and the council
of foreign relations is riddled with their people, all the horror figures of Dubya's days are
lurking there and pulling strings,
Kerry isn't really a neo-con, but the Pentagon and CIA sabotage anything half decent he
tries to do,
Elizabeth Warren as VP would have given Hillary great credibility but she is explicitly not
a neo-conservative,
Basically Hillary is as genuine, left leaning and honest as Tony Blair....
and people wonder why they pin their last tatter of hope Donald 'Mr Bombastic' Trump?
much as I find Trump and his hardcore supporters loathsome I have to point out that he has:
expressed interest in talking with and working with Putin as opposed to starting WW3
accepted the concept of climate change (massive move for a Republican) but pointed out nuclear
war is an even greater and more immediate threat,
pointed out the expenditure of 5-6 Trillion dollars on pointless wars whilst the country crumbles
to ruins, basically a third of the US national debt run up in 15 years,
the fact he wants to make America great again is because he acknowledges that it isn't great
atm,
he's pointed out that Hillary makes all these pledges but has been in a position of power for
decades and has done sod all about it,
and the establishment , especially the neo-cons absolutely hate him...
if you're going to hold your nose and vote for the lesser evil maybe chauvinism and casual
racism are those lesser evils,
LGBT rights will not defend you from nuclear bombs, the heat flash that vaporises you is fairly
indifferent to skin colour or religion,
Also remember the lack of believability of Hillary. She is a politician that has been caught
in lies so often that people just don't believe her. She pushed the soda tax in Philly until Coca-Cola
complained that they gave too much money to the Foundation to be treated that way. Hillary backed
off.
She made millions from speaking to Big Banks. So we really believe she will go after Wells
Fargo? She is beholden to them (unless Goldman Sachs gets to choose).
She says raise taxes to pay fair share, but her biggest supporters are Apple, Google, and their
executives that keep billions of income overseas to avoid the highest corporate income tax in
the world. Do we really think she will hurt the contributors to the Foundation?
And the more the email saga plays out, the longer the untrustworthy issue remains in everyone's
mind.
Does anyone really believe Hillary Clinton will hold anyone on Wall Street accountable??? She
is bought and paid for by Wall Street, starting with all the green backs Hillary and Bill stuffed
in their pockets from the those speaking fees.
Obama's Justice Department motto was, Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Jail. The Democrats are not
going to bite their masters on Wall Street, and of course neither will the Republicans.
Prosecuting bankers, prosecuting torturers, stopping white collar crime, wars, assassinations,
warrantless spying and even scheduling of Marijuana are all under the control of the Executive
Branch. Find even one of these where the President did the right thing.
This is exactly what I was thinking during the first presidential debate. Hillary is an old
pro at saying all the right things, pushing all the right buttons to get the votes she needs,
but can you believe much of what she says?
This is why, despite a poor debate performance overall, I thought Trump was spot on when
he simply said she was a typical politician--all talk, no action, sounds great, none of it will
ever happen. He's correct.
Hillary is promising all sorts of things that she knows will never come to fruition. I voted
for Obama twice, but I'm chomping at the bit to vote for Trump, for no other reason then the fact
that he is the true outsider here. It's a gamble for sure, but with the right advisors he could
potentially institute some major changes that will never happen under a cautious Hillary who will
be obsessed with re-election the minute she starts her first term.
What Frank seldom writes of but remains extremely important to many people on the left in
the US is that Obama has governed as the effective prisoner of the Pentagon and security establishment.
His wars (including on whistleblowers), nuclear build-up, and confrontation with Russia have given
added momentum to growing neoconservative bipartisan consensus that will likely see a new President
Clinton start a war with Russia in Syria and/or Ukraine.
The Democrats are now both so neoliberal and so neoconservative that the only thing that
differentiates them from Republicans is social progressivism. Given a choice between the latter
and greatly increased likelihood of nuclear war, I have to confess to preferring that Trump win.
Trump has been consistent in wanting to lessen tensions with Russia.
As a voter, of course, I could vote for neither, and so am voting for Jill Stein.
"... For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: "Don't send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin." Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it. ..."
"... Militants, true to form, are wreaking havoc as they are pushed out of the city by Russian and Syrian Army forces. "Turkish-Saudi backed 'moderate rebels' showered the residential neighborhoods of Aleppo with unguided rockets and gas jars," one Aleppo resident wrote on social media. The Beirut-based analyst Marwa Osma asked, "The Syrian Arab Army, which is led by President Bashar Assad, is the only force on the ground, along with their allies, who are fighting ISIS - so you want to weaken the only system that is fighting ISIS?" ..."
"... This does not fit with Washington's narrative. As a result, much of the American press is reporting the opposite of what is actually happening. Many news reports suggest that Aleppo has been a "liberated zone" for three years but is now being pulled back into misery. ..."
"... Americans are being told that the virtuous course in Syria is to fight the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian partners. We are supposed to hope that a righteous coalition of Americans, Turks, Saudis, Kurds, and the "moderate opposition" will win. This is convoluted nonsense, but Americans cannot be blamed for believing it. We have almost no real information about the combatants, their goals, or their tactics. Much blame for this lies with our media. ..."
"... Astonishingly brave correspondents in the war zone, including Americans, seek to counteract Washington-based reporting. At great risk to their own safety, these reporters are pushing to find the truth about the Syrian war. Their reporting often illuminates the darkness of groupthink. Yet for many consumers of news, their voices are lost in the cacophony. Reporting from the ground is often overwhelmed by the Washington consensus. ..."
"... Inevitably, this kind of disinformation has bled into the American presidential campaign. At the recent debate in Milwaukee, Hillary Clinton claimed that United Nations peace efforts in Syria were based on "an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva." The precise opposite is true. In 2012 Secretary of State Clinton joined Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel in a successful effort to kill Kofi Annan's UN peace plan because it would have accommodated Iran and kept Assad in power, at least temporarily. No one on the Milwaukee stage knew enough to challenge her. ..."
"... The truth is that Kinzer is right. We have no idea what is going on in Syria. For the elites in Washington and their press lackeys to report that one side is moderate and the other is not is ludicrous. ..."
Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history
of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason
why.
For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression.
They posted notices warning residents: "Don't send your children to school. If you do, we will get
the backpack and you will get the coffin." Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed
workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey
and sold it.
This month, people in Aleppo have finally seen glimmers of hope. The Syrian army and its allies
have been pushing militants out of the city. Last week they reclaimed the main power plant. Regular
electricity may soon be restored. The militants' hold on the city could be ending.
Militants, true to form, are wreaking havoc as they are pushed out of the city by Russian
and Syrian Army forces. "Turkish-Saudi backed 'moderate rebels' showered the residential neighborhoods
of Aleppo with unguided rockets and gas jars," one Aleppo resident wrote on social media. The Beirut-based
analyst Marwa Osma asked, "The Syrian Arab Army, which is led by President Bashar Assad, is the only
force on the ground, along with their allies, who are fighting ISIS - so you want to weaken the only
system that is fighting ISIS?"
This does not fit with Washington's narrative. As a result, much of the American press is
reporting the opposite of what is actually happening. Many news reports suggest that Aleppo has been
a "liberated zone" for three years but is now being pulled back into misery.
Americans are being told that the virtuous course in Syria is to
fight the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian partners. We are supposed
to hope that a righteous coalition of Americans, Turks, Saudis, Kurds,
and the "moderate opposition" will win. This is convoluted nonsense, but
Americans cannot be blamed for believing it. We have almost no real information
about the combatants, their goals, or their tactics. Much blame for this
lies with our media.
Under intense financial pressure, most American newspapers, magazines, and broadcast networks
have drastically reduced their corps of foreign correspondents. Much important news about the world
now comes from reporters based in Washington. In that environment, access and credibility depend
on acceptance of official paradigms. Reporters who cover Syria check with the Pentagon, the State
Department, the White House, and think tank "experts." After a spin on that soiled carousel, they
feel they have covered all sides of the story. This form of stenography produces the pabulum that
passes for news about Syria.
Astonishingly brave correspondents in the war zone, including Americans,
seek to counteract Washington-based reporting. At great risk to their own safety, these reporters
are pushing to find the truth about the Syrian war. Their reporting often illuminates the darkness
of groupthink. Yet for many consumers of news, their voices are lost in the cacophony. Reporting
from the ground is often overwhelmed by the Washington consensus.
Washington-based reporters tell us that one potent force in Syria, al-Nusra,
is made up of "rebels" or "moderates," not that it is the local al-Qaeda franchise. Saudi Arabia
is portrayed as aiding freedom fighters when in fact it is a prime sponsor of ISIS. Turkey has for
years been running a "rat line" for foreign fighters wanting to join terror groups in Syria, but
because the United States wants to stay on Turkey's good side, we hear little about it. Nor are we
often reminded that although we want to support the secular and battle-hardened Kurds, Turkey wants
to kill them. Everything Russia and Iran do in Syria is described as negative and destabilizing,
simply because it is they who are doing it - and because that is the official line in Washington.
Inevitably, this kind of disinformation has bled into the American presidential campaign. At the
recent debate in Milwaukee, Hillary Clinton claimed that United Nations peace efforts in Syria were
based on "an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva." The precise opposite is true. In
2012 Secretary of State Clinton joined Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel in a successful effort to
kill Kofi Annan's UN peace plan because it would have accommodated Iran and kept Assad in power,
at least temporarily. No one on the Milwaukee stage knew enough to challenge her.
