Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Hillary Clinton's Illiberal Belligerence

Hillary Clinton's Illiberal Belligerence 
 
by Stephen Zunes 
While much attention has been given to Senator Hillary Clinton's support
for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, her foreign policy record regarding other
international conflicts and her apparent eagerness to accept the use of
force appears to indicate that her fateful vote authorizing the invasion
and her subsequent support for the occupation and counter-insurgency war
was no aberration. Indeed, there's every indication that, as president,
her foreign policy agenda would closely parallel that of the Bush
administration. Despite efforts by some conservative Republicans to
portray her as being on the left wing of the Democratic Party, in reality
her foreign policy positions bear a far closer resemblance to those of
Ronald Reagan than they do of George McGovern.
For example, rather than challenge President George W. Bush's dramatic
increases in military spending, Senator Clinton argues that they are not
enough and the United States needs to spend even more in subsequent years.
At the end of the Cold War, many Democrats were claiming that the American
public would be able to benefit from a "peace dividend" resulting from
dramatically-reduced military spending following the demise of the Soviet
Union. Clinton, however, has called for dramatic increases in the military
budget, even though the United States, despite being surrounded by two
oceans and weak friendly neighbors, already spends as much on its military
as all the rest of the world combined. 
Mama Warbucks
Her presidential campaign has received far more money from defense
contractors than any other candidate – Democrat or Republican – and her
close ties to the defense industry has led the Village Voice to refer to
her as "Mama Warbucks." She has even fought the Bush administration in
restoring funding for some of the very few weapons systems the Bush
administration has sought to cut in recent years. Pentagon officials and
defense contractors have given Senator Clinton high marks for listening to
their concerns, promoting their products and leveraging her ties to the
Pentagon, comparing her favorably to the hawkish former Washington Senator
"Scoop" Jackson and other pro-military Democrats of earlier eras. 
Clinton has also demonstrated a marked preference for military
confrontation over negotiation. In a speech before the Council on Foreign
Relations, she called for a "tough-minded, muscular foreign and defense
policy." Similarly, when her rival for the Democratic presidential
nomination Senator Barack Obama expressed his willingness to meet with
Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro or other foreign leaders with whom the United
States has differences, she denounced him for being "irresponsible and
frankly naive." 
Senator Clinton appears to have a history of advocating the blunt
instrument of military force to deal with complex international problems.
For example, she was one of the chief advocates in her husband's inner
circle for the 11-week bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 to
attempt to resolve the Kosovo crisis. 
Though she had not indicated any support for the Kosovar Albanians'
nonviolent campaign against Serbian oppression which had been ongoing
since she had first moved into the White House six years earlier, she was
quite eager for the United States to go to war on behalf of the militant
Kosovo Liberation Army which had just recently come to prominence. Gail
Sheehy's book Hillary's Choice reveals how, when President Bill Clinton
and others correctly expressed concerns that bombing Serbia would likely
lead to a dramatic worsening of the human rights situation by provoking
the Serbs into engaging in full-scale ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, Hillary
Clinton successfully pushed her husband to bomb that country anyway. 
Military Intervention
She has also defended the 1998 U.S. bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in
Sudan which had provided that impoverished African country with more than
half of its antibiotics and vaccines, falsely claiming it was a chemical
weapons factory controlled by Osama bin Laden. 
Immediately following the 9/11 attacks, Clinton went well beyond the broad
consensus that the United States should go after al-Qaeda cells and their
leadership to declare that any country providing any "aid and comfort" to
al-Qaeda "will now face the wrath of our country." When Bush echoed these
words the following week in his nationally-televised speech, she declared
"I'll stand behind Bush for a long time to come." 
She certainly did. Clinton voted to authorize the president with
wide-ranging authority to attack Afghanistan and was a strong supporter of
the bombing campaign against that country, which resulted in more civilian
deaths than the 9/11 attacks against the United States that had prompted
them. 
Despite recent pleas by the democratically elected Afghan president Harmid
Karzai that the ongoing U.S. bombing and the over-emphasis on aggressive
counter-insurgency operations was harming efforts to deal with the
resurgence of violence by the Taliban and other radical groups, Clinton
argues that our "overriding immediate objective of our foreign policy"
toward Afghanistan "must be to significantly step up our military
engagement." 
