{"id":276526,"date":"2016-10-31T05:14:47","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T04:14:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/war-or-peace-2\/"},"modified":"2016-10-31T05:14:47","modified_gmt":"2016-10-31T04:14:47","slug":"war-or-peace-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/war-or-peace-2\/","title":{"rendered":"War or Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Every presidential vote, like every other vote, demands that one set priorities, for it is a rare voter indeed who will agree 100% with a given candidate.\u00a0 And surely in the coming presidential election survival must top the list of priorities.\u00a0 What can be more important than the survival of human civilization and perhaps humanity itself?<\/p>\n

Here is a brief primer on the subject \u2013 suitable for printing out for liberal friends.<\/p>\n

No Fly Zone over Syria<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI personally would be advocating now for a no-fly zone (inside Syria)\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Hillary Clinton interview<\/a>, October 1, 2015, the day after Russia began air operations over Syria.\u00a0 Clinton has held this position since 2013 at least when she admitted it would \u201ckill a lot of Syrians<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 She has maintained it right up to the final presidential debate when she went \u201call-in on Syria no-fly zone<\/a>\u201d as the pro-Clinton Huffington Post headlined it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cRight now, Senator, for us to control all the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war \u2013 against Syria and Russia.\u00a0 That\u2019s a pretty fundamental decision that certainly I\u2019m not going to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford in Congressional testimony<\/a> on September 22, 2016.\u00a0 Dunford\u2019s alarm is shared by other \u201cnational security\u201d experts<\/a> and those previously involved in implementing such zones.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWhat we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria. You\u2019re going to end up in World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton<\/em>. \u2026You\u2019re not fighting Syria anymore, you\u2019re fighting Syria, Russia, and Iran, all right? Russia is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk.\u201d\u00a0 (Emphasis, JW.)<\/p>\n

\n

Donald Trump in Reuters interview<\/a> on October 25, 2016, headlined \u201cExclusive \u2013 Trump says Clinton policy on Syria would lead to World War Three.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So there you are.\u00a0 It is not complicated.\u00a0 We have seen Clinton\u2019s actions over 26 and more years.\u00a0 She has not hesitated to kill hundreds of thousands and destroy entire countries.\u00a0 Libya and now Syria are but the latest examples.\u00a0 There is no doubt what she will do once in office.\u00a0 As Ralph Nader has said, she has never seen a war she did not love.\u00a0 Or as Trump has said, she is \u201ctrigger happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Broader U.S. Russia Relations<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNow if this sounds familiar (Putin\u2019s actions in Crimea, jw), it\u2019s what Hitler did back in the 30s\u2026..All the Germans that were \u2026 the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they\u2019re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Hillary Clinton comments<\/a> comparing Putin\u2019s actions to Hitler\u2019s at a private gathering, March, 2014<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cMrs. Clinton has chosen to take up a very aggressive stance against our country, against Russia.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Trump, on the other hand, calls for cooperation \u2013 at least when it comes to the international fight against terrorism.<\/p>\n

\u201cNaturally we welcome those who would like to cooperate with us. And we consider it wrong, that we always have to be in conflict with one another, creating existential threats for each other and for the whole\u00a0world.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf somebody out there wants confrontation, this is not our choice but this means that there will be problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

President Vladimir Putin addressing<\/a> a group of journalists in Russia, October, 2016.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWouldn\u2019t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia and China and all these countries? Wouldn\u2019t it be nice?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Donald Trump at a rally<\/a> in Clinton, Iowa, January, 2016, stating a position that he has often voiced.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

My progressive friends dismiss this and many other statements of Trump\u2019s with the easy rejoinder that Trump is inconsistent and opportunistic, that one cannot believe what he says.\u00a0 But his statements on Russia are quite consistent. And they are quite the opposite of opportunistic; they do not gain him votes, they have cost him votes.\u00a0 He stated his Russia-friendly position from the beginning in the Republican primaries, as for example in the statement above which was made in Iowa before the caucuses.\u00a0 That was no advantage to him.\u00a0 The Republican Party at that time was dominated by the neocons, and its Establishment remains hawkish to the present as John McCain, Mitt Romney, and many others demonstrate on a near daily basis. Trump has stuck with his position right up through the final presidential debate, even though his own vice presidential candidate has tried to pull him away from it and even though Hillary has used it as a club with which to beat him.\u00a0 There has been no inconsistency and it has been costly for him.\u00a0 That means you can take it to the bank as a matter of principle for him.<\/p>\n

In fact, Trump has been as determined and consistent in seeking peace with Russia and Syria as Clinton has been in demonizing Putin and seeking a no-fly zone in Syria.\u00a0 That is a clear and striking difference between them.<\/em><\/p>\n

A testimony of great value to progressives<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOn the issue of war and nuclear weapons, it is actually Hillary\u2019s policies which are much scarier than Donald Trump (sic) who does not want to go to war with Russia.\u00a0He wants to seek modes of working together, which is the route that we need to follow not to go into confrontation and nuclear war with Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for president, interview<\/a> on October 12, 2016.<\/p>\n

If, dear reader, you do not believe that Hillary will put us in a war situation with Russia to advance the power of the Indispensable Nation and the Exceptionals, then please read again the first three quotes at the beginning of this essay.\u00a0 In the absence of Hillary from his Cabinet, Obama has been wary about plunging into a misadventure in Syria.\u00a0 But Hillary does not hesitate when it comes to such bloody undertakings; she revels<\/a> in them.<\/p>\n

And if you have priorities that outstrip the question of survival, then this essay will mean little to you.\u00a0 But I submit that most other questions pale into insignificance next to this one \u2013 if not for you, then for your loved ones and for your fellow human beings.<\/p>\n

The Best of John V. Walsh<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every presidential vote, like every other vote, demands that one set priorities, for it is a rare voter indeed who will agree 100% with a given candidate.\u00a0 And surely in the coming presidential election survival must top the list of priorities.\u00a0 What can be more important than the survival of human civilization and perhaps humanity […]<\/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-276526","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\/276526","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=276526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}