Politicians may be forgiven for distorting their past actions. Governments may also be excused
for promoting whatever narrative they believe best suits them. Journalism, however, is supposed to
remain apart from the power elite and its inbred mendacity. In this crisis it has failed miserably.
Americans are said to be ignorant of the world. We are, but so are people in other countries.
If people in Bhutan or Bolivia misunderstand Syria, however, that has no real effect. Our ignorance
is more dangerous, because we act on it. The United States has the power to decree the death of nations.
It can do so with popular support because many Americans - and many journalists - are content with
the official story. In Syria, it is: "Fight Assad, Russia, and Iran! Join with our Turkish, Saudi,
and Kurdish friends to support peace!" This is appallingly distant from reality. It is also likely
to prolong the war and condemn more Syrians to suffering and death.
Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown
University. Follow him on Twitter @stephenkinzer.
kaisy 02/18/16 03:38 PM
The truth is that Kinzer is right. We have no idea what is going on in Syria. For the
elites in Washington and their press lackeys to report that one side is moderate and the other
is not is ludicrous.
When the uprising against Assad began three years ago, initially we were on the side of the
angels, that is until we found out that they were mostly Al Queda. Fast forward and now we
have ISIS, the sworn enemy of the US and anybody else that disagrees with them. So now,
remarkably, some are looking at Assad as the voice of moderation. This is so akin to
Afghanistan and, decades ago, Vietnam. When you don't understand the players and their
ulterior motives, best to not get involved. Me, I'd leave this to the Saudis and Iran to fight
over. Cruz talks about carpet bombing Syria until the sand glows (btw, real Christianlike
there). I say defer to those over there. Eventually they'll run out of people to do the
fighting (happening already with ISIS), then, and only then, we can go in and pick up the
pieces.
jkupie02/19/16 07:16 AM
"Washington-based reporters tell us that one potent force in Syria, al-Nusra, is made
up of "rebels" or "moderates," not that it is the local al-Qaeda franchise."
I don't know enough about the area to confirm or disprove most of Mr. Kinzer's points but I
DO KNOW that this claim is false.
tyfox"n" 02/19/16 07:40 PM
jkupiue I absolutley agree. I have never read or heard al-Nusra described as anything but
an al-Qaeda group, and it is stated every time al-Nusra is mentioned.
pegnva 02/19/16 07:58 AM
Hard to know the truth...but it is interesting Kinzer was able to QUOTE former Sec'ty of
State, now presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at the recent Milwaukee debate for falsely
taking credit, some might say lying to the Am public.
kaisy 02/19/16 11:24 AM
Hillary is on the wrong side of this. She wants a no fly zone in Syria, just the Repubs.
She doesn't speak to the consequences of the policy. Unfortunately Bernie has not challenged
her on this. He really needs to.
NH-Repub 02/19/16 09:22 AM
Leftout is right and Hillary is the Queen of Doublespeak. Obama and his minions would like
nothing better than to mislead the masses and keep them in the dark about everything. That way
they control the media and by proxy - us!
When it comes to war & nukes, I believe that HRC is the more dangerous of
the two.
Before I explain, I would like to invite Yves or any female NC reader to
consider & give their POV on what I'm about say.
HRC is more dangerous because she is the 1st woman to become a serious
contender for a position that has traditionally been considered a "man's job".
Therefore she believes she must not, in any way, be perceived as "soft" or
lacking "toughness" or aggressiveness. She feels compelled to "out-macho" the
macho guys.
Obviously this could have serious implications in any situation involving
escalating tensions. Negotiation or compromise would be off the table if she
thought it could be perceived as soft or weak (and she contemplates being a 2
term pres.)
What say you NC readers? Is this a justified concern or am I letting male
bias color my view?
"... Well, I would hope that informed voters who have a healthy fear of the military-industrial-political complex will vote to keep the scariest of the two re: nuclear war out of office. This particular concern is the reason why I will in all likelihood be voting for the man I've been ridiculing for most of the past year, simply because I am terrified of the prospect of Hillary Clinton as Commander-in-Chief. ..."
"... Trump is a bad choice for a long list of reasons, but the most outrageous things he has proposed require legislation and I think it will be possible to defeat his essential sociopathy on that level, since he will face not only the opposition of the Dem Party, but also MSM and a significant number of people from his own party. ..."
"... But when it comes to the President's ability to put American 'boots on the ground' vs. some theoretical enemy, no such approval from Congress is necessary. Hillary Clinton will be in a position to get us into a costly war without having to overcome any domestic opposition to pull it off. ..."
"... What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not hesitate to pull the trigger. An illuminating article in the NY Times revealed that she always advocates the most muscular and reckless dispositions of U.S. military forces whenever her opinion is solicited. ..."
"... All of her experience re: foreign policy that she's been touting is actually the scariest thing about her, when you look at what her historical dispositions have been. The "No Fly Zone" she's been pushing since last year is just the latest example of her instinct to act recklessly, as it directly invites a military confrontation with Russia. ..."
"... Her greatest political fear-that she might one day be accused by Republicans of being "weak on America's enemies"-is what we have to fear. That fear is what drives her to the most extreme of war hawk positions, since her foundational strategy is to get out in front of the criticism she anticipates. ..."
"... How reckless is Trump likely to be? Well, like Clinton-and all other civilian Commanders-in-Chief, Trump be utterly dependent upon the advice of military professionals in deciding what kind of responses to order. But in the position of The Decider, there is one significant difference between Trump and Clinton. Trump is at least willing and able to 1) view Putin as someone who is not a threat to the United States and 2) is able/willing to question the rationality of America's continued participation in NATO. ..."
Well, I would hope that informed voters who have a healthy fear of the military-industrial-political
complex will vote to keep the scariest of the two re: nuclear war out of office. This particular
concern is the reason why I will in all likelihood be voting for the man I've been ridiculing
for most of the past year, simply because I am terrified of the prospect of Hillary Clinton as
Commander-in-Chief.
Trump is a bad choice for a long list of reasons, but the most outrageous things he has
proposed require legislation and I think it will be possible to defeat his essential sociopathy
on that level, since he will face not only the opposition of the Dem Party, but also MSM and a
significant number of people from his own party.
But when it comes to the President's ability to put American 'boots on the ground' vs.
some theoretical enemy, no such approval from Congress is necessary. Hillary Clinton will be in
a position to get us into a costly war without having to overcome any domestic opposition to pull
it off.
What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the
generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not hesitate
to pull the trigger. An illuminating
article in the NY Times revealed that she always advocates the most muscular and reckless
dispositions of U.S. military forces whenever her opinion is solicited.
All of her experience re: foreign policy that she's been touting is actually the scariest
thing about her, when you look at what her historical dispositions have been. The "No Fly Zone"
she's been pushing since last year is just the latest example of her instinct to act recklessly,
as it directly invites a military confrontation with Russia.
Her willingness to roll the dice, to gamble with other people's lives, is ingrained within
her political personality, of which she is so proud.
Her greatest political fear-that she might one day be accused by Republicans of being "weak
on America's enemies"-is what we have to fear. That fear is what drives her to
the most extreme of war hawk positions, since her foundational strategy is to get out in front
of the criticism she anticipates.
It is what we can count on. She will most assuredly get America into a war within the first
6-9 months of her Presidency, since she will be looking forward to the muscular response she will
order when she is 'tested', as she expects.
How reckless is Trump likely to be? Well, like Clinton-and all other civilian Commanders-in-Chief,
Trump be utterly dependent upon the advice of military professionals in deciding what kind of
responses to order. But in the position of The Decider, there is one significant difference between
Trump and Clinton. Trump is at least willing and able to 1) view Putin as someone who is not a
threat to the United States and 2) is able/willing to question the rationality of America's continued
participation in NATO.
These differences alone are enough to move me to actually vote for someone I find politically
detestable, simply because I fear that the alternative is a high probability of war, and a greatly
enhanced risk of nuclear annihilation-through miscalculation-under a Hillary Clinton Presidency.
Excellent, really excellent summary. Thank you. Especially this observation:
"Her greatest political fear-that she might one day be accused by Republicans of being "weak
on America's enemies"-is what we have to fear. That fear is what drives her to the most extreme
of war hawk positions, since her foundational strategy is to get out in front of the criticism
she anticipates."
2. She (like most sociopaths, although it is unclear whether she is one or not) is not able
to apologize for mistakes. New York Times:
In the end, she settled on language that was similar to Senator John Kerry's when he was the
Democratic nominee in 2004: that if she had known in 2002 what she knows now about Iraqi weaponry,
she would never have voted for the Senate resolution authorizing force.
Yet antiwar anger has festered, and yesterday morning Mrs. Clinton rolled out a new response
to those demanding contrition: She said she was willing to lose support from voters rather
than make an apology she did not believe in.
"If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or
has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from," Mrs. Clinton told an
audience in Dover, N.H., in a veiled reference to two rivals for the nomination, Senator Barack
Obama of Illinois and former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina.
Her decision not to apologize is regarded so seriously within her campaign that some advisers
believe it will be remembered as a turning point in the race: either ultimately galvanizing
voters against her (if she loses the nomination), or highlighting her resolve and her willingness
to buck Democratic conventional wisdom (if she wins).
At the same time, the level of Democratic anger has surprised some of her allies and advisers,
and her campaign is worried about how long it will last and how much damage it might cause
her.