Nuclear Weapons
Particularly disturbing has been Senator Clinton's attitudes regarding
nuclear issues. For example, when Senator Obama noted in August that the
use of nuclear weapons – traditionally seen as a deterrent against other
nuclear states – was not appropriate for use against terrorists, Clinton
rebuked his logic by claiming that "I don't believe that any president
should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or nonuse of
nuclear weapons." 
Senator Clinton has also shown little regard for the danger from the
proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries, opposing the
enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions challenging the nuclear
weapons programs of such U.S allies as Israel, Pakistan and India. Not
only does she support unconditional military aid – including
nuclear-capable missiles and jet fighters – to these countries, she even
voted to end restrictions on U.S. nuclear cooperation with countries that
violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty. 
She has a very different attitude, however, regarding even the possibility
of a country the United States does not support obtaining nuclear weapons
some time in the future. For example, Senator Clinton insists that the
prospect of Iran joining its three Southwest Asian neighbors in developing
nuclear weapons "must be unacceptable to the entire world" since
challenging the nuclear monopoly of the United States and its allies would
somehow "shake the foundation of global security to its very core." She
refuses to support the proposed nuclear weapons-free zone for the Middle
East, as called for in UN Security Council resolution 687, nor does she
support a no-first use nuclear policy, both of which could help resolve
the nuclear standoff. Indeed, she has refused to rule out the use of
nuclear weapons against such non-nuclear countries as Iran, even though
such unilateral use of nuclear weapons directly contradicts the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, the same treaty she claims the United States
must unilaterally and rigorously enforce when it involves Iran and other
countries our government doesn't like. 
Senator Clinton also criticized the Bush administration's decision to
include China, Japan and South Korea in talks regarding North Korea's
nuclear program and to allow France, Britain and Germany to play a major
role in negotiations with Iran, claiming that instead of taking
"leadership to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of rogue states and
terrorists ... we have outsourced over the last five years our policies."
In essence, as president, Hillary Clinton would be more unilateralist and
less prone to work with other nations than the Bush administration on such
critical issues as non-proliferation. 
Latin America
In Latin America, Senator Clinton argues that the Bush administration
should take a more aggressive stance against the rise of left-leaning
governments in the hemisphere, arguing that Bush has neglected these
recent developments "at our peril." In response to recent efforts by
democratically elected Latin American governments to challenge the
structural obstacles which have left much of their populations in poverty,
she has expressed alarm that "We have witnessed the rollback of democratic
development and economic openness in parts of Latin America." 
Apparently wishing that the Bush administration could have somehow
prevented the elections of leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia,
Ecuador, and elsewhere, she argues that "We must return to a policy of
vigorous engagement." Though she has not clarified what she means by
"vigorous engagement," regional examples in recent decades have included
military interventions, CIA-sponsored coups, military and financial
support for opposition groups, and rigged national elections. 
She also supports Bush's counter-productive and vindictive policy towards
Cuba, insisting that she would not end the trade embargo – recently
denounced in a 184-4 vote by the United Nations General Assembly – until
there was a "democratic transition" in that country. She has even backed
Bush's strict limitations on family visitations by Cuban-Americans and
other restrictions on Americans' freedom to travel. 
Israel and Palestine
Regarding Israel, Senator Clinton has taken a consistently right-wing
position, undermining the efforts of Israeli and Palestinian moderates
seeking a just peace that would recognize both the Palestinians'
legitimate national rights and the Israelis' legitimate security concerns.
For example, she has defended Israeli colonization of occupied Palestinian
territory, has strongly supported Israel's construction of an illegal
separation barrier deep inside the occupied territory, and has denounced
the International Court of Justice for its near-unanimous 2004 decision
calling on Israel to abide by international humanitarian law.
Senator Clinton has consistently put the onus of responsibility on the
occupied Palestinians rather than their Israeli occupiers. 
She has been particularly outspoken in her condemnation of the Palestine
Authority, even prior to Hamas gaining the majority in their parliament,
for publishing textbooks which she claims promotes "anti-Semitism,"
"violence," and "dehumanizing rhetoric" and thereby breeds a "new
generation of terrorists." On several occasions she has blamed this
alleged anti-Semitic indoctrination – and not the Israeli occupation – for
Palestinian violence. 
The only source she has cited to uphold these charges, however, has been
the Center for the Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP), a right-wing
Israeli-based group whose board includes Daniel Pipes and other prominent
American neoconservatives, which was founded in 1998 as part of an effort
to undermine the peace process by attempting to portray the Palestinians
as hopelessly hostile to Israel's existence. It has been directly
challenged by other studies from more objective sources. 
