Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHillary Clinton has run to the right of the Obama administration on every major foreign policy issue
http://fpif.org/hillary-clintons-support-iraq-war-no-fluke/Hillary Clintons Support for the Iraq War Was No Fluke
Hillary Clinton has run to the right of the Obama administration on every major foreign policy issue and shes left a trail of devastation in her wake.
snip
If Clinton supported the Iraq war because she thought it politically expedient, she came to regret her stance when the war turned sour and Senator Barack Obama surged forward as the candidate opposed to that war during the presidential race in 2008.
But Clinton didnt learn the main lesson from Iraq to seek non- violent ways to solve conflicts. Indeed, when the Arab Spring came to Libya in 2010, Clinton was the Obama administrations most forceful advocate for toppling Muammar Gaddafi. She even out-hawked Robert Gates, the defense secretary first appointed by George W. Bush, who was less than enthusiastic about going to war. Gates was reluctant to get bogged down in another Arab country, insisting that vital U.S. interests were not at stake But Clinton nevertheless favored intervention.
When Libyan rebels carried out an extrajudicial execution of their countrys former dictator, Clintons response was sociopathic: We came, we saw, he died, she laughed. That sent a message that the United States would look the other way at crimes committed by allies against its official enemies.
In a weird bit of rough justice, the political grief Clinton has suffered over the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi that killed four Americans might never have occurred had Clinton not supported the U.S. intervention in Libyas civil war. While Republicans have focused relentlessly on the terrible deaths of the U.S. diplomats, the larger disaster is the ensuing chaos that left Libya without a functioning government, overrun by feuding warlords and extremist militants. In 2015, the suffering of desperate refugees who flee civil unrest many of whom drown in the Mediterranean Sea is a direct consequence of that disastrous operation.
Libya was part of a pattern for Clinton.
On Afghanistan, she advocated a repeat of the surge in Iraq. When the top U.S. commander in Kabul, General Stanley McChrystal, asked Obama for 40,000 more troops to fight the Taliban in mid-2009, several top officials including Vice President Joe Biden objected, insisting that the public had lost patience with a conflict that had already dragged on too long. But Clinton backed McChrystal and wound up favoring even more surge troops than Defense Secretary Gates did. Obama ultimately sent another 30,000 American soldiers to Afghanistan.
Clintons State Department also provided cover for the expansion of the not-so-covert drone wars in Pakistan and Yemen. Clintons top legal adviser, Harold Koh, exploited his pre-government reputation as an advocate for human rights to declare in a 2010 speech that the government had the right not only to detain people without any charges at Guantanamo Bay, but also to kill them with unmanned aerial vehicles anywhere in the world.
Escalation in Syria
When it came to Syria, Obamas top diplomat was a forceful advocate for military intervention in that nations civil war.
snip
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
6 replies, 488 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (23)
ReplyReply to this post
6 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Hillary Clinton has run to the right of the Obama administration on every major foreign policy issue (Original Post)
amborin
May 2016
OP
Thanks to Obama's "inexperience" we got a deal with Iran and a start of a raproachment with Cuba
eridani
May 2016
#3
Yeah, I have to laugh at anyone who thinks that she's going to preserve Obama's legacy.
frylock
May 2016
#5
Her election would breathe new life into the PNAC's vision of world domination.
AtomicKitten
May 2016
#6
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)1. Kissinger could never run for the Presidency since he was born in Germany.
I guess the second best thing for him was to have people like Hillary to mentor.
senz
(11,945 posts)2. She's a foreign policy disaster. Obama was quite displeased with her.
eridani
(51,907 posts)3. Thanks to Obama's "inexperience" we got a deal with Iran and a start of a raproachment with Cuba
Had Clinton been elected in 2008, those things would never have happened. She'll probably try to reverse them. if elected president.
frylock
(34,825 posts)5. Yeah, I have to laugh at anyone who thinks that she's going to preserve Obama's legacy.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)4. If she wins, we'll get another ground war in the Middle East.
And every Clinton supporter here will say "I didn't vote for that!!!", despite her extremely long track record.
AtomicKitten
(46,585 posts)6. Her election would breathe new life into the PNAC's vision of world domination.