{"id":220709,"date":"2016-02-01T19:04:29","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T19:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/adding-up-the-costs-of-hillary-clintons-wars\/"},"modified":"2016-02-01T19:04:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T19:04:29","slug":"adding-up-the-costs-of-hillary-clintons-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/adding-up-the-costs-of-hillary-clintons-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Adding Up the Costs of Hillary Clinton\u2019s Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"The<\/p>\n

(Photo: Mike Mozart \/ Flickr)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Greek playwright Aeschylus \u2014 who fought at Marathon in 490 BC, the battle that defeated the first Persian invasion of Greece \u2014 had few illusions about the consequences of war. No wonder, in the tragedy Oresteia<\/em>, he gave his character Agamemnon these verses:<\/p>\n

\n

They sent forth men to battle.
<\/em>But no such men return;
<\/em>And home, to claim their welcome
<\/em>Comes ashes in an urn.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

His ode is one the candidates for the U.S. presidency might consider, though one doubts that many of them would think to find wisdom in a 2,500 year-old Greek play.<\/p>\n

And that, in itself, is a tragedy.<\/p>\n

Historical blindness has been much on display in the primary season. On the Republican side, candidates promised to \u201ckick ass\u201d in Iraq, make the \u201csand glow\u201d in Syria, and face down the Russians in Europe. While the Democratic aspirants were a little more measured, they generally share the pervasive ideology that binds together all but \u201ccranks\u201d like Ron Paul: America has the right, indeed the duty, to order the world\u2019s affairs.<\/p>\n

This peculiar view of the role of the U.S. takes on a certain messianic quality in candidates like Hillary Clinton, who routinely quotes former Secretary of State Madeline Albright\u2019s line about America as \u201cthe indispensible nation\u201d whose job is to lead the world.<\/p>\n

A Failure of Imagination<\/strong><\/p>\n

At a recent rally in Indianola, Iowa, Clinton said<\/a> that \u201cSenator [Bernie] Sanders doesn\u2019t talk much about foreign policy, and when he does, it raises concerns because sometimes it can sound like he really hasn\u2019t thought things through.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former secretary of state was certainly correct. Foreign policy for Sanders is pretty much an afterthought to his signature issues of economic inequality and a national health care system.<\/p>\n

But the implication of her comment is that she has<\/em> thought things through. If she has, it isn\u2019t evident in her memoir, Hard Choices<\/em>, or in her campaign speeches.<\/p>\n

Hard Choices<\/em> covers her years as secretary of state and seemingly unconsciously tracks a litany of American foreign policy disasters: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Georgia, Ukraine, and the \u201cAsia pivot\u201d that\u2019s dangerously increased tensions with China.<\/p>\n

At the heart of Hard Choices<\/em> is the ideology of \u201cAmerican exceptionalism,\u201d which for Clinton means the right of the U.S. to intervene in other countries at will. As historian Jackson Lears, in the London Review of Books<\/em><\/a>, puts it, Clinton\u2019s memoir \u201ctries to construct a coherent rationale for an interventionist foreign policy and to justify it with reference to her own decisions as Secretary of State. The rationale is rickety: the evidence unconvincing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clinton is undoubtedly an intelligent person, but her book is remarkably shallow and quite the opposite of \u201cthoughtful.\u201d The one act on her part for which she shows any regret is her vote to invade Iraq<\/a>. But even here she quickly moves on, never really examining how it is that the U.S. had the right to invade and overthrow a sovereign government. For Clinton, Iraq was only a \u201cmistake\u201d because it came out badly.<\/p>\n

She also demonstrates an inability to see other people\u2019s point of view. Thus the Russians are portrayed as aggressively attempting to re-establish their old Soviet sphere of influence rather than reacting to the steady march of NATO eastwards<\/a>. The fact that the U.S. violated promises by the first Bush administration not to move NATO \u201cone inch east\u201d if the Soviets withdrew their forces from Eastern Europe is treated as irrelevant.<\/p>\n

Along with much of the Washington establishment, Clinton doesn\u2019t seem to get that a country that\u2019s been invaded three times since 1815 \u2014 and lost tens of millions of people \u2014 might be a tad paranoid about its borders. There\u2019s no mention of the roles U.S. intelligence agencies, organizations like the National Endowment for Democracy<\/a>, and openly fascist Ukrainian groups played in the coup against the elected (if corrupt) government of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Clinton takes credit for the Obama administration\u2019s \u201cAsia Pivot,\u201d which she boasted \u201csent a message to Asia and the world that America was back in its traditional leadership role in Asia.\u201d But she doesn\u2019t consider how this might be interpreted in Beijing.<\/p>\n

The United States, after all, never left Asia \u2014 the Pacific basin has long been home to major U.S. trading partners, and there\u2019s a huge U.S. military presence in Japan, Korea, and the Pacific. So to the Chinese, the \u201cpivot\u201d means that the U.S. plans to beef up its military presence in the region and construct an anti-China alliance system. It\u2019s done both.<\/p>\n

The Butcher Bill<\/strong><\/p>\n

Clinton often costumes military intervention in the philosophy of \u201cresponsibility to protect,\u201d or \u201cR2P.\u201d But her application is selective.<\/p>\n

She takes credit for overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, for example. But in her campaign speeches she\u2019s not said a word about the horrendous bombing campaign<\/a> being waged by Saudi Arabia in Yemen. She cites R2P for why the U.S. should overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria, but is silent about Saudi Arabia\u2019s intervention in Bahrain<\/a> to crush demands for democracy by its majority Shiite population.<\/p>\n