3. Due to her greed she and her close entourage represent a huge security risk. Emailgate had
shown that as for computer security she is an absolute zero. Absolutely, horribly incompetent
and absolutely, horribly greedy (the key idea of private server was to hide her "pay for play"
deals related to Clinton foundation). The same level of computer security incompetence is prevalent
in her close circle (Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, etc) .
4. She strongly believe in the neoconservative foreign-policy agenda by re-casting the neoconservatives'
goals in liberal-interventionist terms. In reality the difference between "liberal interventionism"
and Neoconservatism are pretty superficial (Kagan already calls himself liberal interventionalist)
and Hillary's willingness to infest a foreign-policy establishment with neocons is beyond any
doubt and comparable with Bush II.
As the recent Republican primary contest had shown neoconservatives have virtually no support
among the US voters. Their base is exclusively military-industrial complex. So the reason she
is reaching out to those shady figures is a deceptively simple: she shares common views, respects
their supposed expertise, and wants them in her governing coalition. That means that "… today's
Democrats have become the Party of War: a home for arms merchants, mercenaries, academic war planners,
lobbyists for every foreign intervention, promoters of color revolutions, failed generals, exploiters
of the natural resources of corrupt governments. …" (
http://crookedtimber.org/2016/09/27/donald-trump-the-michael-dukakis-of-the-republican-party/#comment-693421
)
5. She is completely numb to human suffering. She has a total lack of empathy for other people.
"... The potential threats both candidates pose are real. Those advocating Hillary as the better, safer choice cannot offer any reliable assurances that she will be able, or willing, to pursue policies that increase the well-being and security of any but the already affluent and secure. ..."
"... Hillary's long and unhappy history of war-mongering has not, imho, received anything like the media scrutiny it deserves, and won't until she's correctly identified in the minds of most as an advocate of 'liberal interventionism'/violent regime change and on an equal footing of imbecility and irresponsibility in the minds of the public as Bush, Cheney, and Blair. ..."
"... When the busts of Hillary, Bush, Blair, and Cheney form a Mt. Rushmore of savage stupidity for all to see and all school children studying the early 21st-century American-UK wars recognize the monument as such, that task of 'highlighting' her role in this enormously costly and damaging humanitarian and political disaster will be at least part way done. ..."
"... Obama, as Stevenjohnson notes, has not entirely surrendered his dream of forcing 'democracy' on Syria. There is abundant evidence, however, the US and a number of other nations have been arming Syrian rebels (ISIL and Al Quaida) since 2011, at least. ..."
"... The result of Obama and Hillary's love of violent regime change has been an increase in the suffering of millions in North Africa and the Middle East, the collapse of basic services such as fresh water and hospitals, and a new flood of refugees seeking to escape the beneficence of Hillary Clinton and her boss. ..."
"... If you are supporting Hillary you are supporting violent regime change in the Middle East and the love of violence of Bush and Cheney, not too mention drone strikes, the surveillance state. That's who you are. ..."
"... Dealing first with Libya and Syria, Hillary Clinton served as the US Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, which makes her at least one of the prime architects of US foreign policy, and certainly the most important administration official after Obama responsible for foreign policy. Facts which place the burden of proof regarding her involvement in US foreign policy formation and execution squarely on you. ..."
"... HRC's involvement in Iraq is less well-understood, and that's likely no accident either, given the mileage democrats have generated out of pinning the entire bi-partisan debacle on Bush and Cheney. From the linked dialogue above featuring Robert Wright and Max Abrahms (Northeastern) http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/43967?in=01:10&out=12:21 ..."
"... The chaotic civil war in Syria and Iraq seems like another example where the U.S. is having a hard time "thinking" things thru realistically. ..."
"... One interpretation is she's stupid and vicious as a badge of class honor, blissfully consistent with the bloodthirsty record of Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger. Unfortunately, that might be true, though I think if it is true, it is more likely a product of being caught up in the amoral bubble of political and media process that has enveloped the whole foreign policy establishment than any personal psychopathy. ..."
@ 278 There's nothing quite so amusing as advocates of free speech 'commanding' the comments section
of somebody else's blog and then issuing permissions to comment, or instructions to how and what
to post. (fn, rich, colin, TM in one form, or another)
Merian is quite right that in the artificially and arbitrarily limited universe of a one-time
choice between just two options, everything written can be seen as pro/con against one or the
other if everything that is written has only one meaning and will be read and understood
by all as having the same meaning.
The fact is that a great many people inside the US and outside the US may well lack any/much
understanding of the decision-making processes that led up to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria,
not to mention America's long history with Iran, and America's support of Evil Axis bad guy number
1 Saddam Hussein. The dynamics are complex even for those familiar with the basic topography.
The rhetorical parallels leading up to the Iraq invasions and the presidential elections are
striking and easy to identify. Facts don't matter, the urgency and severity of the threat demands
uniform action, and the enemy is a once in an eon threat of epic proportion to the physical and
moral existence of the known universe.
The potential threats both candidates pose are real. Those advocating Hillary as the better,
safer choice cannot offer any reliable assurances that she will be able, or willing, to pursue
policies that increase the well-being and security of any but the already affluent and secure.
Hillary's long and unhappy history of war-mongering has not, imho, received anything like
the media scrutiny it deserves, and won't until she's correctly identified in the minds of most
as an advocate of 'liberal interventionism'/violent regime change and on an equal footing of imbecility
and irresponsibility in the minds of the public as Bush, Cheney, and Blair.
When the busts of Hillary, Bush, Blair, and Cheney form a Mt. Rushmore of savage stupidity
for all to see and all school children studying the early 21st-century American-UK wars recognize
the monument as such, that task of 'highlighting' her role in this enormously costly and damaging
humanitarian and political disaster will be at least part way done.
For Merian and others: a timely post from Matt Welch at Reason on Gary Johnson via the o'l perfessor
who sees the coverage of Hillary and Trump as you.
28 September 2015 "Obama tells the UN Assad must go."
18 August 2011 "Assad Must Go Obama Says" (Wapo) (no links to follow to avoid moderation)
1 August 2012 "Obama Authorizes Secret US Support for Syrian Rebels" (Reuters)
Obama, as Stevenjohnson notes, has not entirely surrendered his dream of forcing 'democracy'
on Syria. There is abundant evidence, however, the US and a number of other nations have been
arming Syrian rebels (ISIL and Al Quaida) since 2011, at least.
The result of Obama and Hillary's love of violent regime change has been an increase
in the suffering of millions in North Africa and the Middle East, the collapse of basic services
such as fresh water and hospitals, and a new flood of refugees seeking to escape the beneficence
of Hillary Clinton and her boss.
All this after the 'lessons' of Iraq and Afghanistan.
If you are supporting Hillary you are supporting violent regime change in the Middle East
and the love of violence of Bush and Cheney, not too mention drone strikes, the surveillance state.
That's who you are.
kidneystones 10.02.16 at 3:58 am
ZM@ 303. The linked dialogue above explores the role Hillary and Obama, in particular, played
in providing the arms and support to a rebellion that Assad, like Gaddafi, could have ended years
ago.
Like Gaddafi, Assad is not being attacked by moderate democrats keen to legalize gay marriage,
but rather Sunni militias deeply sympathetic to ISIL and Al Quaida, or those forces operating
in Syria and western Iraq.
You're right to point out that the only result of US support of ISIL related Sunnis has been
the prolonging of the civil war and the promulgation of the delusion that violent-regime change
brings peace and security. Yes, five years of US arms, threats, and intimidation has destroyed
Syria, in much the same was as the Hillary promoted war in Libya destroyed that regime.
The pro-Hillary-Obama media is extremely reluctant in the run-up to the election to point out
explicitly what a spectacular FP failure the US has created for itself right now, with Russian
jets flying over Aleppo and Assad about to finally humiliate the insurgents and all those like
Hillary and Obama who encouraged the bloodshed.
The Obama-Hillary policy has been a five-year bloodbath and there's no sign Hillary wants to
do anything but press for a no-fly zone over Syria in order for the US to continue to funnel more
death and destruction into the already devastated moonscape.
It ain't like anyone she knows is dying over there. Syrians can't vote in November.
The attitude of her supporters seems be: fuck it – Syria is on the other side of the world,
so what's the big deal?
Mitt Romney tied the family dog to the roof of his car. What about that ?
kidneystones 10.02.16 at 4:05 am
@ 305 Hi Merian.
Go tell your students that you're supporting the candidate who voted for the Iraq invasion
(biggest mistake in modern US history), persuaded plenty of other Democrats and ordinary Americans
to suspend their judgment and do the same. And who also played an instrumental role in destroying
Libya, promotes violent regime-change in Syria and enjoys the support of all the same neocon warmongers
who've made the US into a pariah state. Play the 'We came, we saw, he died – ha-ha-ha" Hillary
CBS video for them.
Then explain to them that Hillary is the better candidate.
See what happens.
Omega Centauri 10.02.16 at 4:40 am 314
I don't see HRC as a prime mover in either Iraq or Libya. In the first case Iraq was a neocon/Bush
project, and they were threatening to extract a terrible price from anyone who used their position
to block their ambitions. Libya was primarily a Arab-league cum French-British project. Not supporting
it could have potentially damaged our relationship with key allies France and Britain. Of course
Libya was a slippery slope, once started it soon became obvious there was no solution where Qaddafi
survived and the Libyan people wouldn't end up paying dearly. Not that her acquiescence in either
case demonstrated either good long term judgement or courage, but it also doesn't demonstrate
that she was a principle architect of either project.
