General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt's not Hillary's vote for the IWR so much, it's that she's a nationalist hawk.
I'm more concerned about the future than the past. Hillary's record and rhetoric are not reassuring- and neither is "she's better than a republican". The choice between bad and worse is not of much comfort. Her views on Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Ukraine, are instructive. Based on her history, trusting her to keep the U.S. from launching military adventures as solutions, is folly. And arguing that she's a liberal on foreign policy flies against the evidence.
Hillary Clinton is running for president not only on her record as secretary of state, but also by presenting herself as tougher than Barack Obama on foreign-policy issues. With this stance, she presumably plans to distance herself from a president increasingly branded as weak in his approach to international issues, and to appeal to the supposedly more hawkish instincts of much of the electorate.
It is therefore necessary to ask a number of related questions, the answers to which are of crucial importance not just to the likely course of a hypothetical Clinton administration, but to the future of the United States in the world. These questions concern her record as secretary of state and her attitudes, as well as those of the US foreign-policy and national-security elites as a whole. They are also linked to an even deeper and more worrying question: whether the countrys political elites are still capable of learning from their mistakes and changing their policies accordingly. I was brought up to believe that this is a key advantage of democracy over other systems. But it cant happen without a public debateand hence mass mediafounded on rational argument, a respect for facts, and an insistence that officials take responsibility for evidently disastrous decisions.
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Even more important and difficult than any of these problems may be the fact that designing a truly new and adequate strategy would require breaking with some fundamental American mythsmyths that have been strengthened by many years of superpower status but that go back much further, to the very roots of American civic nationalism. These myths, above all, depict the United States asin one of Clintons favorite phrasesthe indispensable nation, innately good (if sometimes misguided), with the right and duty to lead humankind and therefore, when necessary, to crush any opposition.
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Neither in her book nor in her policy is there even the slightest evidence that she has, in fact, tried to learn from Iraq beyond the most obvious lessonthe undesirability of US ground invasions and occupations, which even the Republicans have managed to learn. For Clinton herself helped to launch US airpower to topple another regime, this one in Libyaand, as in Iraq, the results have been anarchy, sectarian conflict and opportunities for Islamist extremists that have destabilized the entire region. She then helped lead the United States quite far down the road of doing the same thing in Syria.
Clinton tries to argue in the book that she took a long, hard look at the Libyan opposition before reporting to the president her belief that there was a reasonable chance the rebels would turn out to be credible partnersbut however long she looked, it is now obvious that she got it wrong. She has simply not understood the fragility of statesstates, not regimesin many parts of the world, the risk that humanitarian intervention will bring about state collapse, and the inadequacy of a crude and simplistic version of democracy promotion as a basis for state reconstruction. It does not help that the US record on democracy promotion and the rule of lawincluding Clintons own recordis so spotted that very few people outside the country take it seriously anymore.
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http://www.thenation.com/article/191521/hawk-named-hillary
Divernan
(15,480 posts)by Robert Dreyfuss on June 12, 2012
http://www.thenation.com/blog/167992/opinionnation-hillary-clinton-state-department-hawk-or-humanitarian
Sub-headline:
Its hard to think of recent secretary of state whos been worse than Hillary Clinton. On the plus side, its hard to think of one whos been more irrelevant.
On Iran, for instance, where war and peace looms in the balance in talks over Irans nuclear program, Clinton has hardly been a factor. Following the conclusion of the May 23 Baghdad talks between Iran and the P5+1, I asked Aaron David Miller, a longtime diplomat and Middle East expert, who was in charge in Washington on Iran, and he said that the policy is made, controlled, and micromanaged by the White House. That, he noted, is true of most important areas of work. Clinton, he said, doesnt own any issues.
On Iraq, the administrations point man for policy was Vice President Joe Biden. On Afghanistan and Pakistan, it was Richard Holbrooke and his successor, Marc Grossman, along with a team of exceedingly independent-minded ambassadors who owed little or nothing to Clinton. Cameron Munter, the outgoing U.S ambassador to Pakistan, was an ally of Richard Holbrooke, Obamas larger-than-life envoy to the region before he died in 2010. And while Obama relied too heavily, especially in 2009, on tendentious advice from the generals on Afghanistan, if Clinton played any role at all it was echo the military brass.
Its hard to think of single major accomplishment of Clinton since she took office. To the extent that Americas image in the world has improved since 2009, its almost entirely due to the fact that allies and adversaries alike saw Obama himself as a breath of fresh air after the heavy-handed, bungling warmongers of the previous administration. Crossette says that Clinton has done more than any other Obama administration official to chip away at the image of the United States lefty behind by George W. Bush. But thats faint praise. All the softening up was done when Bush packed his suitcases, and at least at the beginning Obama had most of the worlds leaders at hello.
Divernan
(15,480 posts)Crossette asks us to think about Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams, but Ive forgotten whatever I once knew about ancient history to understand why she mentions them. As far as more recent secretaries of state, I find myself going all the way back to Al Haig (1981-1982) to come up with one worse than Clinton. Condi Rice, for all her faults (and there are many), presided over the exile of the neoconservatives from the Bush administration. Colin Powell, who disastrously served as the White Houses mouthpiece in the run up to war in Iraq, at least argued internally against that reckless fiasco. Madeleine Albright, perhaps as hawkish as Clinton, didnt succeed in drawing Bill Clinton into major wars outside the Balkans mess. And the array of white men who preceded them Warren Christopher, Larry Eagleburger, James Baker and George Shultz -- were Cold War hawks but mostly realists who understood that the United States is limited by balance-of-power politics abroad. If Clinton is not worse than any of them, shes certainly no better.
