We all know about Ms. Clinton's vote to authorize President Bush to use force in Iraq, which, even after several years of hemming and hawing, she has now admitted was a mistake. But does that reluctant admission signal that she would do anything differently if she had to do it all again? Not if her hawkishness as Secretary of State, Senator, and First Lady is any indication.

Tenure as Secretary of State

Libya

Have you seen this? This was our chief diplomat commenting on the Libyan intervention. What strikes me is the glibness, the gleeful celebration of Colonel Gaddafi's torturous extrajudicial execution. To me, it reveals the mentality of someone for whom the ugliness and true cost of war and violence is a remote abstraction, someone who does not deeply feel their tragic horror, someone for whom the thought of the 72 (at least) innocent civilians killed by the NATO bombing, including at least 24 children, does not weigh heavily, if at all. Why does this matter? Because I want my commander in chief to be someone who will use force reluctantly, with sorrow, not with glib and glee. I feel sick watching this video.

Syria

Secretary Clinton lobbied to ensnare the United States in war in Syria. As the New York Times reported, Ms. Clinton teamed up with David Petraeus to lobby President Obama to effectively enter into the war in Syria by training fighters and supplying them with weapons, a proposal that President Obama rejected. Secretary Clinton's efforts were praised by Richard Armitrage, deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush, as follows:

Secretary Clinton has dramatically changed the face of U.S. foreign policy globally for the good. But I wish she had been unleashed more by the White House.

Afghanistan

As reported by Bob Woodward in his book "Obama Wars," and by the New York Times, Secretary Clinton again teamed up with David Petraeus, along with General Stan McChrystal and others, to aggressively push a reluctant Obama into escalating the military's involvement in Afghanistan with a big "surge" of troops, even going so far as to leak details of a review ordered by Obama to the press in order to put more pressure on a reluctant Obama to go along with the surge. Over three-quarters of the soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and airwomen who have died in Afghanistan, over 1,600, died after the surge. I wonder if Hillary Clinton thought of those parents, spouses, and children who would mourn the fallen before pushing so aggressively for the surge, or was her focus on all the "good" we could do for Afghanistan by throwing around our military might there.

Arms Deals

As reported by Mother Jones:



In 2011, the State Department cleared an enormous arms deal: Led by Boeing, a consortium of American defense contractors would deliver $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, despite concerns over the kingdom's troublesome human rights record. In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, Saudi Arabia had contributed $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, and just two months before the jet deal was finalized, Boeing donated $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to an International Business Times investigation released Tuesday. The Saudi transaction is just one example of nations and companies that had donated to the Clinton Foundation seeing an increase in arms deals while Hillary Clinton oversaw the State Department. IBT found that between October 2010 and September 2012, State approved $165 billion in commercial arms sales to 20 nations that had donated to the foundation, plus another $151 billion worth of Pentagon-brokered arms deals to 16 of those countries—a 143 percent increase over the same time frame under the Bush Administration. The sales boosted the military power of authoritarian regimes such as Qatar, Algeria, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman, which, like Saudi Arabia, had been criticized by the department for human rights abuses.

Turning State Department into War Department

In a curiously-ignored speech at the trade show of the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in 2012, Secretary Clinton outlined her vision of a new integrated relationship between the State Department and the Defense Department, something that her predecessors had resisted.

This vision has been described as follows:



[Her speech] marked a radical departure from the widely-held perception that the State Department’s diplomatic mission endures as an institutional alternative to the Pentagon’s military planning. Instead, Secretary Clinton celebrated the transformation of Foggy Bottom into a full partner with the Pentagon’s ever-widening efforts around the globe, touting both the role of diplomats in paving the way for shadowy special ops in so-called “hot spots” and the State Department’s “hand-in-glove” coordination with Special Forces in places like Pakistan and Yemen. Finally, with little fanfare or coverage, America’s lead diplomat stood before the shadow war industry and itemized the integration of the State Department’s planning and personnel with the Pentagon’s global counter-terrorism campaign which, she told the special operations industry, happen “in one form or another in more than 100 countries around the world.”

Tenure as a Senator

Cluster Bombs

Much of the State Department's coordination with Special Forces is carried out by its Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations that was created during Secretary Clinton's tenure. As David Axe described it in Wired : “Together, Special Operations Forces and State’s new Conflict Bureau are the twin arms of an expanding institution for waging small, low-intensity shadow wars all over the world.”

I simply cannot fathom Senator Clinton's vote on this issue, and she has never been challenged to explain it.

Cluster bombs are heinous weapons of modern war that particularly devastate civilians and children. As described by Wikipedia:



Because cluster bombs release many small bomblets over a wide area, they pose risks to civilians both during attacks and afterwards. During attacks, the weapons are prone to indiscriminate effects, especially in populated areas. Unexploded bomblets can kill or maim civilians and/or unintended targets long after a conflict has ended, and are costly to locate and remove.

I offer an amendment to the Defense appropriations bill to address a humanitarian issue that I have actually thought a great deal about over a long period of time; that is, the use of the cluster bomb. The human death toll and injury from these weapons is felt every day, going back decades. Innocent children think they are picking up a play toy in the field and suddenly their arm is blown off.

Iraq War Vote

On September 6, 2006, Senator Clinton was faced with a vote on a simple amendment to ban the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas (S.Amdt. 4882). As described by Senator Diane Feinstein How could a vote in favor of banning these horrible devices be anything but a no-brainer? Senator Obama voted for it. Senator Clinton, however, voted with the Republicans to kill it. I simply do not understand such cruelty and callousness. For this reason alone, without a satisfactory explanation for this vote, I could not vote for candidate Clinton.

