In response to the ZeroHedge.com article about Putin's views of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and American foreign entanglements:
My responses MH: <text>
Tyler Durden's article:
As election day looms in America, it appears the
writing that Vladimir Putin drew on the wall just a few short months
ago is coming to fruition.
Having lost his patience with the
constant spewing of anti-Russia propaganda - missing the bigger picture
of vicious circle towards muclear confrontation - Putin implored the
western media, for the sake of the world, to listen:
We
know year by year what's going to happen, and they know that we know.
It's only you that they tell tall tales to, and you buy it, and spread
it to the citizens of your countries. You people in turn do not feel a
sense of the impending danger - this is what worries me. How do
you not understand that the world is being pulled in an irreversible
direction? While they pretend that nothing is going on. I don't know how
to get through to you anymore.
MH: Writing directly to a blog or speaking to the
media at length and openly might achieve that aim. Even a U.N. speech
could gain the needed attention.
In calm tones, not reflective of the angry allegations lobbed at
Americans every day of a Russia hell-bent on the election of Trump (for
whatever reason they dreamed up of this week),
Putin reminded a 'deaf' press corps of what lies ahead and implicitly what happens if and when Americans vote for Hillary.
And, as Lawrence Murray (via Atlantic Centurion) explains
why Donald Trump is the anti-war candidate...
MH: I would remind any readers that U.S. foreign policy tends to be bi-partisan and Trump is a Republican.
From the Jordan to the Moskva, war drums beat. The
powder keg that set off the first world war was ethno-religious conflict
in the lands of the former Ottoman Empire, and in a sense it threatens
to do so once more. The Balkan nations were not impressed with the
botched settling of the Eastern Question, and a mix of state and
non-state actors took matters into their own hands, leading to a
globalized conflict. As late as 2006, the borders of the region were
still being contested, when Montenegro voted to break away from Serbia.
Today, millions of people in the Levant, especially in Syria and
Iraq, reject the imposed settlement of their borders. These were drawn
by imperialists and zionists nearly a century ago under the Sykes-Picot
Agreement to serve the interests of Britain, France, and the overseas
Israeli community—and the successors of those diplomats wish to maintain
those same borders. The ethno-religious conflict I am referring to in
the former Ottoman Empire is of course the:
- Syrian civil war
- Iraqi civil war
- Turkish-Kurdish conflict
- American intervention in Iraq
- American intervention in Syria
- Iranian intervention in Iraq
- Iranian intervention in Syria
- Russian intervention in Syria
- Hezbollah campaign in Syria
- Yemeni civil war
- Libyan civil war
- NATO intervention in Libya
- Egyptian counter-insurgency
- War on Terror / global Islamic jihad
- US-Russian Middle Eastern proxy war
- Arab-Israeli conflict
MH:
Yes, that past left a scar. I would add that the Kurds and perhaps some
other minority groups are living within nations and across national
borders and they find it very uncomfortable.
MH: Though
the quoted article doesn't mention it, there has been a recent
revolution all across the Middle East. That explains a lot of the
violence and uncertainty. Add to that the misguided policies of the
George W. Bush presidency and the uprising of the al Qaeda and Daesh
groups and it is a mess.
Oh. Too many? This is the scope of conflicts that the Leviathan on
the Potomac has gotten itself into, and just in the former Ottoman
Empire. This does not include the:
- South China Sea territorial dispute
- Korean civil war
- War in Afghanistan
- Russian-Ukrainian border war
- Combat support in various African countries
- Occupation of Germany
MH:
Let's ignore those for the moment. The U.S. has largely gotten out of
Afghanistan and those other wars aren't of primary interest compared to
the earlier list. I would love to hear more about the "Occupation of
Germany" at another time.
In November, Americans will roll to the polls on their
motorized scooters to elect the next Commander-in-Chief of the Armed
Forces of the United States.
Hillary Clinton has a track record of following
neoconservative foreign policy imperatives that favor “exporting”
democracy and disrupting the enemies of Israel, such as Baathist (Arab
nationalist) Iraq and Syria. Or as Republicans put it, “muh benghazi.”
MH: I've elided discussion of the Alt-Right Neo-Nazis or of security from terrorist attacks.
MH:
The policy of the U.S. has been to promote Democracy in various ways.
That has been a bi-partisan policy for a very long time. I suspect we
have overdone that in recent years and I wish we could pull back, but
Republicans are still adamant that we push forward on it. I would advise
against it. For example, I was against expansion of NATO to Poland and
the Eastern European countries which had previously been members of the
Warsaw Pact. They are hardly North-Atlantic (ocean) nations. I hope the
current experience argues in Congress for a more limited NATO presence
in Europe, though there is now a strong argument for expanding it to
box-in Putin and his aggressive drive for the New Russia (which many
Americans see as simply a reinstatement of the Soviet Empire). It's not
easy to change our old habits (both US and Russian).
