The Democrat's Warhawk

Republican candidates are trying to one-up each other in the game of "Who can be the bigger Warhawk".
Lindsey Graham wants to invade Syria. Donald Trump wants to invade Mexico. Marco Rubio wants to invade almost everyone.

With all this chest-thumping, arm-chair machismo it's easy to forget that it isn't just Republicans that are eager to bomb third world nations.

It took a while, but unlike 2004 Hillary Clinton finally regrets her vote to invade Iraq in 2003.
Some won't forgive her so easily and some will. For me that isn't what matters. What matters is if Hillary Clinton learned anything from that mistake?

It wasn't apparent in 2008 when Hillary promised to "totally obliterate" Iran if they attacked Israel.
There are 77 million people in Iran. Threatening to kill tens of millions of people is not helpful or moral.
Even candidate Obama had to back off of using such incendiary language.

"One of the things that we've seen over the last several years is a bunch of talk using words like 'obliterate,'" Obama, an Illinois senator, said in a separate ABC interview. "It doesn't actually produce good results. And so I'm not interested in saber rattling."

Hillary had not learned that lesson by 2008. How about after she became Secretary of State?

Her first crisis was the Honduras Coup in 2009. I'll let Hillary tell it like it was.

“In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico,” Clinton writes. “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”

That's a very different story than the official one, which involved trying to restore a democratically elected leader to power after a military coup. Hillary used back-channel connections to negotiate keeping Zelaya out of power while appearing to do otherwise.

Latin American leaders, the United Nations General Assembly and other international bodies vehemently demanded his immediate return to office. Clinton’s defiant and anti-democratic stance spurred a downward slide in U.S. relations with several Latin American countries, which has continued.

So what sort of fall-out happened from our backing of the military coup? Human rights violations "sky-rocketed" and there are currently tens of thousands of protesters in the streets demanding the government step down.

Another big crisis during Hillary's SoS term was Libya, and she had her fingerprints all over that.

By March 15, when Clinton spoke with Obama by phone to brief him on the meetings, she had become a “strong advocate” for U.S. intervention, one administration official said. The president, who had been weighing arguments from a sharply divided Cabinet for several days, sided with his secretary of state. ....
Clinton, in an interview, acknowledged “periods of anguish and buyer’s remorse” during the seven months of the campaign. But, she said, “we set into motion a policy that was on the right side of history, on the right side of our values, on the right side of our strategic interests in the region.”

Hillary's emails shows she advocated for supplying weapons and military training to rebel forces, some of whom were al-Qaeda and affiliated with the Islamic militants who later assaulted the U.S. compound in Benghazi.

Today the Libya war advocates are quiet. On the same pages of the NY Times where we were recently heroes a different message is printed: “Libya is falling apart. Politically, financially, the economic situation is disastrous.”
Libya is now in a state of complete collapse. Conditions have deteriorated to the point that “hardly any Libyan can live a normal life."
At the U.N. the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said there were indications of war crimes being committed in Libya.
Amnesty International calls the conditions there 'Rule of the Gun'.
Weapons looted in the post-war chaos wound up in the hands of Boko Haram, which then committed all sorts of atrocities.

What I really want to talk about is Syria.
Last year Hillary pointed the finger of blame for the disaster in Syria at Obama.

“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Clinton said.

While that sounds a lot like the Republican take on things, it's quite a bit different from what Hillary said in early 2012.
Supposedly, Hillary changed her opinion sometime between February 2012 and when she left the administration a year later. During that one year window, the NY Times reported this.

Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats.
“The opposition groups that are receiving the most of the lethal aid are exactly the ones we don’t want to have it,” said one American official familiar with the outlines of those findings, commenting on an operation that in American eyes has increasingly gone awry.

The same month that the NY times article came out, and about the same time that ambassador Chris Stevens was murdered, the United States began shipping the weapon stockpiles from Libya to Syria, despite knowing that we were arming jihadists.
As early as August 12, 2012 a classified Defense Intelligence Agency Information Intelligence Report described the situation on the ground in Syria in no uncertain terms. “The salafist [sic], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [al-Qaeda in Iraq, later ISIS and the Islamic State] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.”
If our objective was to get rid of these jihadists then why did we go about doing the exact opposite?

Section 8.C. of the report astonishingly predicts that “If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime. . . .”

The “supporting powers” are identified as “Western countries the Gulf States and Turkey”.

In 2007 Seymour Hersh wrote The Redirection. He described how we had been working to undermine the Assad regime since Bush was still president.
Back in 2004, President Bush was given $500 million by Congress to "arm friendly militias" in the middle east.

Ten years later President Obama asked Congress for another $500 million to "train and equip appropriately vetted elements of the moderate Syrian armed opposition."
What kind of "moderates" are we talking about? In September 2013 Obama made an interesting executive order.

President Obama waived a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to “vetted” opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

We had been arming terrorists in the middle east since 2004, and Obama clearly intended to take it to the next level.
The current budget for the CIA program to train and arm Syria rebels is nearly $1 Billion, the agency's largest covert program.

