By Brandon Turbeville

While Bernie Sanders may be tired of hearing about Hillary Clinton’s “damn emails,” the recent scandals that have resulted from her Capitol Hill hearings, combined with the virtually non-existent investigation into the State Department funding of terrorist organizations have gone only a short distance in demonstrating the lengths to which Hillary Clinton has acted as the supporter and executioner of warfare since the first day she assumed any national position in government.

In addition to her history regarding the Syrian and Libyan crises, it should never be forgotten that Hillary Clinton has supported virtually every military conflict launched during and since her husband’s own disastrous tenure as President.

Remember, in 2002-2003, Hillary Clinton not only supported the push for war in Iraq, she voted for the invasion. In fact, she was fervent in her support for the war, delivering impassioned speeches on the Senate floor in order to convince members of Congress who might have been on the fence, as well as the general American population and a handful of Democrats and liberals who valued her opinion on the topic, that war was the right choice. Indeed, Hillary’s speech promoting war in Iraq rivaled only George W. Bush who was campaigning night and day on American television.





Hillary stated on the floor of the Senate:

I believe the facts that have brought us to this fateful vote are not in doubt. Saddam Hussein is a tyrant who has tortured and killed his own people, even his own family members, to maintain his iron grip on power. He used chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds and on Iranians, killing over 20,000 people.[1]

Clinton then began to detail not only why she believed the United States should begin its invasion, but also insinuated that the operation, if the first Gulf war was anything to go by, would not result in a long drawn out conflict but a war more like the first. Although Clinton did not state this directly, the implication was that it was time go in and finish the job. It was also insinuated that much of the work was already done.[2]

“In 1991, Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait, losing the support of the United States. The first President Bush assembled a global coalition, including many Arab states, and threw Saddam out after 43 days of bombing and a hundred hours of ground operations,” she said.[3]

Clinton stated that, after the first Gulf war, “the United Nations imposed a number of requirements on Iraq, among them disarmament of all weapons of mass destruction, stocks used to make such weapons, and laboratories necessary to do the work.”[4]

She then rushed to point out that international community (“everyone”) knew that Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction. She stated that “The [U.N.] inspectors found and destroyed far more weapons of mass destruction capability than were destroyed in the Gulf War, including thousands of chemical weapons, large volumes of chemical and biological stocks, a number of missiles and warheads, a major lab equipped to produce anthrax and other bioweapons, as well as substantial nuclear facilities.”[5]

As the Washington Times stated, “She expressed support for her husband’s decision in 1998 to push for “regime change,” and ripped the U.N. for putting limits on its inspections. And she went on and on about Saddam’s WMD stockpile, saying he held so many secret sites that “were huge compounds well-suited to hold weapons labs, stocks.”[6]

Clinton then went for broke by declaring that Hussein was on his way to developing a nuclear weapon that he would then use to destroy the Middle East and even the United States. She stated that Saddam, “left unchecked … will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security.”[7]

Although Clinton now attempts to brush off her treasonous assistance to drum up an illegal and immoral war in Iraq as a mistake, the truth is that anyone with any political judgement knew that the war itself was the mistake. While she also attempts to blame the “faulty intelligence” of the Bush administration, it was Hillary Clinton herself who once referred to the intelligence as “undisputed.” [8]

Clinton was also an avid supporter of an Afghanistan “surge” that was conducted by Obama during his first year in office. In fact she argued for an even greater surge and suggested that leaving too early “would signal we were abandoning Afghanistan.”[9]

Interestingly enough, Clinton opposed the Bush surge in Iraq in 2007, voting against the plan during her tenure in the Senate.[10] This vote marks virtually the only Clinton vote that was opposed to greater use of the US military. However, it was later revealed that her opposition vote was nothing more than political grandstanding due to the fact that the Democratic Primaries were right around the corner. In fact, this much was revealed by former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates who wrote that he witnessed Clinton tell Barack Obama that “she had opposed George W. Bush‘s last-ditch effort to salvage the Iraq war, the 2007 troop “surge,” because the politics of the 2008 Democratic primaries demanded it.”[11]

This cynical political maneuvering reveals two things: 1.) That Clinton truly supported increasing the number of US forces in Iraq and 2.) Clinton was willing to sacrifice the lives of American service men and women, the financial future of the country, and the countless lives of innocent people on the line for even a minor political strategic position.

