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There were times during the Democratic Convention last week when I felt like falling down a rabbit hole was part of the screening process.

Those occurred as speaker after speaker warned of the dangers of Donald Trump having his finger on the button to start a nuclear war.

Was I the only person in the room who realized it's Hillary Clinton who's been baiting the Russian bear?

It sure seemed that way. I had to go outside and meet with the pro-Bernie Sanders demonstrators to find anyone who understood that it's Clinton, not Donald Trump, who's been doing the saber-rattling.

On the second day of the convention, I happened to catch an impromptu speech by Green Party candidate Jill Stein in which she proclaimed "No one is more of a warmonger than Hillary Clinton herself!"

That brought a huge cheer from the crowd huddling under the Interstate to escape a rainstorm.

That was campaign rhetoric, of course. But the current issue of Foreign Policy Magazine has a sober-minded article by Micah Zenko titled "Hillary the Hawk: A History" and subtitled "From Haiti to Syria, the Democratic candidate's long record suggests she's looking forward to being a war president on day one."

A sample: "In 2012, she reportedly proposed to the White House -- along with CIA Director David Petraeus -- a covert program (apparently larger than the one later authorized) to provide arms to vetted Syrian rebel groups fighting Bashar al-Assad's government. Obama opposed this proposal on the grounds that there could be no guarantees of where the weapons would ultimately end up."

That Syrian exercise turned out to be a complete debacle, much like the Libyan intervention Clinton had supported beforehand. But thanks to Wikileaks we know how Clinton's staff was framing the Libyan exercise when it first occurred. An email from staffer Jake Sullivan:

"HRC has been a critical voice on Libya in administration deliberations, at NATO, and in contact group meetings as well as the public face of the U.S. effort in Libya. She was instrumental in securing the authorization, building the coalition, and tightening the noose around Qadhafi and his regime."

The eventual failure of that and the Syrian intervention led President Obama to adopt his "Don't do stupid stuff (other s-word used outside of family newspapers)" foreign policy in 2014, according to an article Jeffrey Goldberg did for the April issue of the Atlantic Magazine after a long interview with Obama:

"The Iraq invasion, Obama believed, should have taught Democratic interventionists like Clinton, who had voted for its authorization, the dangers of doing stupid (stuff)," Goldberg wrote.

When Clinton reacted by as saying that "great nations need organizing principles, and 'Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle," Obama became "rip-(stuff) angry," Goldberg reported. Clinton later apologized, he wrote.

And then there was this quote in which Obama talked of the importance of getting along with Russian leader Vladimir Putin:

"He's constantly interested in being seen as our peer and as working with us, because he's not completely stupid."

That sounds a lot more like Trump than Clinton. So did this:

"The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do," Obama said.

Obama didn't mention that history when he appeared before the convention to endorse Clinton Wednesday evening.

But it's a useful guide to how we can expect a putative president Clinton to behave.

When it comes to foreign policy, I'd prefer a third term for Obama over a first term for Clinton, especially after I read this quote from the president about Reagan's approach to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev:

"I actually think that Ronald Reagan had a great success in foreign policy, which was to recognize the opportunity that Gorbachev presented and to engage in extensive diplomacy--which was roundly criticized by some of the same people who now use Ronald Reagan to promote the notion that we should go around bombing people."

Obama didn't say who "some people" are, but I imagine the category would include a lot of the Republicans who were so upset that the Donald won the GOP nomination.

Conservative pundit Jim Lobe recently wrote of the number of prominent neoconservatives who have decided to back Clinton, a phenomenon he termed "a liberal-neoconservative convergence."

I think that sums it up quite well. There are two sides to this argument, and each candidate embraces his or her own.

But it was still a little strange last week to see the Democrats attacking the Republican for being soft on the Russians - while simultaneously warning that he wants to start a war with them.

All I can say is, I was glad to get out of that Wonderland and back to reality.

PLUS: If this article from Antiwar.com gives an accurate summation of Hillary's plans to oust Bashar al-Assad, then she is disqualified from the presidency by reason of insanity.



I'm talking about Einstein's defiintion of insanity - doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

The Beltway crowd has tried ousting secular dictators in Iraq, Libya and Egypt, with disastrous results. Yet Clinton seems to believe doing so will work in Syria.

Furthermore, doing so would bring us into direct conflict with Russia, which has been invited into Syria by its government.

The U.S. has no business interfering there under either U.S. or international law. Syria never attacked us.

But Clinton is giving them and their Russian allies reason to do so.

That's insane.

Yet inside the Beltway, a think tank with close ties to Clinton is seriously proposing a "no-bomb zone" in Syria that would require the U.S. to shoot down any Russian jets that enter the zone.

This is beyond insane.

Also, you have to go outside the Beltway to get away from that liberal-neoconservative convergence and get a realistic assessment of Clinton's foreign policy. Here's one from Thaddeus Russell at Reason.com:

What Clinton offers instead of Trump's "truly dangerous path" is a foreign policy built upon the classically Wilsonian idea that America "is an exceptional country" that is the "last, best hope on earth." She promises to "secure American leadership" and to prove, through diplomacy and military action, that "our country represents something special, not just to us, [but] to the world."

Unfortunately, presidents with these coherent ideas have been the most dangerous of all ...

MORE ON HILLARY'S PLANS FOR SYRIA: There is one blog that you should read above all others if you want what the neocons deride as the "realist" position on foreign intervention.

That's the Sic Semper Tyrannis blog of former Vietnam Green Beret and longtime Mideast veteran Pat Lang.

In his most recent post, Pat notes that the Syrian government is busily trying to finish off the rebels before Hillary can take office - and take the sides of the American-trained terrorists.

That may sound like too strong a term, but how would we feel if a foreign government armed and trained insurgents in Mexico and sent them over the border to shoot at our soldiers and police?

That's what the Obama administration has been doing in Syria. And Hillary's sole objection is that they're not doing more of it.

The comments on Pat's blog mainly come from military experts who actually understand what's going on in a place few Americans know anything about.

Here's a brief one that sums up what Hillary hopes to accomplish if elected president:

"Hang on ISIS and other jihadis, Hillary has promised full support for your jihad and turning another country into a dysfunctional, land of horrors. And if this means shooting down Russian jets and attacking Russia militarily and otherwise, so be it. Can you imagine the Syrian Christian father who wakes up each morning in Damascus and looks at his beautiful young daughter and is scared to death about Hillary becoming U.S. President and the fate of his daughter? And the one angel in his life sits in Moscow and is called Hitler by this same woman who might become U.S. President."

That says it all. The fall of Assad would mean the massacre of the oldest Christian colony on the planet.

This is insanity, folks, and Trump is not the one who's nuts.