Senator Clinton's insistence on repeating the propaganda of
long-discredited reports by a right-wing think tank instead of paying
attention to well-regarded investigations by credible scholars and
journalists may be a dangerous indication of how little difference there
is between her and Bush in terms of what sources she would rely upon in
formulating her policies. 
Israel and Lebanon
Senator Clinton was also an outspoken supporter of Israel's massive
military assault on the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon and the Gaza
Strip last summer, which took the lives of at least 800 civilians. She
claimed that the carnage was justified since it would "send a message to
Hamas, Hezbollah, to the Syrians [and] to the Iranians," because, in her
words, they oppose the United States and Israel's commitment to "life and
freedom." Despite detailed reports from Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch noting that there was no evidence to suggest that Hezbollah
used Lebanese civilians as human shields, Senator Clinton has repeatedly
insisted that they did, in an apparent effort to discredit these human
rights groups and absolve Israel of any responsibility for the enormous
civilian casualties inflicted during the assault. 
Senator Clinton's statements were challenged by her opponent in last
year's Democratic primary for Senate in New York, union activist Jonathan
Tasini, who pointed out that "Israel has committed acts that violate
international standards and the Geneva Conventions." Her spokesperson,
however, dismissed Tasini's concerns about Israeli violations of
international humanitarian law as "beyond the pale." Senator Clinton
supporters also denounced him as "anti-Israel," even though he is a former
Israeli citizen who has lost close relatives in the Arab-Israeli wars and
to Palestinian terrorism, whose father fought with Zionist forces in the
Israeli war of independence, and has repeatedly referred to himself as a
"friend of Israel." 
Clinton even continues to defend Israel's decision to launch the
devastating 2006 war on Lebanon even though an Israeli government report
released earlier this year acknowledged it was a major setback to Israeli
security. 
Syria
Senator Clinton has also aimed her militaristic sights at Syria. In a
typical example of her double-standards, she was a co-sponsor of the 2003
"Syrian Accountability Act," which demanded – under threat of sanctions –
that Syria unilaterally eliminate its chemical weapons and missile
systems, despite the fact that nearby U.S. allies like Israel and Egypt
had far larger and more advanced stockpiles of chemical weapons and
missiles, not to mention Israel's sizable arsenal of nuclear weapons. (See
my article, The Syrian Accountability Act and the Triumph of Hegemony.) 
Included in the bill's "findings" were charges by top Bush Administration
officials of Syrian support for international terrorism and development of
dangerous WMD programs. Not only have most of these particular accusations
not been independently confirmed, they were made by the same Bush
Administration officials who had made similar claims against Iraq that
have since been proven false. Yet Senator Clinton naively trusts their
word over independent strategic analysts familiar with the region who have
challenged many of these charges. Her bill also called for strict
sanctions against Syria as well as Syria's expulsion from its
non-permanent seat Security Council for its failure at that time to
withdraw its forces from Lebanon according to UN Security Council
resolution 520. 
This could hardly be considered a principled position, however, since she
defended Israel's 22-year long occupation of southern Lebanon that finally
ended just three years earlier which was in defiance of this same
resolution, as well as nine other UN Security Council resolutions. Nor had
she ever called for the expulsion of Morocco, Turkey or Indonesia from the
Security Council when they held non-permanent seats despite their
violations of UN Security Council resolutions regarding their occupations
of neighboring countries. 
Despite the fact that Syria is far weaker than it was 20 years ago when it
was being generously armed by the Soviet Union, Senator Clinton insists
that it is now "among the most difficult and dangerous [countries] in the
world" and that it somehow poses "direct threats to ... neighbors ... and
far beyond the region." She also offered her "strong support" for Israel's
unprovoked air strikes in northern Syria in September. She has echoed the
administration's charges that Syria is a major supporter of Hamas, even
though the bulk of the Islamist Palestinian group's foreign support has
come from Saudi Arabia and Iran, not the secular regime in Damascus. And,
despite Syria's longstanding opposition to Sunni extremists and Iraqi
Baathists – the major components of the insurgency fighting U.S. forces in
Iraq – she has also accused Syria of backing anti-American forces in that
country. 
Iran
In response to the Bush administration's ongoing obsession with Iran,
Senator Clinton's view is that the Bush has not been obsessive enough. In
a speech at Princeton University last year, she argued that the White
House "lost critical time in dealing with Iran," and accused the
administration of choosing to "downplay the threats and to outsource the
negotiations" as well as "standing on the sidelines." 