In the end, Hillary's foreign policy record won't help or hurt her election chances. Americans of all colors and genders are very comfortable with the idea of bombing third world nations. We are more than tolerant of thousands of innocent civilians dying from our bombs. We only ask that our military doesn't intentionally target women and children. That is the only standard and it isn't very hard to meet it.
By every available metric we are losing this racist War on Terror, but American support for the endless conflict is the highest in years.

As recently as 2008 the Democratic Party appeared to be an anti-war party, but it was all partisan posturing. What is now extremist positions on terrorism was, during the Bush years, mainstream party orthodoxy.
Like Hillary and the Republican candidates, the Democratic voters learn and forget the lessons of the war based entirely on election results.

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after I've had time to reread it and think about i.

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joe shikspack's picture

you might include the "we came, we saw, he died (cackle, cackle, guffaw)" comment as an indication of hillary's attitude towards hostile engagements, her failure to take in the lessons of the iraq war and the vacuum of power left by saddam's killing, if not an indication of sociopathic tendencies.

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snoopydawg's picture

I've stated many times that people need to look into her times as SOS. I get the bullshit answer that she was doing what Obama told her to do.
If she didn't agree with him, she would have stepped down.
I've also wrote that if people want more war, more dead US troops and more dead innocent civilians, then by all means, vote for Hillary.
And I've already posted a link to the diary there.
And I agree with joe, please include the video of her cackling about Gaddafi death.
I can't believe how many people are ok with Obama's warmongering and will be ok with Hilary's.
That's not what I thought people on the GOS was okay with.
There's been 3 diaries recently about how great a president Obama is and aren't we lucky that he's so peaceful? And if I mention all of the countries that he is either bombing by drones or air strikes, I'm cal d an Obama hater.
Gawd!

And what right does the U.S. have to over throw other countries elected leaders? Seriously, what gives them the fucking right to go into other countries and commit coups?
Over 50 have been done or tried and then look what happens to the people when the U.S. installs brutal dictators. Then they sit back and watch as thousands of people are tortured and killed.
What a fucked up country and government.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

snoopydawg's picture

And she's full of shit. She lied about almost everything, but mostly about Ukraine and blaming it on Putin.
She knows damned well that it was the U.S. and her bff Nulands that instigated the coup there.
God, if she's selected president, I wish I had the money to move out of the country.

I uploaded an image to the image library if you're interested in using it in your diary.
It's her and the Syrian army where she looks like a duffus.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

There's been 3 diaries recently about how great a president Obama is and aren't we lucky that he's so peaceful? And if I mention all of the countries that he is either bombing by drones or air strikes, I'm cal d an Obama hater.

I recently went off and pointed out in another diary about how we are bombing seven countries, the most since WWII.
The common reaction was, "What's your point?"

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LapsedLawyer's picture

Should be part of the Dick & Liz Cheney tour, y'know, an opening act. And now that she's committed to continuing neoliberalism, there are absolutely zero reasons to give her your vote.

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"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
-- John Lennon

Big Al's picture

it was an intentional proxy war against a sovereign nation by the U.S. and others to destroy the country, remove
Gaddafi and his government and move toward balkanization of the country. It was a continuation of the same neocon
plan to target "seven countries in five years" to remake the Middle East and North Africa according to long held plans
by the Zionists and imperialists.

The Redirection by Hersh outlined the plan to break up the MENA by instigating a region-wide sectarian war engineered by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel - all of whom were working in concert even in 2007, to build the foundation of a sectarian militant army. It wasn't just for Syria, it was for Libya
and Lebanon and they will use and are using this sectarian war under the guise of ISIS to finish the job in Iraq and go into Iran, Russia and China.

Relative to Iran and the "deal", it could very well be a setup.

"More importantly, Brookings details explicitly how the US will wage war on Iran, through Israel, in order to maintain plausible deniability. It states specifically under a chapter titled, "Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike," that:

...the most salient advantage this option has over that of an American air campaign is the possibility that Israel alone would be blamed for the attack. If this proves true, then the United States might not have to deal with Iranian retaliation or the diplomatic backlash that would accompany an American military operation against Iran. It could allow Washington to have its cake (delay Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon) and eat it, too (avoid undermining many other U.S. regional diplomatic initiatives)."

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2015/04/us-israel-wage-war-on-iran-in-...

You're right, the Democratic party, which now includes Bernie Sanders, has been fully on board with this plan the entire time. The Democratic
party, which now includes Bernie Sanders, is an imperialist political party.

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Big Al's picture

went in and bombed the shit out of it for seven months.

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Get a load of this

I don't see anything bad in a Clinton saying... (1+ / 0-)

...the US would obliterate Iran if it attacked Israel. What do you see in it that's bad?

I'm just here so I don't get fined.

by Rich in PA on Wed Jul 15, 2015 at 09:02:54 AM PDT

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Big Al's picture

because management or admin have never done a thing to counter such idiocy.