Still, Clinton was a staunch supporter of the war in Afghanistan, yet another in a long list of Clinton-supported wars based on lies, half-truths, and deceit. After all, despite the numerous facts and inconsistencies disproving the official story of 9/11, U.S. intelligence and military connections to al-Qaeda (which Clinton was well aware of), and the known pre-concert to go to war with Afghanistan prior to 9/11, Clinton was an avid supporter of the authorization to use military force in Afghanistan.

Clinton even went so far as to bring in the gender issue – a tactic which she is famous for. Clinton argued that an invasion would not only be a way to fight terrorism, but it would be a way to improve the lives and condition of women who suffered under Taliban leadership.[12]

Thus, when it came time for an even more brazen war campaign based on lies and machinations of the ruling administration and its media mouthpieces, Clinton was on board again. Voting for the 2002 Iraq War Resolution, Clinton vociferously promoted the cause for war and, once that war had taken place, she argued against leaving “too soon.”[13]

Even on the question of Iran, Clinton has not only pushed the nonsensical line that Iran was developing nuclear weapons and presents a major threat to the world (meaning the United States and Israel) but she also suggested military action against the Persian nation.[14] As Steve Chapman for Reason.com writes,

Anyone who thinks the only thing worse than a nuclear-armed Iran is a war with Iran will find no friend in Clinton. Going back to 2007, she has stressed the option of launching airstrikes to keep Tehran from getting the bomb. Like most in her camp, she acts as though a pre-emptive attack would be quick and easy—instead of being the opening round of a war that would not stick to her script any more than Iraq stuck to Bush’s.[15]

Michael Crowley of TIME writes,

Clinton brought a hard-line background to the topic of Iran. In April 2008 she warned that the U.S. could “totally obliterate”[16] Iran in retaliation for a nuclear attack on Israel—prompting Obama to chastise her for using “language that’s reflective of George Bush.”

In Obama administration debates about Tehran’s nuclear program, Clinton opposed talk of ‘containment,’ a policy option that plans for a world in which Iran possesses a nuclear weapon. Preparing for containment implies a decision not to use military force to prevent an Iranian bomb in the event that diplomacy fails.[17]

Indeed, Clinton’s statements would (and probably did) make war-obsessed psychopaths like Lindsey Graham gleam with pride. In 2008, she stated to Good Morning America,

I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran (if it attacks Israel). In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That’s a terrible thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic.[18]

In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, she stated brashly,

I’ve always been in the camp that held that they did not have a right to enrichment. Contrary to their claim, there is no such thing as a right to enrich. This is absolutely unfounded. There is no such right. I am well aware that I am not at the negotiating table anymore, but I think it’s important to send a signal to everybody who is there that there cannot be a deal unless there is a clear set of restrictions on Iran. The preference would be no enrichment. The potential fallback position would be such little enrichment that they could not break out.”[19]

Of course, there is a right to enrich.[20] There is a right to enrich up to the levels that would indeed allow for the capability to create a nuclear weapon but stopping short of actually doing so. In other words, since Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it is entitled all avenues of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, including uranium enrichment.

Clinton’s warmongering does not end with the Middle East, however. Although not (at least officially) a policy maker herself during her husband’s administration, it is no secret that Hillary was fully supportive of both Bill Clinton’s tragic bombing of Iraq as well as his war in Yugoslavia and Kosovo.[21] [22]

As Gary Leupp wrote in his article “The Warmongering Rhetoric of Hillary Clinton” published by Counterpunch in February, 2015,

