{"id":221016,"date":"2016-02-02T23:37:19","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T23:37:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=221016"},"modified":"2016-02-02T23:37:19","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T23:37:19","slug":"adding-costs-hillary-clintons-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/adding-costs-hillary-clintons-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"Adding Up the Costs of Hillary Clinton\u2019s Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The Greek playwright Aeschylus \u2013 who fought at Marathon in 490 BC, the battle<br \/>\nthat defeated the first Persian invasion of Greece \u2013 had few illusions about<br \/>\nthe consequences of war. No wonder, in the tragedy <em>Oresteia<\/em>, he gave<br \/>\nhis character Agamemnon these verses:<\/p>\n<p><em>They sent forth men to battle.<br \/>\n<\/em><em>But no such men return;<br \/>\n<\/em><em>And home, to claim their welcome<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Comes ashes in an urn.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>His ode is one the candidates for the U.S. presidency might consider, though<br \/>\none doubts that many of them would think to find wisdom in a 2,500 year-old<br \/>\nGreek play.<\/p>\n<p>And that, in itself, is a tragedy.<\/p>\n<p>Historical blindness has been much on display in the primary season. On the<br \/>\nRepublican side, candidates promised to \u201ckick ass\u201d in Iraq, make<br \/>\nthe \u201csand glow\u201d in Syria, and face down the Russians in Europe.<br \/>\nWhile the Democratic aspirants were a little more measured, they generally share<br \/>\nthe pervasive ideology that binds together all but \u201ccranks\u201d like<br \/>\nRon Paul: America has the right, indeed the duty, to order the world\u2019s affairs.<\/p>\n<p>This peculiar view of the role of the US takes on a certain messianic quality<br \/>\nin candidates like Hillary Clinton, who routinely quotes former Secretary of<br \/>\nState Madeline Albright\u2019s line about America as \u201cthe indispensable nation\u201d<br \/>\nwhose job is to lead the world.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Failure of Imagination<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At a recent rally in Indianola, Iowa, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/politics\/first-draft\/2016\/01\/21\/hillary-clinton-knocks-bernie-sanders-on-foreign-policy-experience\/?_r=0\">Clinton<br \/>\nsaid<\/a> that \u201cSenator [Bernie] Sanders doesn\u2019t talk much about foreign<br \/>\npolicy, and when he does, it raises concerns because sometimes it can sound<br \/>\nlike he really hasn\u2019t thought things through.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The former secretary of state was certainly correct. Foreign policy for Sanders<br \/>\nis pretty much an afterthought to his signature issues of economic inequality<br \/>\nand a national health care system.<\/p>\n<p>But the implication of her comment is that she <em>has<\/em> thought things<br \/>\nthrough. If she has, it isn\u2019t evident in her memoir, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Hard-Choices-Hillary-Rodham-Clinton\/dp\/1476751471\/antiwarbookstore\">Hard<br \/>\nChoices<\/a><\/em>, or in her campaign speeches.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/original.antiwar.com\/hallinan\/2016\/02\/01\/adding-up-the-costs-of-hillary-clintons-wars\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Greek playwright Aeschylus \u2013 who fought at Marathon in 490 BC, the battle that defeated the first Persian invasion of Greece \u2013 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 no such men return; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-221016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221016","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=221016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}