{"id":146416,"date":"2015-04-24T02:17:31","date_gmt":"2015-04-24T02:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=146416"},"modified":"2015-04-24T03:13:11","modified_gmt":"2015-04-24T03:13:11","slug":"when-hillary-clinton-pitched-the-iraq-war-to-codepink-fpif","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/politics\/when-hillary-clinton-pitched-the-iraq-war-to-codepink-fpif\/","title":{"rendered":"When Hillary Clinton Pitched the Iraq War to CodePink"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Davis<\/span> and Medea Benjamin<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Announcing her latest campaign for\u00a0the\u00a0presidency,\u00a0Hillary\u00a0Clinton declared she was entering\u00a0the\u00a0race to be\u00a0the\u00a0champion for\u00a0\u201ceveryday Americans<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0As a lawmaker and diplomat, however, Clinton has long championed military campaigns that have killed scores of \u201ceveryday\u201d people abroad, from Iraq to Yemen.<\/p>\n

As commander-in-chief, there\u2019s no reason to believe she\u2019d be any less a\u00a0hawk\u00a0than she was as\u00a0a senator, when she backed George W. Bush\u2019s war in Iraq, or\u00a0as\u00a0secretary of state, when she encouraged President Barack Obama to escalate\u00a0the\u00a0war in Afghanistan. If her nomination is as sure a thing as people say, then antiwar organizing needs to start right away.<\/p>\n

[quote_left]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Real History of the Iraq War – DVD<\/strong>
\n<\/a>Our Price:<\/span> $15.00<\/b><\/p>\n

[\/quote_left]<\/p>\n

Hillary\u2019s already won\u00a0the\u00a0support of those who continually agitate for war. \u201cI feel comfortable with her on foreign policy,\u201d\u00a0Robert Kagan<\/a>, a co-founder of\u00a0the\u00a0neoconservative\u00a0Project for\u00a0the\u00a0New American Century<\/a>,\u00a0told\u00a0The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>last summer<\/a>. \u201cIf she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue,\u201d he said, \u201cit\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to call it what it is: More of\u00a0the\u00a0same sort of murderous policies that destroyed Iraq,\u00a0destabilized Libya<\/a>, killed women and children\u00a0with cluster bombs<\/a>\u00a0and drones\u00a0in Yemen, and legitimized\u00a0the undermining of democracy in Honduras. There\u2019s little chance\u00a0the Republicans will nominate someone better, but given Clinton\u2019s record as a senator and secretary of state \u2013\u00a0the\u00a0latter giving us a very good idea of how she would approach foreign affairs once in office \u2013 it will be hard for them to find anyone much worse.<\/p>\n

We know that Clinton is no reliable friend of peace. Today she supports diplomacy with Iran, but\u00a0back in 2009<\/a>, as secretary of state, she was adamant that\u00a0the\u00a0U.S. keep open\u00a0the\u00a0option of attacking\u00a0the Islamic Republic over never-proven allegations it was seeking\u00a0nuclear weapons. (In fact, Israel is the region\u2019s\u00a0only nuclear power<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Her attempts to portray herself as an ally of those who are pro-peace, as a sort of reluctant imperialist, is\u00a0the\u00a0same sort of co-opting distortion that has helped quiet opposition to President Obama\u2019s hawkish agenda. If anything,\u00a0Hillary\u00a0is even more militaristic than\u00a0the\u00a0ostensibly reluctant warrior she\u2019s campaigning to replace. Still, that hasn\u2019t stopped her from trying to be all things to all people \u2013 even people like us.[td_video_youtube playlist_title=”” playlist_yt=”” playlist_auto_play=”0″]<\/p>\n

Indeed, in March 2003, Clinton did something she\u2019ll probably never willingly do again: She\u00a0met with CODEPINK<\/a>\u00a0to explain her support for the Iraq war. \u201cI like pink tulips around this time of\u00a0the\u00a0year,\u201d she began. They \u201ckind of remind ya that there may be a spring. Well, you guys look like a big bunch of big tulips!\u201d It got progressively more awkward after that. \u201cI admire your willingness to speak out on behalf of\u00a0the\u00a0women and children of Iraq,\u201d said Clinton, but \u201cThere is a very easy way to prevent anyone from being put into harm\u2019s way and that is for Saddam Hussein to disarm and I have absolutely no belief that he will.\u201d<\/p>\n

We thought\u00a0the\u00a0easiest way to prevent harming\u00a0the\u00a0women, children, and other living things in Iraq was to stop a war of aggression, ostensibly over weapons of mass destruction that UN inspectors on\u00a0the ground couldn\u2019t find and which were, in fact, never found \u2013 because they didn\u2019t exist. Clinton, however, was steadfast: \u201cIf Saddam were serious about disarming he would have been much more forthcoming,\u201d she claimed. \u201cThe\u00a0very difficult question for all of us is how does one bring about\u00a0the\u00a0disarmament of someone with such a proven track record of a commitment, if not an obsession, with weapons of mass destruction?\u201d<\/p>\n