314@ "I don't see HRC as a prime mover in either Iraq, or Libya."
That's probably a great comfort to the grifters keen to see her elected. The facts, however,
suggest otherwise. Dealing first with Libya and Syria, Hillary Clinton served as the US Secretary
of State from 2009 to 2013, which makes her at least one of the prime architects of US foreign
policy, and certainly the most important administration official after Obama responsible for foreign
policy. Facts which place the burden of proof regarding her involvement in US foreign policy formation
and execution squarely on you.
HRC's involvement in Iraq is less well-understood, and that's likely no accident either,
given the mileage democrats have generated out of pinning the entire bi-partisan debacle on Bush
and Cheney. From the linked dialogue above featuring Robert Wright and Max Abrahms (Northeastern)
http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/43967?in=01:10&out=12:21
bruce wilder 10.02.16 at 7:49 pm
Anarcissie @ 239: We basically have a whole class of people, at the top of the social order,
who seem devoid of a moral sense - a problem which the upcoming election isn't going to touch,
much less solve. I don't blame Clinton for this . . .
JimV @ 317: I am sorry if I mischaracterized BW as implying that HRC is evil, . . .
Peter T @ 320: Whatever the merits of their individual stances, there is no reason to suppose
that either Obama or Hillary can exert more than loose control over this mess [the multi-sided
regional civil war engulfing Syria and northern Iraq]
stevenjohnson @ 324: The recent leak that Clinton is against nuclear armed cruise missiles
and isn't committed to Obama's trillion dollar nuclear weapons upgrade appears to suggest she's
not quite on board with plans for general war.
LFC @ 330: I disagree w the notion that the pt of nuclear 'modernization' is to make plausible
the threat of "imminent general nuclear war." If U.S. military planners took hallucinogenic drugs
and went nuts, they could "plausibly" threaten "imminent general nuclear war" right now with the
US nuclear arsenal as currently configured. They don't need to upgrade the weapons to do that.
The program is prob more the result of rigid, unimaginative thinking at top levels of Pentagon
and influence of outside companies (e.g. Boeing etc) that work on the upgrades.
I don't know if that seems like a somewhat random collection of precursors to assemble as preface
to a comment. I was thinking of picking out a few upthread references to climate change and the
response to it (or inadequacy thereof) as well.
I am a little disturbed by the idea of leaving the impression that I think Hillary Clinton
is "evil". What I think is that American politics in general is not generating realistic, adaptive
governance.
I am using that bloodless phrase, "realistic, adaptive governance", deliberately, to emphasize
wanting to step outside the passions of the Presidential election. I think the Manichean narrative
where Trump is The Most Horrible Candidate Evah and Everyone Must Line Up Behind Clinton as an
Ethical Imperative of a High Order is part of the process of propaganda and manipulation that
distorts popular discussion and understanding and helps to create a politics that cannot govern
realistically and adaptively. This is not about me thinking Trump is anything but a horrible mess
of a candidate who ought to be kept far from power.
I see Clinton as someone who is trapped inside the dynamics of this seriously deranged politics
qua political process. I don't see her as entirely blameless. Politicians like Obama and either
Clinton, at the top of the political order, are masters (keeping in mind that there are many masters
working to some extent in opposition to one another as rivals, allies, enemies and so on) of the
process and create the process by the exercise of their mastery, as much as they are mastered
by it. I see them as trapped by the process they have helped (more than a little opportunistically)
to create, but trapped as Dr Frankenstein is by his Creature.
Clinton must struggle with the ethical contradictions of governance at the highest levels of
leadership: she must, in the exercise of power in office and out, practice the political art of
the possible in relation to crafting policy that will be "good" in the sense of passably effective
and efficient - this may involve a high degree of foresightful wonkery or a lethally ruthless
statesmanship, depending upon circumstances. Beside this business of making the great machinery
of the state lumber forward, she must strive to appear "good", like Machiavelli's Prince, even
while playing an amoral game of real politick, gathering and shepherding a complex coalition of
allies, supporters, donors and cooperative enemies.
Machiavelli, when he was considering the Princely business of appearing "good", was contending
with the hypocrisies and impossible idealism of authoritarian Catholic morality. He barely connected
with anything that we would recognize as democratic Public Opinion and could scarcely conceive
of what Ivy Lee or Edward Bernays, let alone Fox News, Vox and the world wide web might do to
politics.
We are trapped, just as Clinton is trapped, in the vast communication nightmare of surrealistic
news and opinion washing in upon us in a tide that never ebbs. We are trapped by the politics
of media "gotchas" and Kinsley Gaffes (A Kinsley gaffe occurs when a political gaffe reveals some
truth that a politician did not intend to admit.)
I don't think Clinton lacks a moral sense. What I think is that Clinton's moral sense is exhausted
calculating what to say or do within the parameters of media-synthesized conventional wisdom policed
by people who are themselves exhausted trying to manage it. Matt Lauer's interview with Clinton
was notorious for the relentless and clueless questioning about the email server, although I,
personally, was shocked when he asked her a question that seemed premised on the idea that veterans
should be offended by admitting the Iraq War was a mistake.
I would think it is easy to see that the media circus is out of control, especially when a
clown like Trump graduates from The Apprentice to the Republican nomination. YMMV, but
I think this is a serious problem that goes beyond vividly imagined sepia-toned parodies of Trump's
candidacy as the second coming of Mussolini.
While we're getting ourselves agitated over Trump's racism or threats to bar Muslims from entry,
apparently the Military-Industrial Complex, left on autopilot, is re-designing the nation's nuclear
arsenal to make the outbreak of nuclear war far more likely. And, the closest Clinton gets to
a comment, campaign commitment or public discussion, let alone an exercise of power, is a PR "leak"!!!
The chaotic civil war in Syria and Iraq seems like another example where the U.S. is having
a hard time "thinking" things thru realistically. Clinton offered up a sound-bite last year,
saying that she favored imposing a "no-fly" zone, which was exposed as kind of crazy idea, given
that the Russians as well as Assad's government are the ones flying, not to mention the recent
experience with a no-fly zone in Libya. One interpretation is she's stupid and vicious as
a badge of class honor, blissfully consistent with the bloodthirsty record of Madeleine Albright
and Henry Kissinger. Unfortunately, that might be true, though I think if it is true, it is more
likely a product of being caught up in the amoral bubble of political and media process that has
enveloped the whole foreign policy establishment than any personal psychopathy. What's most
alarming to me is that we cannot count on personal character to put the brakes on that process,
which is now the process of governance. I am writing now of the process of governance by public
relations that was has been exposed a bit in profiles of the Deputy National Security Advisor
for Strategic Communications, Ben Rhodes.
In Syria, it has become almost comical, if you can overlook the bodies piling up, as the U.S.
has sought a the mythical unicorn of Syrian Moderate Democrats whom the Pentagon or the CIA can
advise, train and arm. This is foreign policy by PR narrative and it is insanely unrealistic.
But, our politics is trapped in it, and, worse, policy is trapped in it. Layer after layer of
b.s. have piled up obscuring U.S. interests and practical options. Recently, U.S. forces supporting
the Turks have come dangerously close to blowing up U.S. forces supporting the Kurds. When you
find yourself on opposing sides of a civil war like Charles I you may be in the process of losing
your head. Some of the worst elements opposing Assad have been engaged in a transparent re-branding
exercise aimed at garnering U.S. aid. And, U.S. diplomats and media face the high challenge of
explaining why the U.S. supports Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
But, hey, Clinton will get Robert Kagan's vote and a better tomorrow is only a Friedman unit
away, so it is all good.
kidneystones 10.02.16 at 9:24 pm
@328 stevenjohnson and Peter T cover the details. As an outsider supportive of negotiated settlements
in all cases, rather than unilateral military action and violent regime change, I'm interested
principally in ensuring that partisan political preferences do not obscure the historical record.
Bluntly put, dictators routinely abuse bomb their own civilians as the 'need' arises. Nor is the
US the only state actor keen to profit in the broadest sense of the term from political division.
The UN was formed, in large part, to provide a forum/mechanism for peaceful conflict resolution.
Each time state actors such as Russia, China, the US, France, and the UK either bypass the UN,
or use the UN to sanction attacks by larger states on smaller states, the entire edifice becomes
a little weaker.
Hillary is not the only individual with Libyan and Syrian blood on her hands. She's simply
the only individual directly involved in Iraq, Libya, and Syria running to the 45th president
of the US.
bruce wilder 10.02.16 at 9:54 pm
Rich Puchalsky @ 334
People are in information overload most of the time, and where politics are concerned, they
really just want to know who to root for. They ask, "who is the good guy? who is the bad guy?"
"Whose right?" "What should be done?" And, people like the opinions they have, whatever those
opinions may be; they use their political opinions to feed their sense of self-esteem and social
belonging, for better and for worse.
I have some friends, who are really into a particular sport as fans, not participants. One
guy knows everything about baseball. It is fun to watch a game with him, because he knows when
someone is about to try to steal a base and stuff like that and he can explain the manager's strategy
and has gossip about the players careers and personal lives. And, apparently, he has an encyclopedic
knowledge of baseball history - appears to, anyway: what dramatic thing happened in game 3 of
the 1967 World Series and so on and exactly why everyone hated Ty Cobb.