Crossette cheers Clintons role in promoting the office of global womens issues at the State Department as well as her efforts to expand diplomatic action on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. All to the good but hardly the big-think issues that a secretary of state ought to focus on. If, in extricating the United States from the Afghan quagmire, the United States has to finesse its commitment to the rights of women in that exceedingly male-dominated, tribal society, will Clinton be the grease under the wheels on the exit ramp or the anchor that entangles us further?
http://www.thenation.com/blog/167992/opinionnation-hillary-clinton-state-department-hawk-or-humanitarian
m-lekktor
(3,675 posts)Dr Hobbitstein
(6,568 posts)Seriously?
Divernan
(15,480 posts)You start right out misquoting the article. The author did not say "better than". He said "no better than".
You are more than free to debate his reasoning.
Condi Rice, for all her faults (and there are many), presided over the exile of the neoconservatives from the Bush administration.
Colin Powell, who disastrously served as the White Houses mouthpiece in the run up to war in Iraq, at least argued internally against that reckless fiasco.
Dr Hobbitstein
(6,568 posts)This author clearly has their head up their ass if they find condo rice and Colin Powell on the same level as HRC.
Divernan
(15,480 posts)Android3.14
(5,402 posts)In the fast food world, HRC is the BK to the GOP's MCD.
You want fries with that?
reddread
(6,896 posts)but it is because she is a "nationalist"/corporate minded WAR HAWK that she cast that HORRIFIC vote.
NOT because she was deceived by deceivers.
which would be worse, actually, if that is possible.
she is a steadfast supporter of coups against countries like Honduras.
just a sample of what she is all about.
each and every piece of her past says enough.
supporters cant begin to discuss her record.
they have to disparage liberal critics and make ridiculous claims.
sad.
Martin Eden
(12,867 posts)That vote was inexcusable and unforgivable, Kerry & Biden included.
Response to reddread (Reply #4)
InAbLuEsTaTe This message was self-deleted by its author.
cali
(114,904 posts)Response to cali (Reply #12)
InAbLuEsTaTe This message was self-deleted by its author.
InAbLuEsTaTe
(24,122 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)her hunger for H1B workers speaks clearly of her priorities.
how can voters be expected to accept that sort of economic treason?
swilton
(5,069 posts)Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)principle. I think she voted for the IWR so as to not be seen as weak in the GWOT. We don't need a Follower-in-Chief.
Divernan
(15,480 posts)http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2013/apr/17/thatcher-margaret-speech-cardiff-1979
What a hoot to imagine HRC giving a "this is my faith" speech. It would have to labeled "This is my focus group's latest statistically significant consensus, subject to change as the political winds shift or my donors' millions dictate." If Margaret Thatcher was The Iron Lady; HRC is the malleable Gumby of politics. Her focus groups leave her playing a political policy form of Twister - that old Milton Bradley game.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twister_%28game%29
It is played on a large plastic mat that is spread on the floor or ground. The mat has four rows of large colored circles on it with a different color in each row: red, yellow, blue and green. A spinner is attached to a square board and is used to determine where the player has to put their hand or foot. The spinner is divided into four labeled sections: right foot left foot, right hand and left hand. Each of those four sections is divided into the four colors (red, yellow, blue and green). After spinning, the combination is called (for example: "right hand yellow" and players must move their matching hand or foot to a circle of the correct color. In a two-player game, no two people can have a hand or foot on the same circle;
So the green circles are for the environment; the red circles are pro-war; the blue cirlces are pro women & children (except the ones in the war zones or the ones in countries giving money to the Clinton foundation but which treat women like chattel); the yellow ones are profiteering corporations/One Percenters. You get the picture?
anti partisan
(429 posts)Chathamization
(1,638 posts)She's set herself out to be more hawkish than him on foreign policy. It seems to be something that many are ignoring because it's inconvenient for them.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)don't make mistakes (only "unintended consequences", even if policy failure is widely foreseen by dissidents) and there is no accountability (ever, for those at the top) and no alternative (to them). If there are consequences to their repeated failures, it's always someone else's problem.
Too big to fire. They can only be promoted.
I have said there isn't much difference between Hillary and republicans.They are all hawks.
I remember well Bill Clinton on foreigen policy wasn't that different than Poppy Bush.
Many of us were hoodwhinked by Obama thinking we would get out of middle east.Even before iris we only pulled out of iraq because government wouldn't grant immunity to Us forces.Now after years of funding and training iraqi forces we are more in middle east than ever.
Maedhros
(10,007 posts)Each successive Administration, from Reagan to Obama, has continued the policies of the previous one while perhaps adding a wrinkle or two.
Bernie Sanders represents the only real chance to alter the course of American foreign policy.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)the rich want done in DC. I can't find a single issue on which she has any conviction. She is either silent, or has flip-flopped on every issue of importance. Certainly her pro-TPP stance indicates she doesn't mind ceding our laws to transnationals. She voted for the IWR because that was the thing to do at the time. Now it's a clusterfuck and she regrets it.
Just a politician, and she will not fight the Republican congress in 2017 at all. She'll make Obama look tough in contrast.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)seabeyond
(110,159 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)it's the entirety of her record on military use. care to comment on that?
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)Flying Squirrel
(3,041 posts)I don't want to see strong.