I trust Hillary on foreign policy. People complain that she's a hawk or "neo-con."

[DanTex]

That she's an imperialist who wants to wage wars for profit. That's total nonsense.

People both on the left and the right like to pretend that foreign policy, military policy is easy. It's not. The right thinks all we need to do is be more aggressive, drop more bombs. Wrong. The left thinks all we need to do is nothing. Also wrong.

The problem is, in most cases, there are no good options. The only hope is the least bad option. And choosing the least bad option is very difficult, and requires really understanding the facts of the ground. Look at Syria and Libya.

In Syria, we did (basically) nothing. What happened? Huge numbers of people were murdered. ISIS got more powerful and was then able to move back into Iraq and take over cities.

In Libya, NATO ran an air campaign to prevent Gadafi from mass murder. What happened? Well, the immediate mass murder was averted, but then it descended into chaos and war, and ISIS moved in.

Anyone who can say with confidence that either of those would have turned out better if the US or NATO had acted differently is full of it. It might have, but it might have been worse. There are only bad choices. Doing nothing is a bad choice. Helping rebels overthrow murderous war criminal dictators is a bad choice. And going in with a huge occupying force is a bad choice.

Someone's going to be making these difficult decisions, and I for one trust someone with Hillary's knowledge and experience to make them.

[actslikeacarrot]

1. Large amounts of people are going to die no matter what we do.

Everything we touch in the middle east turns to shit. If that area of the world is going to know peace, it has to come from inside. No outside power will be able to bend/mold/fit the mid east to what they want. Why do we keep doing the same thing over and over again? and create MORE terrorists in the process?

[DanTex]

3. But we haven't done the same thing over and over.

We did different things in Syria and Libya.

[Electric Monk]

2. "The left thinks all we need to do is nothing." Nice Strawman, but not worth my time. nt

[BlueMTexpat]

4. So do I trust Hillary more than any other US politician to

make these decisions.

And I have a pretty long record in foreign relations myself. I haven't always agreed with her and likely never will about some things. But she gets it right more often than not. Additionally, she LISTENS and she LEARNS - which too many people other than Prez O do NOT do.

[Schema Thing]

5. weird caricature of "the left" you threw in there.

that said, "don't do stupid shit" is
a pretty decent political/governing version of the hippocratic oath.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. I don't trust any fallible mortal absolutely, but I'm willing to bet on her.

I think that Clinton will almost certainly make some bad foreign policy decisions in office - if not, she will be the first president not to.

But I think that if you're looking for someone to bet on not to make too many serious errors, she's a good choice.