No one like that shows up at CT to talk politics. Maybe it is just as well. Sports guys can
wield that knowledge and remain affable, but political guys tend to be arrogant and off-putting.
But, I do think we could use more of that spirit sometimes.
I was thinking about what a brilliant innovation the Clinton Foundation is, how well it is
designed to solve the problems of Machiavelli's Prince. But, we would struggle to discuss it in
those terms; the partisan contest means that the CF is either horribly corrupt or prosaically
innocent. The pressure to evaluate it is so high, that seeing the functional details is hard.
I've seen some articles that attempt to understand the CF as a means to the political ambitions
of the Clintons, but they seldom grasp the awesome accomplishment it is in ways that also fully
understand why enemies of the Clintons are keen to attack it and why it so reliably produces the
neoliberal pablum that Thomas Franks despises. If we could imagine a Marx tackling the CF as a
vehicle of class interest, that would be pretty interesting.
Guardian is firmly in Hillary camp. Neoliberal media defends neoliberal candidate. What can
you expect?
Notable quotes:
"... "Some people insist on disguising this Great Satan as the savior angel." -- Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei, referring to the United States, 2015. ..."
"... The US has already been doing that for a long time. Your country is currently allied with al Qaeda in Syria and other so called moderates whose intention is to create a sharia law fundamentalist society as aopposed to Assad who is euro centric and secular. ..."
"... From the article: We know from Wikileaks that she believed privately in the past that Saudi Arabia was the largest source for terrorist funding worldwide, and that the Saudi government was not doing enough to stop that funding. ..."
"... and yet the Clinton Foundation benefits massively from KSA donations ..."
"... I heard that Donald Trump speaks out against the USA funding extremists to overthrow leaders like Assad, while they couldn't care about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. Tourists are being shot in Tunisia from extremists in Libya since we became involved in killing Gaddafi. ..."
"... The USA armed and trained extremists in Afghanistan to get one over on Russia, and despite more British troops and civilians being killed by USA friendly fire than the 'enemy' our media never make the same fuss about the USA. ..."
"... The USA didn't care for years when the government they helped implement in Afghanistan made women walk around in blue tents and banned them from education. ..."
"... Different political systems; two people who come from very different backgrounds with different views and experiences. Ahmadinejad was a social conservative with a populist economic agenda. Trump is all over the map, but in terms of his staff and advisers and his economic plans he's much more of a conventional Republican. David Duke's admiration is the main thing the two have in common. ..."
"... Clinton is tripe. She, and her kin, have a ponderous history of talk, and either inaction, or actions that generate disastrous results. Zero accomplishments across the board. Those who'd vote for Hillary must have a "horse" in this race. ..."
"... Yawn... The Guardian has Trump and Putin bashing on the brain. ..."
"... John Bolton as possible Secretary of State? http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/john-bolton-no-regrets-about-toppling-saddam/article/2564463 Unless you're not talking about the guy who looks like a dead ringer for Mr Pastry that is a really terrifying proposition. ..."
"... USA and Britain are very directly responsible for Iran being ruled by the Islamic mafia which has been in power in Iran since 1979. Iran had a democratic government which for the benefit of its people and against the stealing of its oil by Britain, nationalised the oil. Britain then, desperate to carry on stealing the Iranian oil persuaded USA to collaborate with it to covertly organise a coup by MI5 and CIA to topple the legitimate democratic government and install a puppet dictatorship. ..."
"... All that happened in 1953, and Britain and USA totally admitted to all that 30 years later when the official secrets were declassified. ..."
"... ..., forgot to mention, Jimmy C1arter recently admitted that while he was the president, they contributed to the funding of the Khomeini gang against their own installed ally, the Shah in 1979 to topple him ..."
"... Trump makes George W Bush seem like an intellectual heavyweight and Hillary Clinton makes Bush seem as honest and truthful as a Girl Scout! ..."
"... What a shitty choice Americans have to make this time round. A compulsive liar warmonger or an ignorant buffoonish bigot.... ..."
"... US hatred for Iran is hard to fathom. Other adversaries have been forgiven: Germany, Italy, Japan, Vietnam, China. Iran is an outlier. ..."
"... I think it's mainly to keep US allies happy. Both Saudi Arabia and Israel regard Iran as their greatest enemy and the Syrian Civil War is largely a proxy conflict between the Saudis and the Iranians over their respective oil supplies, regional clout and religious affinity. ..."
"... Vote Clinton and absolutely nothing changes or improves. Hillary might as well take golf lessons from Barack, and saxophone lessons from bonking Bill, every day of her presidency. ..."
"... I wouldn't be at all surprised if the CIA and/or the US Armed Forces do that sort of thing too actually! The CIA, after all, toppled the then democratically elected PM of Iran in 1953, forcibly installing the Shah in his place, the CIA helped bring the Taliban and Saddam to power in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively in the first place, unleashing decades of death and destruction on the peoples of those two countries ..."
"... When the Iraqi people rose up against Saddam's brutal dictatorship back in 1991, the US actually helped him crush the rebellion, thus ensuring he stayed in power. ..."
"... One of Trump's top advisors John Bolton wrote an article for the New York Times titled "To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran" calling for a joint US-Israel strike on Iran, including regime change. He could well end up being Sec. Of State if Trump wins. ..."
"... Meanwhile Clinton is on record as saying that Iran are the world's main sponsor of terrorism and that if she became president she would obliterate Iran if they attacked Israel. Given that Hezbollah are always involved in tit for tat encounters with Israel, and Clinton feels Hezbollah is effectively the state of Iran, it wouldn't take much. ..."
"... Bolton is a vile neocon of the lowest order, what a charade if he gets a senior post and they call Hillary a warmonger? Just wait for Bolton, you mugs ..."
"... Let's hope the Saudis defeat the Houthi uprising and support the internationally recognised government of Yemen. Oh, sorry this is the Guardian: let's hope the Russians defeat the Sunni uprising and support the internationally recognised government of Syria... ..."
"... Yes. Trump is going to steal ISIS's oil. Only slight hole in that theory is that ISIS doesn't own any phucking oil. They aren't a nation state, just thieves. Stealing a thief's stolen goods is still stealing. ..."
"... I've never understood why we're allied to Saudi. They were complicit in 9/11, they hate the west and despise us. ..."
"... >I've never understood why we're allied to Saudi. Oil. Oil. And more Oil. ..."
"... There's nothing bizarre about working with Russia on Middle Eastern issues unless you're married to the idea of a new Cold War. Why Washington is so hell-bent on making Russians the enemies again is beyond me. ..."
"... Russia - does it really need all that land? Wouldn't it be better if Vladivostok was Obamagrad and Ekaterinburg was Katemiddletown? ..."
"... What exactly is the US now? a supplier of sophisticated weaponary to "rebels" or rather terrorists that the legitimate governnent ( with Russian help thankfully) is trying to defeat... ..."
"... There is no moral equivalence here. Once you look at what western intel has been upto all these decades, nowhere could Russia be close to the evil that the US and UK are. ..."
Donny is the best chance for the lasting world peace and stability because he is more likely
to work with Russians on key geopolitical issues.
Hillary is the best chance for ww3 and nuclear anihilation of the mainland American cities
because she is russophobic, demonizer of Russia, hell bent on messing with them and unexplicably
encouraged to do so by supposedly "normal" people in mainstream media.
The US has already been doing that for a long time. Your country is currently allied with
al Qaeda in Syria and other so called moderates whose intention is to create a sharia law fundamentalist
society as aopposed to Assad who is euro centric and secular.
From the article: We know from Wikileaks that she believed privately in the past that Saudi
Arabia was the largest source for terrorist funding worldwide, and that the Saudi government was
not doing enough to stop that funding.
You know who else believes that about the KSA? Joe Biden.
I heard that Donald Trump speaks out against the USA funding extremists to overthrow leaders
like Assad, while they couldn't care about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia. Tourists are being
shot in Tunisia from extremists in Libya since we became involved in killing Gaddafi.
The USA armed and trained extremists in Afghanistan to get one over on Russia, and despite
more British troops and civilians being killed by USA friendly fire than the 'enemy' our media
never make the same fuss about the USA. It wasn't long ago that many doctors were killed
in a hospital by a USA bomb, but I only found out about it on the Doctors Without Borders facebook
page.
The USA didn't care for years when the government they helped implement in Afghanistan
made women walk around in blue tents and banned them from education.
The Ahmadinejad - Trump comparison is a weak comparison.
Different political systems; two people who come from very different backgrounds with different
views and experiences. Ahmadinejad was a social conservative with a populist economic agenda.
Trump is all over the map, but in terms of his staff and advisers and his economic plans he's
much more of a conventional Republican. David Duke's admiration is the main thing the two have
in common.
Clinton is tripe. She, and her kin, have a ponderous history of talk, and either inaction,
or actions that generate disastrous results. Zero accomplishments across the board. Those who'd
vote for Hillary must have a "horse" in this race.
I won't be specific, but that horse, or horses, are generally the disenfranchised ones. What
to say: I get their plight. But Hillary? Elected, she only make sure they stay that way so she'll
be elected again. Time to wake up. There ain't no "pie in the sky", but with perserverance, all's
possible, and likely. Trump's the guy.
USA and Britain are very directly responsible for Iran being ruled by the Islamic mafia which
has been in power in Iran since 1979. Iran had a democratic government which for the benefit of
its people and against the stealing of its oil by Britain, nationalised the oil. Britain then,
desperate to carry on stealing the Iranian oil persuaded USA to collaborate with it to covertly
organise a coup by MI5 and CIA to topple the legitimate democratic government and install a puppet
dictatorship.
