[Peace-discuss] Why Dems shouldn't get the presidency (II)

[C. G. Estabrook]

	December 14, 2007
	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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