*She has always been a warmonger. As First Lady from January 1993, she encouraged her husband Bill and his secretary of state Madeleine Albright to attack Serbian forces in the disintegrating Yugoslavia—in Bosnia in 1994 and Serbia in 1999. She’s stated that in 1999 she phoned her husband from Africa. “I urged him to bomb,” she boasts. These Serbs were (as usual) forces that did not threaten the U.S. in any way. The complex conflicts and tussles over territory between ethnic groups in the Balkans, and the collapse of the Russian economy following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, gave Bill Clinton an excuse to posture as the world’s savior and to use NATO to impose order. Only the United States, he asserted, could restore order in Yugoslavia, which had been a proudly neutral country outside NATO and the Warsaw Pact throughout the Cold War. President Clinton and Albright also claimed that only NATO—designed in 1949 to counter a supposed Soviet threat to Western Europe, but never yet deployed in battle—should deal with the Balkan crises. The Bosnian intervention resulted in the imposition of the “Dayton Accord” on the parties involved and the creation of the dysfunctional state of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Kosovo intervention five years later (justified by the scaremongering, subsequently disproven reports of a Serbian genocidal campaign against Kosovars) involved the NATO bombing of Belgrade and resulted in the dismemberment of Serbia. Kosovo, now recognized by the U.S. and many of its allies as an independent state, is the center of Europe’s heroin trafficking and the host of the U.S.’s largest army base abroad. The Kosovo war, lacking UN support and following Albright’s outrageous demand for Serbian acquiescence—designed, as she gleefully conceded, “to set the bar too high” for Belgrade and Moscow’s acceptance—of NATO occupation of all of Serbia, was an extraordinary provocation to Serbia’s traditional ally Russia. “They need some bombing, and that’s what they are going to get,” Albright said at the time, as NATO prepared to bomb a European capital for the first time since 1945.[23]

Leupp also wrote about Clinton’s support for the horrific sanctions that resulted in the deaths of untold numbers of innocent Iraqis during her husband’s tenure as President. He wrote,

Initially applied to force Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, the sanctions were sustained at U.S. insistence (and over the protests of other Security Council members) up to and even beyond the U.S. invasion in 2003. Bill Clinton demanded their continuance, insisting that Saddam Hussein’s (non-existent) secret WMD programs justified them. In 1996, three years into the Clinton presidency, Albright was asked whether the death of half a million Iraq children as a result of the sanctions was justified, and famously replied in a television interview, “We think it was worth it.” Surely Hillary agreed with her friend and predecessor as the first woman secretary of state. She also endorsed the 1998 “Operation Desert Fox” (based on lies, most notably the charge that Iraq had expelled UN inspectors) designed to further destroy Iraq’s military infrastructure and make future attacks even easier.[24]

Webster Griffin Tarpley sums up Hillary’s war record succinctly in his article “Hillary Clinton: The International Neocon Warmonger,” when he writes,