All that happened in 1953, and Britain and USA totally admitted to all that 30 years later
when the official secrets were declassified. One of the consequences of that criminal act
was that it lead to the Islamic revolution which brought the Islam clergy to power which turned
this most strategically, economically, and culturally important country of the region into an
enemy of the west, supporter of terrorism, human rights abuser, arch enemy of Israel, total economic
ruin, and eternal nuclear threat to the region- not to mention the Shia-Sunni sectarian division
that it has perpetrated which to the large extent has contributed to the mighty mess that the
Middle East is in now and potentially spreading to the outside of the region.
..., forgot to mention, Jimmy C1arter recently admitted that while he was the president, they
contributed to the funding of the Khomeini gang against their own installed ally, the Shah in
1979 to topple him
I think it's mainly to keep US allies happy. Both Saudi Arabia and Israel regard Iran as their
greatest enemy and the Syrian Civil War is largely a proxy conflict between the Saudis and the
Iranians over their respective oil supplies, regional clout and religious affinity.
Though the continuance of PNAC's schema shouldn't be discounted either. US policy hawks close
to both Clinton and Trump still aim for dominance in Central Eurasia. I expect if they could press
a button and magically summon up a new Shah for Iran they'd jump at the chance.
Cuba spent over half a century living beneath the shadow of American wrath too for different
reasons. Though perhaps burning revenge at the loss of a compliant puppet also played a role.
Vote Clinton and absolutely nothing changes or improves. Hillary might as well take golf lessons
from Barack, and saxophone lessons from bonking Bill, every day of her presidency.
Vote Trump and things are going to change in America. No more pussyfooting around.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the CIA and/or the US Armed Forces do that sort of thing
too actually! The CIA, after all, toppled the then democratically elected PM of Iran in 1953,
forcibly installing the Shah in his place, the CIA helped bring the Taliban and Saddam to power
in Afghanistan and Iraq respectively in the first place, unleashing decades of death and destruction
on the peoples of those two countries.
When the Iraqi people rose up against Saddam's brutal dictatorship back in 1991, the US
actually helped him crush the rebellion, thus ensuring he stayed in power. So the US is arguably
at least partly responsible for the crimes Saddam and the Taliban committed (in the case of Iraq,
as well as murdering at least hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the US is probably also partly
responsible for Saddam's DRAINING OF THE MARSHLANDS OF SOUTHER IRAQ).
One of Trump's top advisors John Bolton wrote an article for the New York Times titled "To
Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran" calling for a joint US-Israel strike on Iran, including regime change.
He could well end up being Sec. Of State if Trump wins.
Meanwhile Clinton is on record as saying that Iran are the world's main sponsor of terrorism
and that if she became president she would obliterate Iran if they attacked Israel. Given that
Hezbollah are always involved in tit for tat encounters with Israel, and Clinton feels Hezbollah
is effectively the state of Iran, it wouldn't take much.
Let's hope the Saudis defeat the Houthi uprising and support the internationally recognised
government of Yemen. Oh, sorry this is the Guardian: let's hope the Russians defeat the Sunni
uprising and support the internationally recognised government of Syria...
Yes. Trump is going to steal ISIS's oil. Only slight hole in that theory is that ISIS doesn't
own any phucking oil. They aren't a nation state, just thieves. Stealing a thief's stolen goods
is still stealing.
There's nothing bizarre about working with Russia on Middle Eastern issues unless you're married
to the idea of a new Cold War. Why Washington is so hell-bent on making Russians the enemies again
is beyond me.
What exactly is the US now? a supplier of sophisticated weaponary to "rebels" or rather terrorists
that the legitimate governnent ( with Russian help thankfully) is trying to defeat...
Both America and Russia have been supplying arms to terrorists or to destabilise elected Govts.
Since the end of WW2. Neither country has a right to take the moral high ground especially not
Russia at this time with the revelations coming out about shooting down passenger aircraft. You're
both as bad as each other.
There is no moral equivalence here. Once you look at what western intel has been upto all
these decades, nowhere could Russia be close to the evil that the US and UK are.
"... But today's Democrats have become the Party of War: a home for arms merchants, mercenaries, academic war planners, lobbyists for every foreign intervention, promoters of color revolutions, failed generals, exploiters of the natural resources of corrupt governments. We have American military bases in 80 countries, and there are now American military personnel on the ground in about 130 countries, a remarkable achievement since there are only 192 recognized countries. ..."
"... How you can defend such a deeply flawed (as in insane) candidate is beyond me. ..."
"... Robert Kagan is desperate to save us from fascism, you see. Because anything Athens did wrong in the Peloponnesian War, America can do again, but bigger. And, his wife is a favorite to become Secretary of State. She's deeply experienced, having brought peace to Ukraine. ..."
"... I went through this with them in a recent discussion. For the most part, liberals (American terminology) simply do not care for or about anti-war and anti-imperialism arguments. Just saving everyone a little time here. ..."
John and Robert Kennedy devoted their greatest commitments and energies to the prevention of
war and the preservation of peace. To them that was not an abstract formula but the necessary
foundation of human life. But today's Democrats have become the Party of War: a home for
arms merchants, mercenaries, academic war planners, lobbyists for every foreign intervention,
promoters of color revolutions, failed generals, exploiters of the natural resources of corrupt
governments. We have American military bases in 80 countries, and there are now American military
personnel on the ground in about 130 countries, a remarkable achievement since there are only
192 recognized countries. Generals and admirals announce our national policies. Theater
commanders are our principal ambassadors. Our first answer to trouble or opposition of any
kind seems always to be a military movement or action.
How you can defend such a deeply flawed (as in insane) candidate is beyond me.
likbez: How you can defend such a deeply flawed (as in insane) candidate is beyond me.
How? By focusing on the other guy, on Trump.
Today, Brad Delong points to the daily anti-Trump screed by James Fallows, which features a
four month old piece by Robert Kagan: I disagree with Robert Kagan on just about everything.
But in the months since he originally published his essay, called "This Is How Fascism Comes to
America," I think his arguments have come to seem more rather than less relevant.
Robert Kagan is desperate to save us from fascism, you see. Because anything Athens did
wrong in the Peloponnesian War, America can do again, but bigger. And, his wife is a favorite
to become Secretary of State. She's deeply experienced, having brought peace to Ukraine.
None of that matters because Trump is unprecedented.
Anarcissie 09.29.16 at 2:47 am
likbez 09.29.16 at 12:35 am @ 118 -
I went through this with them in a recent discussion. For the most part, liberals (American
terminology) simply do not care for or about anti-war and anti-imperialism arguments. Just saving
everyone a little time here.
OK, here's what puzzles me. Looking back upthread, what is the source of the really deep antipathy
that people on CT have for Hillary Clinton? I haven't heard anyone say that her tax policy is
not progressive enough. That's a legitimate argument, but no one seems excited about it. Apparently
two things really get people hot under the collar. (1) She is somewhat interventionist militarily.
Of course, people aren't content just to say that, they have to say that she is a "war criminal"
(sorry, could I have some specifics on this?), or at least a warmonger. But basically, by that
they just mean that she is somewhat interventionist militarily. (2) She's more inclined toward
trade agreements than most people here.
OK, fine, these are legitimate areas of disagreement. Here's what puzzles me: those are the
traditional positions of paleoliberals in the Democratic Party. You don't have to like them, but
there's nothing neo about them. So how is Clinton a neoliberal?
There's one respect in which Clinton follows the DLC line: this business of favoring means-testing
rather than universal programs. I think that as a political strategy this is bad, and I get irritated
every time she trots out that line about not wanting to pay for Donald Trump's kids (there just
aren't that many rich people, and they're not sending their kids to state schools anyway). But
I haven't heard anyone say they could never vote for Clinton because of this. So what's neo about
Clinton? What distinguishes her from Mondale?
... ... ...
LFC 09.29.16 at 1:29 pm
@H Frant
I'm glad you picked up on the imbalanced quote re JFK etc, b/c I was too lazy to do it. The
explanation is that the quoted piece is by Adam Walinsky, who was (I think, w/o Wiki'ing) a speechwriter/adviser
for RFK. Walinsky's probably getting on in years, and his idea of a column is to contrast the
peace-loving JFK (and RFK) to the bad promoters of American empire and bases-around-the-world
who followed him/them. Which is somewhat weird.
This is a pt about the overall trajectory of US f.p. since c.1947, which has exhibited a good
deal (though not, of course, complete) continuity (as well as some variation from admin to admin.).
[Whether JFK, had he lived, wd have gotten involved in Vietnam in the major way LBJ did, or wd
have stopped short of that kind of escalation, is a separate and disputed question, and there
is evidence to support conflicting answers – but it doesn't alter the main pt above. A past CT
commenter, who went by 'mattski' iirc, was very big on the JFK-wd-not-have-escalated-had-he-lived
thesis, so one can find some cites supporting that view if one searches on mattski's past comments
here.]
Walinsky also lumps JFK and RFK together, which is problematic since, inter alia, RFK lived
5 yrs longer and into a diff. historical period in which he played a major role.
"... By the standards of the Nuremberg trials, then, the aggressive, unjustified invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 were unquestionably war crimes. A just government would have put Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, and so forth on trial. One might note that the Nuremberg trials, the crime was taken seriously enough to earn condemnation to death by hanging. ..."