Her answer: Destroying Iraq by dropping millions of U.S.-made WMDs, including bombs withdepleted uranium<\/a>\u00a0that have more than doubled\u00a0the\u00a0country\u2019s pre-2003\u00a0rate of cancer<\/a>. Speaking to\u00a0the\u00a0women of CODEPINK, Clinton even explicitly defended George W. Bush\u2019s unilateralism, citing her husband\u2019s go-it-alone intervention in Kosovo back in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

In 2011, when\u00a0the\u00a0Arab Spring came to Libya, Clinton was\u00a0the\u00a0Obama administration\u2019s\u00a0most forceful advocate<\/a>\u00a0for going above and beyond a no-fly zone to depose Muammar Gaddafi, whose U.S.-trained security forces were killing Libyans with\u00a0the\u00a0help of weapons and equipment provided by his erstwhile allies in\u00a0the\u00a0United States, Britain, and France.<\/p>\n

She even\u00a0out-hawked<\/a>\u00a0Robert Gates,\u00a0the\u00a0defense secretary first appointed by George W. Bush who was less than enthusiastic about going to war. When Libyan rebels carried out an extrajudicial execution of their country\u2019s former dictator, her response was sociopathic:\u00a0\u201cWe came, we saw, he died,\u201d\u00a0she said<\/a>, smiling and laughing. That sent a message that\u00a0the\u00a0United States would look\u00a0the\u00a0other way at crimes committed by allies against its official enemies; indeed,\u00a0it was the\u00a0same policy of tolerance for friends\u2019 war crimes that arguably led Gaddafi to believe he could get away with killing anyone he labeled \u201cal-Qaeda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Libya was part of a pattern for Clinton. On Afghanistan, she advocated a repeat of\u00a0the\u00a0surge in Iraq, encouraging President Obama to\u00a0more than double<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0number of troops there. Her State Department also provided cover for\u00a0the\u00a0expansion of\u00a0the\u00a0not-so-covert drone wars in Pakistan and Yemen. Clinton\u2019s top legal adviser, Harold Koh, exploited his pre-government reputation as an advocate for human rights to declare in\u00a0a 2010 speech<\/a>\u00a0that not only did\u00a0the\u00a0government have\u00a0the\u00a0right to detain people without charge at Guantanamo Bay, but it can kill them with unmanned aerial vehicles anywhere in\u00a0the\u00a0world.<\/p>\n

Clinton practiced \u201csoft power\u201d diplomacy too, of course: After Honduran forces trained at\u00a0the\u00a0U.S. School of\u00a0the\u00a0Americas carried out a coup against elected president Manuel Zelaya, Clinton\u2019s State Department immediately got to work on legitimizing\u00a0the\u00a0regime that seized power. As commentator\u00a0Mark Weisbrot observes<\/a>, she even said as much in her book,\u00a0Hard Choices<\/em>: \u201cIn\u00a0the\u00a0subsequent days [after\u00a0the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around\u00a0the\u00a0hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa in Mexico,\u201d wrote Clinton. \u201cWe strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render\u00a0the\u00a0question of Zelaya moot.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0subsequent \u201cfree and fair\u201d election would end up being between two candidates who supported a coup opposed by most \u201ceveryday people\u201d in Honduras, now one of\u00a0the\u00a0most violent,\u00a0drug-war ravaged countries<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0world. Clinton has also\u00a0called for deporting<\/a>\u00a0child refugees fleeing that violence. In Honduras, as elsewhere, it seems it\u2019s not\u00a0the lives of \u201ceveryday people\u201d that are of chief concern to politicians like Clinton.<\/p>\n

When Barack Obama became president,\u00a0the\u00a0anti-war movement became his first casualty \u2013 followed by a group of Pakistanis\u00a0droned to death<\/a>\u00a0three days after his inauguration. We should never lose hope that we can bring about positive change, but actually changing\u00a0the\u00a0world for\u00a0the\u00a0better requires being aware that whoever sits in\u00a0the\u00a0White House come January 2017 is not going to be our friend.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Charles Davis<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is a writer in Los Angeles. His work has been published by outlets such as Al Jazeera,<\/em>\u00a0The\u00a0<\/em>New Republic, and Salon.\u00a0<\/em>Medea Benjamin is<\/em>\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>co-founder of<\/em>\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>peace group CODEPINK and<\/em>\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>human rights organization Global Exchange. She is also<\/em>\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>author of\u00a0Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

via When Hillary Clinton Pitched the Iraq War to CodePink – FPIF<\/a>.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Davis and Medea Benjamin Announcing her latest campaign for\u00a0the\u00a0presidency,\u00a0Hillary\u00a0Clinton declared she was entering\u00a0the\u00a0race to be\u00a0the\u00a0champion for\u00a0\u201ceveryday Americans.\u201d\u00a0As a lawmaker and diplomat, however, Clinton has long championed military campaigns that have killed scores of \u201ceveryday\u201d people abroad, from Iraq to Yemen. As commander-in-chief, there\u2019s no reason to believe she\u2019d be any less a\u00a0hawk\u00a0than she was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,17,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-146416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-politics","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}