She has insisted that "we cannot take any option off the table in sending
a clear message to the current leadership of Iran – that they will not be
permitted to acquire nuclear weapons." Though going to war is still very
high on her list of options, apparently supporting a nuclear weapons-free
zone for the entire Middle East, normalizing economic and strategic
relations in return for eliminating Iran's nuclear weapons capability, and
other possible negotiated options are not. 
In defending her vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq in 2003, she has
claimed that Bush "deceived all of us" in exaggerating the threat posed by
Saddam Hussein's regime. Yet, when it comes to the similarly exaggerated
Iranian threat, she has again repeated the Bush administration's talking
points almost verbatim. Indeed, as recently as last month she was
insisting that "Iran is seeking nuclear weapons," even though the
consensus of the United States' 16 intelligence agencies was that Iran
ended its nuclear weapons program back in 2003. 
Senator Clinton was the only Democratic member of Congress seeking the
presidential nomination to support the Kyl-Lieberman amendment which,
among other things, called on the Bush administration to designate the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps – the largest branch of the Iranian
military – as a foreign terrorist organization. To designate a branch of
the armed forces of a foreign state as a terrorist organization would be
unprecedented and was widely interpreted to be a backhanded way of
authorizing military action against Iran. Indeed, Virginia Senator Jim
Webb referred to it as "Cheney's fondest pipe dream." 
She initially justified her vote in part because of the Revolutionary
Guard's alleged involvement in Iran's nuclear weapons program, a position
she has had trouble defending since it was revealed such a program has not
existed for at least four years. 
In language remarkably similar to her discredited rationalization for her
2002 vote to authorize the U.S. invasion of Iraq, she claimed that it was
not actually a vote for war, but simply to give Bush a means "to apply
greater diplomatic pressure on Iran." (Fortunately, Senator Clinton's
position was too extreme even for the Bush administration, which
designated only the al-Quds Force – a sub-unit of the Revolutionary Guards
which doesn't always operate with the full knowledge and consent of the
central government – as a terrorist organization.) 
She has also decried Iran's "involvement in and influence over Iraq," an
ironic complaint for someone who voted to authorize the overthrow of the
anti-Iranian secular government of Saddam Hussein despite his widely
predicted replacement by pro-Iranian Shi'ite fundamentalist parties. She
has also gone on record repeating a whole series of false, exaggerated and
unproven charges by Bush administration officials regarding Iranian
support for the Iraqi insurgency, even though the vast majority of foreign
support for the insurgency has come from Saudi Arabia and other Arab
countries and that the majority of the insurgents are fanatically
anti-Iranian and anti-Shi'ite. 
Though Iran's threat to the national security of the United States is
grossly exaggerated, they are a far more powerful country today in terms
of their military prowess than was Iraq in 2002, when Senator Clinton
supported invading that country because of its alleged danger to U.S.
national security. It would be naïve, therefore, to ignore the very real
possibility that, if elected president, she would find reason to invade
Iran as well. 
A Liberal? 
Given Senator Clinton's militaristic foreign policy, why are so many of
her supporters apparently in denial of this unfortunate reality? 
Part of the problem is that most of the public criticism of the former
first lady has been based on false and exaggerated charges from the far
right, often infused with a fair dose of sexism. As a result, many
liberals become defensive and reluctant to criticize her. Many also
ironically start believing some of the lies of the far right when they
claim she is some kind of left-winger. There is also an understandable
nostalgia for the eight years of relative peace and prosperity under her
husband's administration after the horrors of nearly seven years under
President George W. Bush, which have made it easy to forget the lesser but
very real failings of President Bill Clinton. 
There is also the fact that after 43 male presidents, the prospect of
finally having a woman as chief executive is understandably appealing.
Yet, what's the advantage of a female president if her foreign policies
are still centered on patriarchal notions of militarism and conquest? What
would it mean to the women of Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon and other
countries who would suffer as a result of her policies? Did the position
of British women improve as a result of the militaristic policies of their
first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher? 
These are the kinds of questions, along with a critical examination of her
overall foreign policy record, that need to be considered by Democrats
before making Hillary Clinton their nominee for president. 
 
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#_Maaaaaaah!
Scorgo vagamente lo spettro di una Thatcher profilarsi all'orizzonte!
Staremo a vedere!... ma "gli atti 'n son' belli!" disse il pollo vedendo 
pulire lo spiedo.
Giano