williamblum | If the American presidential election winds up with Hillary Clinton
vs. Donald Trump, and my passport is confiscated, and I’m somehow FORCED
to choose one or the other, or I’m PAID to do so, paid well … I would
vote for Trump.
My main concern is foreign policy. American foreign policy is the
greatest threat to world peace, prosperity, and the environment. And
when it comes to foreign policy, Hillary Clinton is an unholy disaster.
From Iraq and Syria to Libya and Honduras the world is a much worse
place because of her; so much so that I’d call her a war criminal who
should be prosecuted. And not much better can be expected on domestic
issues from this woman who was paid $675,000 by Goldman Sachs – one of
the most reactionary, anti-social corporations in this sad world – for
four speeches and even more than that in political donations in recent
years. Add to that Hillary’s willingness to serve for six years on the
board of Walmart while her husband was governor of Arkansas. Can we
expect to change corporate behavior by taking their money?
The Los Angeles Times ran an editorial the day after the
multiple primary elections of March 1 which began: “Donald Trump is not
fit to be president of the United States,” and then declared: “The
reality is that Trump has no experience whatsoever in government.”
When I need to have my car fixed I look for a mechanic with
experience with my type of auto. When I have a medical problem I prefer a
doctor who specializes in the part of my body that’s ill. But when it
comes to politicians, experience means nothing. The only thing that
counts is the person’s ideology. Who would you sooner vote for, a person
with 30 years in Congress who doesn’t share your political and social
views at all, is even hostile to them, or someone who has never held
public office before but is an ideological comrade on every important
issue? Clinton’s 12 years in high government positions carries no weight
with me.
The Times continued about Trump: “He has shamefully little knowledge of the issues facing the country and the world.”
Again, knowledge is trumped (no pun intended) by ideology. As
Secretary of State (January 2009-February 2013), with great access to
knowledge, Clinton played a key role in the 2011 destruction of Libya’s
modern and secular welfare state, sending it crashing in utter chaos
into a failed state, leading to the widespread dispersal throughout
North African and Middle East hotspots of the gigantic arsenal of
weaponry that Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi had accumulated. Libya is
now a haven for terrorists, from al Qaeda to ISIS, whereas Gaddafi had
been a leading foe of terrorists.
What good did Secretary of State Clinton’s knowledge do? It was
enough for her to know that Gaddafi’s Libya, for several reasons, would
never be a properly obedient client state of Washington. Thus it was
that the United States, along with NATO, bombed the people of Libya
almost daily for more than six months, giving as an excuse that Gaddafi
was about to invade Benghazi, the Libyan center of his opponents, and so
the United States was thus saving the people of that city from a
massacre. The American people and the American media of course swallowed
this story, though no convincing evidence of the alleged impending
massacre has ever been presented. (The nearest thing to an official US
government account of the matter – a Congressional Research Service
report on events in Libya for the period – makes no mention at all of
the threatened massacre.)
The Western intervention in Libya was one that the New York Times
said Clinton had “championed”, convincing Obama in “what was arguably
her moment of greatest influence as secretary of state.”
All the knowledge she was privy to did not keep her from this
disastrous mistake in Libya. And the same can be said about her support
of placing regime change in Syria ahead of supporting the Syrian
government in its struggle against ISIS and other terrorist groups. Even
more disastrous was the 2003 US invasion of Iraq which she as a senator
supported. Both policies were of course clear violations of
international law and the UN Charter.
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