Howard Frant 09.29.16 at
4:21 am @ 130:
'… She is somewhat
interventionist
militarily. Of course,
people aren't content
just to say that, they
have to say that she is a
"war criminal" (sorry,
could I have some
specifics on this?)….'
I was giving this a rest,
but since you ask, it is
my duty to comply with
your request.
First, we need to
determine what a war
criminal is. I go by the
standards of the
Nuremberg War Crimes
Trials, in whose
charter
we read
(Article 6):
The following acts,
or any of them, are
crimes coming within
the jurisdiction of
the Tribunal for which
there shall be
individual
responsibility:
(a) CRIMES AGAINST
PEACE: namely,
planning, preparation,
initiation or waging
of a war of
aggression, or a war
in violation of
international
treaties, agreements
or assurances, or
participation in a
common plan or
conspiracy for the
accomplishment of any
of the foregoing….
I think this is a
pretty good definition of
a war crime, although if
you disagree I will be
glad to argue in its
favor.
By the standards
of the Nuremberg trials,
then, the aggressive,
unjustified invasion and
occupation of Iraq in
2003 were unquestionably
war crimes. A just
government would have put
Bush, Cheney, Rice,
Powell, and so forth on
trial. One might note
that the Nuremberg
trials, the crime was
taken seriously enough to
earn condemnation to
death by hanging.
Clinton's connection
to this crime was, of
course, at least her vote
in 2002 to enable it,
which made her an
accomplice. Her
subsequent excuse was
'bad intelligence', but
given her position as a
US senator, her
connections, her powers,
her fame, and her
undoubted wits, it is
almost impossible to
believe that she believed
Bush's pack of lies. It
seems much more likely
that her calculus was as
follows: 'If the war goes
"badly", it'll be on
Bush. If it goes "well",
we Democrats will have
been in on it. Win-win.'
However, one must concede
that if she were brought
to trial, she might be
able to plead monumental
ignorance and
incompetence. Of course
there will be no such
trial, so everyone
confronted by the
question must answer it
for her- or himself with
whatever means may be at
hand. To me the evidence
seems pretty conclusive.
Layman 09.30.16 at 1:20 pm @ 197 -
If the war was a criminal act, then voting
for the war, by making the voter an
accomplice, was also a criminal act.
Believable
ignorance, incompetence, or
other personal defects might mitigate, but
would not exonerate.
I asked about 'going
on with this' because at least one
participant seemed to feel that the
cataloguing of Clinton's flaws had become
superfluous. Some people might regard war
criminality as a flaw, so perhaps we are
offending as we persist.
Layman
09.30.16 at 2:54 pm
Anarcissie: "If the war was a criminal act, then voting for
the war, by making the voter an accomplice, was also a
criminal act."
Look, I personally believe it was wrong to
vote for the authorization, and that it was a political
calculation, but I wonder if you've actually read the
resolution? It is consistent with the claim that some people
make, that they assumed that Bush would act in concert with
the UN, because the resolution says he would act in concert
with themUN. The resolution was passed in October, the Bush
admin went to the UN in November, but failed to get a clear
authorization from the UN for the war.
You brought up Nuremberg. How many people were prosecuted
at Nuremberg for the crime of having voted for the Enabling
Law of 1933, which granted dictatorial powers and led
directly to everything that followed. None, right? Doesn't
that undermine your case?
Layman 09.30.16 at 2:38 am @ 169:
'"Because a proper trial can't be held, people must make up their minds
individually."
Which is another way of saying that it is not a fact, and that you acknowledge
it isn't a fact, and that rather undermines your entire response.'
I
think you are mistaken. If you believe in any sort of objective universe, then
there are facts which are hidden - in fact, given our lack of omniscience, most
of them. Nevertheless we must proceed in the world in some way, so we - some of
us, anyway - try to establish an idea of the facts through the best evidence
available, rational procedures, intuition, and so on. Some people believe that
the question of whether Clinton is a war criminal is important. There is a
reasonable argument in favor of the proposition, which Howard Frant wanted to
know, or pretended to want to know. I have given it.
Do you really want to go on with this? It does not make your favored
candidate look good, and in any case, most of the people reading and writing
here evidently don't really care that much one way or the other.
Calling the people whose endorsements Clinton has spent her time since the DNC
pursuing "moderate Republicans" seems suspect. After all, apart from Wall
Street financier types whose rigid party identification tends to dissolve in
the bipartisan solvent of the neoliberal financial establishment [I shouldn't
say "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" or liberals will throw a tantrum], the
Republican public figures she's been most aggressive about shepherding into her
corner are the neoconservative foreign policy hawks whose coups, death squads,
invasions, and so on were allegedly supposed to embody the worst and most
immoderate
excesses of the Bush and Reagan administrations.
It seems the idea is to impress so-called moderate
voters
with a show
of establishment unanimity across all prior "extremes" as a show of Clinton's
seriousness and Trump's unseriousness, but then we have to reckon with the way
"moderate voters" is most often a euphemism for "low-information voters with a
vague sense of not wanting to be seen as rocking the boat who otherwise don't
give much of a damn about electoral politics at all", which has little to do
with what "moderate" means when describing actual public figures.
If we took any real effort to directly hash out "moderate"
inclinations of the depoliticized public at large the same way we do those of
the institutions through which this public is supposed to funnel its political
engagement, we'd probably come up with something very different.
Also, Rich @ 106, you're more or less echoing what Nathan Robinson writes
about "objectively pro-Trump" anti-leftist Hillary supporters
here
.
ZM's wartime mobilisation, bob's politics of continual catastrophe, or even
bruce's Two-To-Three-Year Plan will not happen, in part because of
neoliberalism's constant drive toward depoliticization of issues that might
interfere with short-term corporate profits
, and also in part because
First-World politics is well practiced at not giving a shit about the suffering
of the Third World
Which of course is where the most immediately catastrophic suffering from
climate change will be borne at least at first. Lee's "chink in the rightwing
cognitive armor" won't happen either, not in response to any empirical facts
about the actual climate: this cognitive armor exists because there are vested
interests promoting its existence, interests that aren't themselves stupid
enough to completely deny the basic parameters of climate science (
e.g.
).
If anything the least starry-eyed one here is Layman for implying that
neoliberalism would tackle climate change by radically reconfiguring market
incentives to make prevention and/or mitigation a profitable business, which is
close to how people like Charles Koch see the issue too - but in this case I
have to agree with everybody else here that this kind of gentle nudging of
markets wouldn't be enough, without slamming on the brakes much harder than our
current thoroughly marketized mechanisms are capable of doing.
What's needed is impossible under our present institutions, and what's
possible is inadequate.
Will G-R #114: "this cognitive armor exists because there are vested interests
promoting its existence"
I don't think so. I think it emerged when the Great
Chain of Being was overturned in the public imagination in the middle of the
18th Century (see Lovejoy) and so, at the same moment, the market economy began
to be accepted as a way to escape the status positions of traditional society.
The change in emotional expectation about the source of social status
immediately formed a left/right politics, generally reflecting the interests of
the have-nots and the haves. Promotion by vested interests is not a cause of
this, rather it is a predicable symptom of it.
And it won't be overturned by anything less than a reversal in the reign of
the status-psychology of money which has characterized the last 250 years.
Which may be closer than we think, because a part of "status" has always
been since ancient times a signal of being able to avoid need - but it is
unavoidably becoming ever clearer that our basest owners are in the richest
things superfluous.
Perhaps we will soon be ready to read the social tragedy of our next
romantic Shelleyan horror myth: the Trumpenstein monster!
"... As secretary of state in 2011, Mrs. Clinton vocally supported the war against Libya to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi on the heels of his abandonment of weapons of mass destruction. She boasted with the dripping arrogance of Julius Caesar after Gaddafi's death: "We came, we saw, he died." She insisted that regime change in Libya was for humanitarian purposes. She agreed with President Barack Obama that to be faithful to "who we are," we must overthrow governments that are oppressing their citizens by force and violence. ..."
"... Like the French Bourbons who forgot nothing and learned nothing, Mrs. Clinton eagerness to initiate wars for regime change was undiminished by the Iraq and Libya debacles. She urged war against Syria to oust President Bashar al-Assad. She confidently insinuated that we could transform Syria into a flourishing democracy sans James Madisons, George Washingtons or Thomas Jeffersons because of our unique nation-building genius. ..."
"... Wars for regime change are immoral. We have not been tasked by a Supreme Being to appraise foreign nations like a schoolmarm and to invade those to whom we have superciliously assigned a failing grade. ..."
"... Wars for regime change also violate international law. Article 2 (4) of the United Nations Charter generally prohibits "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state…." Article 51 creates a narrow exception for wars in self-defense "if an armed attack occurs…." Regime change wars do not fit that narrow exception. ..."
"... Mrs. Clinton underscores in her memoir that she would rather be "caught trying" something kinetic than to try masterly inactivity like Fabius Maximus. She would rather be criticized for fighting too many wars for regime change than too few. She is the war hawks' dream candidate. ..."
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton champions wars to effectuate regime change.
Their immorality, illegality and stupidity do not diminish Mrs. Clinton's enthusiasm for treating
independent nations as serfs of the United States.
As first aady, she warmly supported the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which made it the policy of
the Unites States to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. As United States Senator, she
invoked the 1998 policy in voting for the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force Against Iraq.