Clinton, along with Samantha Power<\/a>, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, and Susan Rice, the Obama administration\u2019s national security advisor, has pushed for muscular interventions without thinking \u2014 or caring \u2014 about the consequences.<\/p>\n

And those consequences have been dire.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan<\/strong>: Somewhere around 220,000 Afghans<\/a> have died since the 2001 U.S. invasion, and millions of others are refugees. The U.S. and its allies have suffered close to 2,500 dead and more than 20,000 wounded, and the war is far from over. The cost to the treasury alone runs close to $700 billion<\/a>, not counting long-term medical bill that could run as high as $2 trillion.<\/p>\n

Libya<\/strong>: Some 30,000 people died and another 50,000 were wounded in the intervention and civil war. Hundreds of thousands have been turned into refugees. The cost to Washington was cheap at a cool $1.1 billion, but the war and subsequent instability created a tsunami of weapons and refugees \u2014 and the fighting continues. It also produced one of Clinton\u2019s more tasteless remarks. Referring to Gaddafi, she said, \u201cWe came, we saw, he died.\u201d The Libyan leader was executed by having a bayonet rammed up his rectum.<\/p>\n

Ukraine<\/strong>: The death toll now exceeds 8,000, some 18,000 have been wounded, and several cities in the eastern part of the country have been heavily damaged. The fighting has tapered off, although tensions remain high.<\/p>\n

Yemen<\/strong>: Over 6,000 Yemenis have been killed<\/a> and another 27,000 wounded. According to the UN, most of them are civilians. Ten million Yeminis don\u2019t have enough to eat, and 13 million have no access to clean water. Yemen is highly dependent on imported food, but a U.S.-Saudi blockade has choked off most imports. The war is ongoing.<\/p>\n

Iraq<\/strong>: Anywhere from 400,000 to over 1 million people<\/a> have died from war-related causes since the 2003 invasion. Over 2 million have fled the country and another 2 million are internally displaced. The cost: close to $1 trillion, but it may rise to $4 trillion once all the long-term medical costs are added in. The war grinds on<\/a> its latest incarnation: a bloody turf war with the Islamic State, which emerged from the Sunni insurgency against the U.S.-installed government.<\/p>\n

Syria<\/strong>: Over 250,000 have died in the war, and half the country\u2019s population has been displaced \u2014 including four million Syrian refugees abroad. The country\u2019s major cities have been ravaged. The war, like the others, is ongoing.<\/p>\n

There are other countries \u2014 like Somalia \u2014 that one could add to the butcher bill. Then there are the countries that reaped the fallout from the collapse of Libya. Weapons looted after the fall of Gaddafi<\/a> largely fuel the wars in Mali, Niger, and the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n

And how does one calculate the cost of the Asia Pivot \u2014 not only for the United States, but for the allies we\u2019re recruiting to confront China? Since the \u201cPivot\u201d got underway prior to China\u2019s recent assertiveness in the South China Sea, is the current climate of tension in the Pacific basin a result of Chinese aggression, or U.S. provocation?<\/p>\n

Death and Destruction<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton is hardly the only Democrat<\/a> who thinks American exceptionalism gives the U.S. the right to intervene in other countries. That point of view it is pretty much bi-partisan. And while Sanders wisely voted against the Iraq War and has criticized Clinton\u2019s eagerness to intervene elsewhere, the Vermont senator did back the Yugoslavia and Afghan interventions. The former re-ignited the Cold War, and the latter is playing out like a Rudyard Kipling novel.<\/p>\n

In all fairness, Sanders did say, \u201cI worry that Secretary Clinton is too much into regime change and a bit too aggressive without knowing what the unintended consequences may be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Would Hillary be more inclined toward an aggressive foreign policy?<\/p>\n

Certainly more than Obama<\/a> \u2014 Clinton pressed the White House to intervene more deeply in Syria, and was far more hardline on Iran. On virtually every foreign policy issue, in fact, Clinton is said to have led the charge<\/a> inside the administration for a more belligerent U.S. response.<\/p>\n

More than the Republicans? It\u2019s hard to say, because most of them sound like they\u2019ve gone off their meds. For instance, a number of GOP candidates pledge to cancel the nuclear agreement with Iran. While Clinton wanted to drive a harder bargain than the White House did, in the end she supported it.<\/p>\n

However, she did say she\u2019s proud to call Iranians \u201cenemies<\/a>,\u201d and attacked Sanders for his entirely sensible remark that the U.S. might find common ground with Iran on defeating the Islamic State. Sanders then backed off and said he didn\u2019t think it was possible to improve relations with Tehran in the near future.<\/p>\n

The danger of Clinton\u2019s view of America\u2019s role in the world is that of old-fashioned imperial behavior wrapped in the humanitarian rationale of R2P. It\u2019s more polite than the \u201cmake the sands glow\u201d atavism of the Republicans. But in the end, it\u2019s death and destruction in a different packaging.<\/p>\n

Aeschylus got that: \u201cFor War\u2019s a banker, flesh his gold.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This piece was reprinted from Foreign Policy In Focus<\/a> by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Photo: Mike Mozart \/ Flickr) The Greek playwright Aeschylus \u2014 who fought at Marathon in 490 BC, the battle that defeated the first Persian invasion of Greece \u2014 had few illusions about the consequences of war. No wonder, in the tragedy Oresteia, he gave his character Agamemnon these verses: They sent forth men to battle.But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":220710,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-220709","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220709","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=220709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}