As the National Journal reported in 2014, even the pathetically weak anti-war left is not ready to reconcile with Hillary given her warmongering as Secretary of State. And with good reason. Scratching just lightly beneath the surface of Hillary Clinton’s career reveals the empirical evidence of her historic support for aggressive interventions around the globe. Beginning with Africa, Hillary defended the 1998 cruise missile strike on the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, destroying the largest producer of cheap medications for treating malaria and tuberculosis and provided over 60% of available medicine in Sudan. In 2006 she supported sending United Nations troops to Darfur with logistical and technical support provided by NATO forces. Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi was outspoken in his condemnation of this intervention, claiming it was not committed out of concern for Sudanese people but “…for oil and for the return of colonialism to the African continent.” This is the same leader who was murdered in the aftermath of the 2011 NATO bombing of Libya; an attack promoted and facilitated with the eager support of Mrs. Clinton. In an infamous CBS news interview, said regarding this international crime: “We came, we saw, he died.” As Time magazine pointed out in 2011, the administration understood removing Qaddafi from power would allow the terrorist cells active in Libya to run rampant in the vacuum left behind. Just last month the New York Times reported that Libya has indeed become a terrorist safe haven and failed state— conducive for exporting radicals through “ratlines” to the conflict against Assad in Syria. Hillary made prompt use of the ratlines for conflicts in the Middle East. In the summer of 2012, Clinton privately worked with then CIA director and subversive bonapartist David Petraeus on a proposal for providing arms and training to death squads to be used to topple Syria just as in Libya. This proposal was ultimately struck down by Obama, reported the New York Times in 2013, but constituted one of the earliest attempts at open military support for the Syrian death squads. Her voting record on intervening in Afghanistan and Iraq is well known and she also has consistently called for attacking Iran. She even told Fareed Zakaria the State Department was involved “behind the scenes” in Iran’s failed 2009 Green Revolution. More recently in Foreign Policy magazine David Rothkopf wrote on the subject of the Lausanne nuclear accord, predicting a “snap-back” in policy by the winner of the 2016 election to the foreign policy in place since the 1980s. The title of this article? “Hillary Clinton is the Real Iran Snap-Back.” This makes Hillary the prime suspect for a return to the madcap Iranian policies that routinely threaten the world with a World War 3 scenario. Hillary Clinton is not only actively aggressing against Africa and the Middle East. She was one of the loudest proponents against her husband’s hesitancy over the bombing of Kosovo, telling Lucina Frank: “I urged him to bomb,” even if it was a unilateral action. While no Clinton spokesperson responded to a request by the Washington Free Beacon regarding her stance on Ukraine, in paid speeches she mentioned “putting more financial support into the Ukrainian government”. When Crimea decided to choose the Russian Federation over Poroshenko’s proto-fascist rump state, Hillary anachronistically called President Putin’s actions like “what Hitler did in the ‘30s.” As a leader of the bumbled ”reset” policy towards Russia, Hillary undoubtedly harbors some animus against Putin and will continue the destabilization project ongoing in Ukraine. Not content with engaging in debacles in Eastern Europe, she has vocally argued for a more aggressive response to what she called the “rollback of democratic development and economic openness in parts of Latin America.” This indicates her willingness to allow the continuation of CIA sponsored efforts at South American destabilization in the countries of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil. It is one of the proud prerogatives of the Tax Wall Street Party to push out into the light the Wall Street and foundation-funded Democrats. The final blow to Hillary’s clumsy façade comes directly from arch-neocon Robert Kagan. Kagan worked as a foreign policy advisor to Hillary along with his wife, Ukraine madwoman Victoria Nuland, during Hillary’s term as Secretary of State. He claimed in the New York Times that his view of American foreign policy is best represented in the “mainstream” by the foreign policy of Hillary Clinton; a foreign policy he obviously manipulated or outright crafted. Kagan stated: “If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue…it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.” What further reason could any sane person need to refute Hillary? A vote for Hillary is a vote for the irrational return to war.[25]

Indeed, her support for war and military confrontation is perhaps the only thing Hillary Clinton is honest about.

Notes:

[1] Curl, Joseph. “Hillary Clinton Supported Iraq War – Before She Opposed It.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/joseph-curl-hillary-clinton-supported-iraq-war-bef/?page=all Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[2] Curl, Joseph. “Hillary Clinton Supported Iraq War – Before She Opposed It.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/joseph-curl-hillary-clinton-supported-iraq-war-bef/?page=all Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[3] Curl, Joseph. “Hillary Clinton Supported Iraq War – Before She Opposed It.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/joseph-curl-hillary-clinton-supported-iraq-war-bef/?page=all Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[4] Curl, Joseph. “Hillary Clinton Supported Iraq War – Before She Opposed It.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/joseph-curl-hillary-clinton-supported-iraq-war-bef/?page=all Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[5] Curl, Joseph. “Hillary Clinton Supported Iraq War – Before She Opposed It.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/joseph-curl-hillary-clinton-supported-iraq-war-bef/?page=all Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[6] Curl, Joseph. “Hillary Clinton Supported Iraq War – Before She Opposed It.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/joseph-curl-hillary-clinton-supported-iraq-war-bef/?page=all Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[7] Curl, Joseph. “Hillary Clinton Supported Iraq War – Before She Opposed It.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/joseph-curl-hillary-clinton-supported-iraq-war-bef/?page=all Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[8] Curl, Joseph. “Hillary Clinton Supported Iraq War – Before She Opposed It.” Washington Times. May 17, 2015. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/17/joseph-curl-hillary-clinton-supported-iraq-war-bef/?page=all Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[9] Golan-Vilella, Robert. “Hillary Clinton’s Afghanistan Problem.” The National Interest. December 17, 2013. http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/hillary-clintons-afghanistan-problem-9574 Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[10] Ballhaus, Rebecca. “Gates: Clinton’s Comment On Iraq Surge An ‘Anomaly.’” The Wall Street Journal. January 13, 2014. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/01/13/gates-clintons-comment-on-iraq-surge-an-anamoly/?dsk=y

Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[11] Crowley, Michael. “Hillary Clinton’s Unapologetically Hawkish Record Faces 2016 Test.” January 14, 2014. TIME. http://swampland.time.com/2014/01/14/hillary-clintons-unapologetically-hawkish-record-faces-2016-test/ Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[12] Clinton, Hillary. “New Hope For Afghanistan’s Women.” TIME. November 24, 2001. http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,185643,00.html Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[13] Fitzgerald, Jim. “Hillary Clinton Says Immediate Withdrawal From Iraq Would Be A ‘Big Mistake.’” Associated Press. November 21, 2005. http://legacy.utsandiego.com/news/world/iraq/20051121-1341-hillaryclinton-iraq.html Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[14] Glaser, John. “Hillary Clinton, The Democratic Party’s Pro-War, Anti-Civil Liberties Front-Runner.” Antiwar.com. April 29, 2014. http://antiwar.com/blog/2014/04/29/hillary-clinton-the-democratic-partys-pro-war-anti-civil-liberties-front-runner/ Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[15] Chapman, Steve. “Hillary Clinton, The Unrepentant Hawk.” Reason.com. April 28, 2014. http://reason.com/archives/2014/04/28/hillary-clinton-the-unrepentant-hawk Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[16] Morgan, David. “Clinton Says U.S. Could ‘Totally Obliterate’ Iran.” Associated Press. April 22, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/04/22/us-usa-politics-iran-idUSN2224332720080422 Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[17] Crowley, Michael. “Hillary Clinton’s Unapologetically Hawkish Record Faces 2016 Test.” January 14, 2014. TIME. http://swampland.time.com/2014/01/14/hillary-clintons-unapologetically-hawkish-record-faces-2016-test/ Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[18] Morgan, David. “Clinton Says U.S. Could ‘Totally Obliterate’ Iran.” Associated Press. April 22, 2008. http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/04/22/us-usa-politics-iran-idUSN2224332720080422 Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[19] Goldberg, Jeffrey. “Hillary Clinton: ‘Failure’ To Help Syrian Rebels Led To The Rise Of ISIS.” The Atlantic. August 10, 2014. http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/hillary-clinton-failure-to-help-syrian-rebels-led-to-the-rise-of-isis/375832/ Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[20] Sahimi, Muhammad. “Iran Has A Right To Enrich – And America Already Recognized It.” The National Interest. November 19, 2013. http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/iran-has-right-enrich%E2%80%94-america-already-recognized-it-9425 Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[21] Scahill, Jeremy. “The Real Story Behind Kosovo’s Independence.” Alternet. February 22, 2008. http://www.alternet.org/story/77546/the_real_story_behind_kosovo’s_independence Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[22] Leupp, Gary. “The Warmongering Record Of Hillary Clinton.” CounterPunch. February 11, 2015. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/11/the-warmongering-record-of-hillary-clinton/ Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[23] Leupp, Gary. “The Warmongering Record Of Hillary Clinton.” CounterPunch. February 11, 2015. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/11/the-warmongering-record-of-hillary-clinton/ Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[24] Leupp, Gary. “The Warmongering Record Of Hillary Clinton.” CounterPunch. February 11, 2015. http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/11/the-warmongering-record-of-hillary-clinton/ Accessed on August 28, 2015.

[25] Tarpley, Webster Griffin. “Hillary Clinton: The International Neocon Warmonger.” Voltaire Net. April 13, 2015. http://www.voltairenet.org/article187315.html Accessed on August 28, 2015.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He has a Bachelor’s Degree from Francis Marion University and is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 500 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.