This issue has been covered extensively, and so I will be brief. Senator Clinton knew full well that Iraq did not threaten us and that this was not a defensive war. This was a war of aggression, pure and simple. Even Alan Greenspan, no liberal peacenik, stated in 2007(while Senator Clinton was still defending her vote for war):



I'm saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: The Iraq war is largely about oil.

“It's time for the United States to start thinking of Iraq as a business opportunity," she said in a 2011 speech. The quote was included in an email released by the State Department on Wednesday that specifically mentioned JPMorgan and Exxon Mobil. JPMorgan was selected by the U.S. government to run a key import-export bank in Iraq and in 2013 announced plans to expand its operations in the country. Exxon Mobil signed a deal to redevelop Iraqi oil fields. JPMorgan has collectively paid the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation at least $450,000 for speeches, and Exxon Mobil has donated over $1 million to the family’s foundation.

In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members.... It is with conviction that I support this resolution as being in the best interests of our nation.

Statements on Torture

Secretary Clinton of 2011 seems to agree And just as a reminder, Senator Clinton hinted at a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda and cast her vote with conviction. From her speech on the floor of the Senate explaining why she was voting for the resolution authorizing the Iraq war:By many estimates over a million people died as a direct result of the vote authorizing the Iraq war. Is this really the judgment of a person we want to elect to a position that comes with such immense, and often unchecked, power to wage war? Is this really the best we can do?

In 2006, Senator Clinton stated that shesupported legalizing the torture of a captured terror suspect who knows about "an imminent threat to millions of Americans," known as the "ticking time bomb" scenario, although, to her credit, she did describe it as a "very, very narrow exception." Senators McCain and Obama both opposed such an exception.

FLOTUS Clinton

The bombing of Serbia

Speaking of cluster bombs, many of the confirmed civilian deaths (at least 489) that resulted from NATO's bombing of Serbia were the result of such bombs. Again, these were innocent lives lost over an action that lacked support in many quarters as being unnecessary and hasty. And who urged President Clinton to proceed with the bombing? You guessed it. Around the time of the media attention surrounding Monica Lewinsky, Senator Clinton bragged that she had "urged him to bomb:" and that the decision was made shortly after her urging.



Al Shifa bombing

Although I am not aware of any evidence that directly links FLOTUS Clinton to President Clinton's decision to bomb the Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, again during media scrutiny over Lewinsky, she has also never condemned this decision, and given her extensive involvement in the decision to bomb Serbia, I find it likely she was complicit.

This factory, called the Pride of Africa at its opening, produced 90% of the medicines in Sudan, including those to treat malaria and tuberculosis. It is estimated that tens of thousands of people died as a result of this factory's destruction. There has never been any evidence to connect this factory to terrorism.

Recent Statements

Praise of Henry Kissinger

In the words of Christopher Hitchens, Henry Kissinger deserves prosecution "for war crimes, for crimes against humanity, and for offenses against common or customary or international law, including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture." His case is not unconvincing.

In her fawning review in September 2014 of Kissinger's book World Order, Clinton bewilderingly lavishes praises on Kissnger, calling him her "friend," and stating that she "relied on his counsel when [she] served as Secretary of State." In my opinion, no one can fairly read that review and not see a hawk eager to use force to project American power.

Sabre Rattling

I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel)," Clinton said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America." "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them,"

She recently compared Putin to Hitler, earning the praise of hawks John McCain and Marco Rubio.

In response to Obama’s assertion that he would not “use nuclear weapons in any circumstance” in Afghanistan and Pakistan or any situations “involving civilians,” Clinton rebuked him by saying “Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrents to keep the peace, and I don't believe any president should make blanket statements with the regard to use or nonuse”

Israel

The Death Penalty

She opposes peaceful efforts at pressuring Israel to end its occupation and oppression of the Palestinians, and recently sent a groveling letter to Haim Saban in which she denounced the boycott movement, slyly smearing it as anti-Semitic. If you're not familiar with Haim Shaban, he's the guy who's repeatedly described himself as " a one-issue guy , and [that] issue is Israel." He has given $2 million to candidate Clinton's Super-PAC Priorities USA Action , and, in the 2008 primary, he attempted to bribe two superdelegates to pledge their votes to Hillary Clinton by offering their organization $1 million.

Are you familiar with Pat Robertson, the conservative minister who has denounced Islam, feminism, homosexuality, etc., etc.? Did you know his position on the death penalty is more progressive than that of Ms. Clinton, who recently reaffirmed that she does "not favor aboloshing" the death penalty? Read on:



The last thing that we need in our society is the Roman orgy and spectacle of execution where people are cheering and applauding the killing of somebody. We don't need that sort of thing in our society. We need to have a society based on love, a society based on compassion, a society based on mercy.

What about the position of George Will, the conservative commentator who's made disturbing comments about the "the supposed campus epidemic of rape?" Do you know his position? Citing the "evolving standards of decency" he has called for its abolition

No offense to Mssrs. Robertson and Will, but what does it say about us as a Democratic Party that we are apparently on the threshold of nominating a candidate whose views of the morality of the death penalty lag behind these two gentleman? Can we really not do better? Do we really not deserve someone who will lead on these, and other, moral issues, not perennially "evolve" once it has become "safe" to do so?

Conclusion

I have not posted anything in this community for several years, although I lurk from time to time. But I made the effort to write this up because I do not see enough discussion about our leading candidate's hawkishness.

Whether this great country will act on the global stage to promote peace, or whether it will use its immense power to perpetrate violence and destruction is an issue I care very deeply about. Regrettably, the actions of Hillary Clinton lead me to believe that she will act, if not as the ultimate hawk, as a hawk nonetheless. Please, we can do better than someone who has it in her heart to laugh with glee at war!

"We came, we saw, he died," indeed.