Saddam's successors proved a cure worse than the disease. Shiite dominated governments allied
with Iran, oppressed Sunnis, Kurds, and Turkmen, and created a power vacuum that gave birth to
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Our national security has been weakened.
As secretary of state in 2011, Mrs. Clinton vocally supported the war against Libya to
overthrow Muammar Gaddafi on the heels of his abandonment of weapons of mass destruction. She
boasted with the dripping arrogance of Julius Caesar after Gaddafi's death: "We came, we saw, he
died." She insisted that regime change in Libya was for humanitarian purposes. She agreed with
President Barack Obama that to be faithful to "who we are," we must overthrow governments that
are oppressing their citizens by force and violence.
Libya predictably descended into dystopia after Gaddafi's murder. (It had no democratic
cultural, historical, or philosophical credentials.) Tribal militias proliferated. Competing
governments emerged. ISIS entered into the power vacuum in Sirte, which has required the return
of United States military forces in Libya. Terrorists murdered our Ambassador and three other
Americans in Benghazi. Gaddafi's conventional weapons were looted and spread throughout the
Middle East. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled and are continuing to flee Libyan shores
for Europe. North Korea and Iran hardened their nuclear ambitions to avoid Gaddafi's grisly fate.
Our national security has been weakened.
Like the French Bourbons who forgot nothing and learned nothing, Mrs. Clinton eagerness to
initiate wars for regime change was undiminished by the Iraq and Libya debacles. She urged war
against Syria to oust President Bashar al-Assad. She confidently insinuated that we could
transform Syria into a flourishing democracy sans James Madisons, George Washingtons or Thomas
Jeffersons because of our unique nation-building genius.
She forgot South Sudan. We midwifed its independence in 2011. Despite our hopes and prayers,
the new nation descended into a gruesome ongoing civil war including child soldiers between the
Dinka led by President Salva Kiir and the Nuer led by former Vice President Riek Machar. More
than 50,000 have died, more than 2.2 million have been displaced, and a harrowing number have
been murdered, tortured or raped. South Sudan epitomizes our nation-building incompetence.
Wars for regime change are immoral. We have not been tasked by a Supreme Being to appraise
foreign nations like a schoolmarm and to invade those to whom we have superciliously assigned a
failing grade. As Jesus sermonized in Matthew 7: 1-3:
"Judge not, that ye be not judged.
"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be
measured to you again.
"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that
is in thine own eye?"
Thus, Thomas Jefferson wrote to President James Monroe in 1823: "The presumption of dictating to
an independent nation the form of its government is so arrogant, so atrocious, that indignation
as well as moral sentiment enlists all our partialities and prayers in favor of one and our equal
execrations against the other."
Wars for regime change also violate international law. Article 2 (4) of the United Nations
Charter generally prohibits "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or
political independence of any state…." Article 51 creates a narrow exception for wars in
self-defense "if an armed attack occurs…." Regime change wars do not fit that narrow exception.
They are also stupid, like playing Russian roulette. We lack the wisdom necessary to insure that
successor regimes will strengthen rather than weaken our national security taking into account,
among other things, the staggering military and financial costs of propping up corrupt,
incompetent, and unpopular governments.
Mrs. Clinton underscores in her memoir that she would rather be "caught trying" something
kinetic than to try masterly inactivity like Fabius Maximus. She would rather be criticized for
fighting too many wars for regime change than too few. She is the war hawks' dream candidate.
Domestic-policy successes such as paid family leave count for little if the U.S. is at
war with Russia.
Hillary Clinton has some impressive goals for the United States. And it is
conceivable that, to whatever extent, she can even achieve them. These include
(courtesy of
NPR
):
Make public college debt-free. Fund universal pre-K. Create a comprehensive
background check system and close loopholes. Give the government a role in
setting insurance rates. Waive deportation and give undocumented residents a
path to legal status. Enact an infrastructure plan that also serves as a
stimulus to the economy. Raise capital gains taxes [We will overlook her
coziness with Wall Street for the moment.]
But what does domestic-policy success avail us if the United States is fighting
a major war? It is common knowledge that when it comes to foreign policy, Hillary
Clinton gives many of us on the left the heebie-jeebies. A blurb on the issues
page of her official campaign website suggests traditional Democratic
overcompensation on defense, but to the nth degree: "Military and defense[:] We
should maintain the best-trained, best-equipped, and strongest military the world
has ever known."
The extent to which Russian President Vladimir Putin considers Ms. Clinton a
nemesis (and Donald Trump a potential ally) can be seen in a new article by
Simon Shuster at
Time
. But, obviously, no American election should be
decided by which candidate the leader of another superpower prefers. The real
issue, without going into detail, is her policy toward Russia, summarized by
Jeffrey Sachs at Huffington Post
.
… she championed a remarkably confrontational approach with Russia based on
NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia and a new nuclear arms race that will
cost American taxpayers more than $355 billion over a decade.
There we have the two weakest links of Hillary Clinton foreign policy bundled
into one. She is likely to increase tensions with Russia, thus putting us at risk
of war with nuclear weapons, the modernization of which she champions.
To put it another way, an aggressive stance toward Russia and more nuclear
weapons would cancel out domestic initiatives and achievements. After all, what
good is paid parental leave if the United States is waging a major war and not
only is there no money left over from defense for such programs, but, the number
of families left standing to benefit from these programs is, shudder, drastically
diminished?
Bottom line: Without a visionary policy that works toward alleviating tensions
with, not confronting or attacking, other countries, domestic policy successes
count for little.
Here it is. John and Robert Kennedy devoted their greatest commitments and energies to the prevention
of war and the preservation of peace. To them that was not an abstract formula but the necessary
foundation of human life. But today's Democrats have become the Party of War: a home for arms merchants,
mercenaries, academic war planners, lobbyists for every foreign intervention, promoters of color
revolutions, failed generals, exploiters of the natural resources of corrupt governments. We have
American military bases in 80 countries, and there are now American military personnel on the ground
in about 130 countries, a remarkable achievement since there are only 192 recognized countries. Generals
and admirals announce our national policies. Theater commanders are our principal ambassadors. Our
first answer to trouble or opposition of any kind seems always to be a military movement or action.
Nor has the Democratic Party candidate for president this year, Hillary Clinton, sought peace. Instead
she has pushed America into successive invasions, successive efforts at "regime change." She has
sought to prevent Americans from seeking friendship or cooperation with President Vladimir Putin
of Russia by characterizing him as "another Hitler." She proclaims herself ready to invade Syria
immediately after taking the oath of office. Her shadow War Cabinet brims with the architects of
war and disaster for the past decades, the neocons who led us to our present pass, in Iraq, in Afghanistan,
Syria, Libya, Yemen, in Ukraine, unrepentant of all past errors, ready to resume it all with fresh
trillions and fresh blood. And the Democrats she leads seem intent on worsening relations with Russia,
for example by sending American warships into the Black Sea, or by introducing nuclear weapons ever
closer to Russia itself.
In fact, in all the years of the so-called War on Terror, only one potential American president
has had the intelligence, the vision, the sheer sanity to see that America cannot fight the entire
world at once; who sees that America's natural and necessary allies in this fight must include the
advanced and civilized nations that are most exposed and experienced in their own terror wars, and
have the requisite military power and willingness to use it. Only one American candidate has pointed
out how senseless it is to seek confrontation with Russia and China, at the same time that we are
trying to suppress the very jihadist movements that they also are attacking.
That candidate is Donald Trump. Throughout this campaign, he has said that as president, he would
quickly sit down with President Putin and seek relaxation of tensions between our nations, and possible
collaboration in the fight against terrorists. On this ground alone, he marks himself as greatly
superior to all his competitors, earlier in the primaries and now in the general election.
"... Of course the root cause is Baathists aligned with non Sunnis running a sector of land lusted after by the Saudis and GCC. ..."
"... That the US supported the Sunnis (since the Iranians ousted CIA puppets) against the Baathists did not start the civil war, it merely keeps it growing in lust for death and destruction. ..."
"... While that Sep 2012 skirmish in Benghazi included CIA ground troops otherwise there securing the sea lanes supporting Syrian Al Qaeda with Qaddafi's arms, less stingers. ..."
"... "Settle for the crooked, Wall St, war monger because real change is too hard and the other guy is insane, supported by racists and don't think Russia should praise American exceptionalism." ..."
"As for Syria, here too I'm not sure why you think this country caused its civil war, but it
did not."
Of course the root cause is Baathists aligned with non Sunnis running a sector of land lusted
after by the Saudis and GCC.
That the US supported the Sunnis (since the Iranians ousted CIA puppets) against the Baathists
did not start the civil war, it merely keeps it growing in lust for death and destruction.
While that Sep 2012 skirmish in Benghazi included CIA ground troops otherwise there securing
the sea lanes supporting Syrian Al Qaeda with Qaddafi's arms, less stingers.
ilsm August 31, 2016 9:44 pm
"Settle for the crooked, Wall St, war monger because real change is too hard and the other
guy is insane, supported by racists and don't think Russia should praise American exceptionalism."
Obama might as well have voted with Hillary for AUMF forever, he is running it.
"... The first is that Clinton has consistently sided with the conventional wisdom in Washington at the time about what the U.S. should do in response to any conflict or crisis. She has reliably backed more aggressive measures abroad in part because that is what pundits and analysts in Washington are usually demanding on any given issue. She isn't one to resist demands to "do something," because she typically sees no reason to resist them, and often enough s
