Hillary Clinton's Deeply Flawed, NeoCon Foreign Policy Judgement:

[amborin]

Last edited Sun Jan 31, 2016, 07:03 PM - Edit history (3)

Is Hillary Clinton a Neocon-Lite?

by Robert Parry

….for thoughtful and/or progressive Democrats, the prospect of a President Hillary Clinton could represent a step back from some of President Barack Obama’s more innovative foreign policy strategies, particularly his readiness to cooperate with the Russians and Iranians to defuse Middle East crises and his willingness to face down the Israel Lobby when it is pushing for heightened confrontations and war.

Based on her public record and Gates’s insider account, Clinton could be expected to favor a more neoconservative approach to the Mideast, one more in line with the traditional thinking of Official Washington and the belligerent dictates of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

As a U.S. senator and as Secretary of State, Clinton rarely challenged the conventional wisdom or resisted the use of military force to solve problems. She famously voted for the Iraq War in 2002 – falling for President George W. Bush’s bogus WMD case – and remained a war supporter until her position became politically untenable during Campaign 2008…..

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/21794-is-hillary-clinton-a-neocon-lite

Greenwald Bashes ‘Neocon’ Hillary Clinton: ‘She’s a F*cking Hawk’

by Matt Wilstein | 2:31 pm, May 12th, 2014

“Hillary is banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion. I mean, she’s been around forever, the Clinton circle. She’s a fucking hawk and like a neocon, practically. She’s surrounded by all these sleazy money types who are just corrupting everything everywhere. But she’s going to be the first female president, and women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy. Opposition to her is going to be depicted as misogynistic, like opposition to Obama has been depicted as racist. It’s going to be this completely symbolic messaging that’s going to overshadow the fact that she’ll do nothing but continue everything in pursuit of her own power. They’ll probably have a gay person after Hillary who’s just going to do the same thing.
I hope this happens so badly, because I think it’ll be so instructive in that regard. It’ll prove the point. Americans love to mock the idea of monarchy, and yet we have our own de facto monarchy. I think what these leaks did is, they demonstrated that there really is this government that just is the kind of permanent government that doesn’t get affected by election choices and that isn’t in any way accountable to any sort of democratic transparency and just creates its own world off on its own.”
http://www.mediaite.com/online/greenwald-bashes-neocon-hillary-clinton-shes-a-fcking-hawk/

Jeffry Sachs: On Hillary Clinton:

Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University: "There’s been considerable concern, for good reason, about Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street ties, but . . . I am even more worried about her neoconservative foreign policy views, and being a lackey for the military-industrial complex."

"In rare cases, great presidents learn to stand up to the CIA and the rest of the military-industrial-intelligence complex. JFK . . . saved the world from nuclear annihilation and halted the unchecked proliferation of nuclear arms."

"O’Malley and Sanders wisely and correctly support an America that works with other countries and with the UN Security Council to build peace in the Middle East rather than an America that continues to indulge in endless and failed CIA adventures of regime change and war."

"O’Malley and Sanders did criticize Clinton’s foreign policy views in the second Democratic debate, but it is clear that Bernie’s heart is in attaching her Wall Street ties. I wish he would pay as much attention to her ties to the military-industrial complex and her overly hawkish foreign policy views."

https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/3u9at1/bernie_sanders_should_emphasize_hillary_clintons/


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/hilary-clinton-and-the-is_b_8627042.html



Is Hillary Clinton a neoconservative hawk?

What Iraq and Libya decisions tell us about her foreign policy

Hillary got Iraq vote wrong, and Libya and Syria too. If she were setting the policies, what would they look like?

Is Hillary Clinton finally in the right place, at the right time?

Electorally, perhaps. But in terms of actually having a working policy? That’s a whole different story. After all, Clinton herself pushed hard for a similarly flawed regime change strategy in Libya—Conor Friedersdorf even compared her role in Libya to Cheney’s in Iraq. Hyperbolic? Yes. But he did have a point. As summarized by Joel Gillin at the New Republic, she did get carried away with questionable intelligence, over-focused on deposing a long-time U.S. bogeyman, and failed to give sufficient consideration to the depths of difficulties that would follow afterwards. All of which allowed the broader jihadi threat increased opportunity to spread.

In particular, the key claim that something genocidal was about to unfold was entirely unfounded, according to a lengthy review of the Libya intervention at the London Review of Books, which noted that “in retaking the towns that the uprising had briefly wrested from the government’s control, Gaddafi’s forces had committed no massacres at all; the fighting had been bitter and bloody, but there had been nothing remotely resembling the slaughter at Srebrenica, let alone in Rwanda.” Given that Libya had normalized relations with the West in 2003/2004, renouncing its former international outlaw role, including an active WMD program, it was strikingly counterproductive to turn on Gaddafi like that, if you want to coax other “rogue states” into the community of nations.

So, more than a dozen years after the Iraq War vote—which she’s finally semi-apologized for—the vote itself is less important than the broader framework in which she cast it, how she explained herself, and how she’s acted since. What really matters about her decision back then is what it tells about how she’d try to shape the future. With Rand Paul all but disappearing from sight, the GOP is now unified in its commitment to war, war, war. They will fight fire with gasoline until the last oil well runs dry. If there’s going to be any learning from past mistakes, any chance at all, it’s entirely up to the Democrats.

So what are the chances with Hillary? Not very good, I’d argue....

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/26/is_hillary_clinton_a_neoconservative_hawk_what_iraq_and_libya_decisions_tell_us_about_her_foreign_policy/

[amborin]

1. The Atlantic: Hillary Is Bellicose and Militaristic:

Hillary Clinton's Foreign Policy Isn't 'Muscular'—It's Bellicose

When the press mistakes being hawkish for being tough, it distorts the political debate.

Gary Cameron / Reuters



Hillary Clinton’s foreign-policy speech at the Brookings Institution reflected the fact that the former secretary of state is much more hawkish than President Obama. She favored the Iraq War. She believes the U.S. should’ve intervened in Iran during the failed Green Revolution. She urged U.S. intervention in Libya. And she unsuccessfully lobbied for the U.S. to assist anti-government rebels in Syria.

snip

If Hillary Clinton said, “The United States should invest in more powerful bombs, more manpower in the Army, and more aircraft carriers in the Navy,” it might make sense to say that she preferred a more muscular approach than the status quo. But the muscularity of the United States isn’t where Obama and Clinton disagree. They favor the same amount of muscle.

Clinton is just more inclined to initiate violence with it. Calling her more militaristic would be more accurate, but that word has negative connotations, so despite its accuracy it is not used by the political press.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/stop-calling-hillary-clintons-foreign-policy-tough-and-muscular/404608/

[amborin]

2. more here:

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/10/28/hillary-clinton-hasnt-learned-thing-iraq

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/hilary-clinton-and-the-is_b_8627042.html

[JudyM]

3. K&R.

[amborin]

4. kicking...