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Big Al's picture

and also propaganda in that Iran isn't going to attack Israel, no way no how. To even state such a thing is trying to
support the overall narrative about Iran, i.e., that it wants to wipe Israel off the map, that it supports terrorism, etc.
So ya, the U.S. no matter who was President, even Bernie Sanders, would participate in bombing Iran IF Iran attacked
Israel, but the only way that could happen is by false flag because Iran will not attack Israel.
I think the statement from Clinton is meant more to support the Iran enemy narrative than anything.

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is their support of Hezbollah in Lebanon. If it wasn't for Hezbollah then Israel wouldn't have been run out of Lebanon twice.

Israel is the most powerful military nation in the middle east. No one can compete with them. They need no protection (remember the 6-day war?).

Plus, they are the ones with the nuclear bombs, not Iran.

The actual real danger that Iran poses is to Saudi Arabia. Of course the actual real danger to the United States is Saudi Arabia, not Iran.

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LapsedLawyer's picture

The actual real "danger" that Iran poses is to Saudi Arabia. Of course the actual real danger to the United States is Saudi Arabia, not Iran.

If you look at it objectively, it's the House of Saud that has been the real danger to the region (along with it's unacknowledged partner Israel) and to the security of the U.S. by condoning and coddling a violent radical reactionary ideology (brutally repressing it's adherents at home, of course -- they know what these people are capable of) throughout the region. Nothing remotely like that is coming out of Iran. Plus Iran is far, far more democratic than most of our "allies" in the region. (Egypt anyone? Still under a military junta last I saw. Saudi Arabia? Don't make me laugh. The UAE? Qatar? Again, I'm not impressed.)

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"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
-- John Lennon

Big Al's picture

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snoopydawg's picture

And as predicted, her supporters didn't hear a thing you wrote. Again, what was wrong under Bush is now acceptable under both Obama and Hillary.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Pointing out Hillary's record is the same as attacking Hillary to some people.
How dare I use Hillary's own words and deeds against her!

But most people aren't like that.

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snoopydawg's picture

I think most people agreed with you. It was basically the same people who always come to Hilary's defense.
And Obama's too.
Part of the problem is they see you wrote it and no matter how many links you put in it, they either don't bother to read them, or their minds are made up.
Her defenders attacked people instead of her policies.
Thanks for posting it. I think that it may have changed a few people's minds.
I don't want her anywhere near the presidency.
KOS himself has sold out to the dnc, imo.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

LapsedLawyer's picture

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"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
-- John Lennon

shaharazade's picture

She's always been a war hawk. she was a Goldwater, drop the big one, Girl. As SoS she let it rip. In 2007-8 she topped McCain with her, Bomb, Bomb, Iran sword rattling. I love how the party loyalists bicker over who was the most peace loving amongst the Democratic war criminals. Actually I was surprised that a lot of people at GOS agreed with you gjohnsit. On the other hand your post sure did bring out the creepy crawly lovers of violence, war, killing and revenge. Dr Swiggermacjigger out did himself. I'm tempted to post this video over there but why feed their blood lust.

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link

Napolitano said he looked at transcripts from a Fox News interview with an American arms dealer named Marc Turi, in addition to reviewing emails between Turi, State Department officials and lawmakers.

On Fox Business Network this morning, the judge told Charles Payne that he believes a "conspiracy existed" among President Obama, Mrs. Clinton, congressional leaders and other officials to "get arms shipped to rebels in Syria and Libya."

Napolitano said some of the rebel groups were on the United States' list of terrorist organizations, so providing "material assistance" to them would be a felony.

Put it back in your pants Napolitano. Of course we supply terrorist groups with weapons. We've been doing it for years, and its been bipartisan. This is only significant because you named Hillary.

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link

n March 17, 2011, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1973, authorizing a no-fly zone over Libya and “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. That same day — as revealed by Pentagon audio tapes obtained by the Washington Times — President Qaddafi’s son Seif tried to call a US general to try to negotiate a ceasefire.

Every now and then — on Israel and Palestine, for example — the US military brass takes the term “national security” literally and needs to be set straight by civilian leaders. Never mind that the UN resolution had urged diplomacy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton instructed the Joint Chiefs of Staff not to negotiate with the Libyan government.

The Pentagon, however, enlisted an intelligence asset to maintain a secret channel of communication with Libya. “Everything I am getting from the State Department is that they do not care about being part of this,” this liaison told Seif Qaddafi after the NATO bombing had begun. “Secretary Clinton does not want to negotiate at all.”

Later the Libyan government made another attempt to negotiate through an intermediary, American businessman and former US Navy officer Charles Kubic. According to Kubic, General Carter Ham, head of AFRICOM, agreed to participate in this effort to halt the war. Qaddafi proposed a seventy-two-hour-truce, then said he would step down to allow for a transition provided that NATO agreed to maintain the Libyan army, lift sanctions against him and his family, and provide them safe passage.

Was the offer genuine and workable? We’ll never know, because Clinton shut down the negotiations.

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