Get ready for war: NY Times "How Hillary Clinton Became a Hawk"

[Human101948]

As Hillary Clinton makes another run for president, it can be tempting to
view her hard­edged rhetoric about the world less as deeply felt core principle
than as calculated political maneuver. But Clinton’s foreign­policy instincts are
bred in the bone — grounded in cold realism about human nature and what
one aide calls “a textbook view of American exceptionalism.” It set her apart
from her rival­turned­boss, Barack Obama, who avoided military
entanglements and tried to reconcile Americans to a world in which the United
States was no longer the undisputed hegemon. And it will likely set her apart
from the Republican candidate she meets in the general election. For all their
bluster about bombing the Islamic State into oblivion, neither Donald J.
Trump nor Senator Ted Cruz of Texas have demonstrated anywhere near the
appetite for military engagement abroad that Clinton has.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html?emc=edit_th_20160423&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=70251688&_r=0

[nc4bo]

1. We had a hawk deep fry itself trying to catch a squirrel in a transformer

On a pole outside our house.

Poor thing got greedy and thought the squirrel was an easy catch.

Didn't work out so well for the hawk or the squirrel.

Back OT we do not need to feed the MIC anymore $$$ or red blood because making war is seen as a great business opportunity for the 1% ers.

If we cant afford to send our kids to college without a take-it-to-the-grave debt burden, if we can't afford health CARE for all, if we can't afford to have sufficient polling places and verifiable voting safeguards, if we can't afford Social Security, saving our postal service, a complete rebuild of our infrastructure throughout the country, if we can't provide basic, affordable high speed internet throughout the country, etc. than we CANNOT afford another god damn war.

[vintx]

2. +1 to all of that

[Human101948]

3. That's why Hillary says we can't have those things...she will not cut military spending...

But she was understandably wary of talking about areas
in which she and Obama split — namely, on bedrock issues of war and peace,
where Clinton’s more activist philosophy had already collided in unpredictable
ways with her boss’s instincts toward restraint.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html?emc=edit_th_20160423&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=70251688

[PDittie]

4. It makes me sick to my stomach.

More bellicose than the Republicans.

[dreamnightwind]

5. HUGE K & R!!! Democrats please read this, very important

I had seen other OP's about this article but hadn't taken the time to read it. I finally did, it's long but an easy read and you can get some incredibly important perspective on her approach to foreign affairs by reading this. It's the kind of thing voters need to do more of, read up on their candidates' policies, before voting or advocating for a candidate. Anyway I'm very glad I read it, and I'm horrified.

Apparently she regretted, after the fact, her IWR vote. The news here is that she also regretted that she had not supported the Afghan surge, which was basically the U.S. sending death squads door-to-door (chlling footage was shown on 60 Minutes long ago IIRC) to roust the terrorists, often shooting first and asking questions later, terrorizing families door to door.

Plenty of other important info in the article, it was hard to know which parts to single out. I already considered her somewhat hawkish, but now I consider her fully onboard with the neocons. It''s unbelievable to me that this is who our party is apparently about to nominate, when we have an alternative candidate with a truly Democratic vision (ironically the one who historically hasn't called himself a Democrat, that's how far the party has moved right).

Politics, of course, was also on her mind. Barack Obama was laying the groundwork for his candidacy in mid-January with a campaign that would emphasize his opposition to the Iraq War and her vote in favor of it — a vote that still shadows her in this year’s Democratic primaries. Obama was setting off on a fund-raising drive that would net $25 million in three months, sending tremors through Clinton’s political camp and establishing him as a formidable rival. Although she disagreed with Keane about Iraq, Clinton asked him to become a formal adviser. “As much as I respect you,” he replied, “I can’t do that.” Keane’s wife had health problems that had moved up his retirement from the Army, and he did not, as a policy, endorse candidates. Sometime during 2008 — he doesn’t remember exactly when — Clinton told him she had erred in doubting the wisdom of the surge. “She said, ‘You were right, this really did work,’?” Keane recalls. “On issues of national security,” he says, “I thought she was always intellectually honest with me.”

He and Clinton continued to talk, even after Obama was elected and she became secretary of state. More often than not, they found themselves in sync. Keane, like Clinton, favored more robust intervention in Syria than Obama did. In April 2015, the week before she announced her candidacy, Clinton asked him for a briefing on military options for dealing with the fighters of the Islamic State. Bringing along three young female analysts from the Institute for the Study of War, Keane gave her a 2-hour-20-minute presentation. Among other steps, he advocated imposing a no-fly zone over parts of Syria that would neutralize the air power of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, with a goal of forcing him into a political settlement with opposition groups. Six months later, Clinton publicly adopted this position, further distancing herself from Obama.

“I’m convinced this president, no matter what the circumstances, will never put any boots on the ground to do anything, even when it’s compelling,” Keane told me. He was sitting in the library at his home in McLean, Va., which is lined with books on military history and strategy. His critique of Obama was hardly new or original, but much of it mirrors the thinking of Clinton and her policy advisers. “One of the problems the president has, which weakens his diplomatic efforts, is that leaders don’t believe he would use military power. That’s an issue that would separate the president from Hillary Clinton rather dramatically. She would look at military force as another realistic option, but only where there is no other option.”

[moondust]

6. "She's the most hawkish of all the candidates."

Lesley Stahl last night on Real Time with Bill Maher.