MH:
As for "disrupting the enemies of Israel", I think there is a
well-stated policy of America, since the beginning of Israel, to "defend
Israel". Whether "defending Israel" has to be passive or can be
actively "disrupting the enemies" is debatable. I wish the war against
Saddam Hussein in Iraq had never happened. It was a horrible choice.
MH:
So, you can see from these few examples, that most of what Hillary
Clinton has been doing is merely an active version of long-held
bi-partisan foreign policy. Maybe it is being perceived differently by
people in other countries and we haven't clearly understood that or
thought to respond.
The other option is Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has never played a role in the shattering of
nations or in conducting airstrikes against embittered medieval
tribespeople. He has never been blamed for the death of an
American ambassador or his staff. He has never chuckled about killing
Muammar Gaddafi, whose autocratic and idiosyncratic rule of Libya raised
living standards, generated oil wealth for his people, and prevented
Islamist terror movements from spreading in a region where that is a
problem. He has spoken favorably of Saddam Hussein, who likewise while
imperfect did not preside over a millennarian civil war between two
strains of jihadists and nationalist-secularists. There is something to
be said for leaving these parts of the world to their own devices, even
if it means they don’t get an American or parliamentary democracy. They
can live without it. In fact, they literally
live without it.
What is happening right now in Syria and Iraq and Libya and Afghanistan
and other hotspots is not life. It is death, and it is being funded with
your tax dollars. By a Democratic administration that is fighting to
preserve disputed borders in foreign countries while neglecting our own.
MH:
Trump certainly is an unknown quantity when it comes to foreign policy.
But, as I have said, foreign policy is mostly bi-partisan and will be
affected by the Senate as well as the Executive branch.
MH:
Though the American concept of "innocent until proven guilty" isn't
necessarily in every country, I think it is probably known by many that
we take it quite seriously in America. The allegations against Hillary
Clinton have been largely for political slandering and no charges have
ever been brought in a court.
MH: The revolution in the
North African countries and in several other Middle East countries has
been startling and amazing. Does that mean the U.S. created it? Show me
your proof. I don't know that Sec. Clinton claimed to have "killed
Gaddafi". I think the idea that the people had chosen, in several
countries, to have a new and better government despite the required
violence of revolutions was their choice. Sometimes it is more important
to be free than to be wealthy. Sometimes people see freedom as a better
road to long-term prosperity.
MH: I also had one
or two good things to say about Saddam Hussein. But, it can't be denied
he was a brutal dictator and his people were NOT free. Still, I wish we
had not intervened. It was up to the people there to start and fight for
their own freedom -- as the Kurds had tried.
MH: In
Afghanistan our main aim is for them to have a functioning government
which can prevent terrorist groups from using their land as a sanctuary
or staging ground for attacks against us. It is for our safety.
MH:
In Iraq we wish to stop and destroy ISIS to protect Iraq and the
government there, so they have a chance to establish a new kind of
national identity and stablity. After the mess we created it is the
least we could do to help protect them.
MH: In Syria we
have two aims: 1) destroy ISIS which is headquartered there; 2) depose
Assad who has killed his own people and shown he can't be the leader. To
that end we are working on destroying ISIS with the Iraqis in Iraq and
with whomever in Syria. Our plans for Assad have largely been put on
hold and we don't know what the future will hold for that.
MH:
Though President Obama has begun some of these policies and continued
the Afghanistan policy, they are bi-partisan and aren't likely to change
in any huge way under any other president. We need the safety for the
U.S. and our allies and friends that can only come from destroying
Daesh.
MH: Where Russia can make some progress with
America is in working to create the future for Syria where there is some
kind of peace. The slaughter needs to end. We would indeed benefit by
reducing our military efforts and spending.
Obama and Clinton get away with warmongering because they aren’t George W. Bush. But
short of committing tens of thousands of ground troops, they are doing
almost the same thing he did in Iraq and Afghanistan. Perhaps worse
because of the low human cost of the war to the Western side, we could
potentially intervene in this conflict for, well, as long as the drone
program is funded and fuel is loaded into our planes. There is no attrition. Just us turning various cities into replicas of Guernica. No bodies are sent home; no one cares.
...
MH: In
Afghanistan the Obama administration was seeking to finish the job the
Bush administration didn't complete: destroy al Qaeda and especially
Osama bin Laden. That's done and so we have retreated.
MH:
In Iraq we are not now doing anything similar to the Bush
administration. Our entire aim is to destroy ISIS and incidentally to
support Iraq and maybe gain some forgiveness for our earlier mistakes
there. If we're lucky we can also help the Kurds establish some
territorial security within Iraq and maybe Syria.
MH:
People care, but you're correct that it is very different. That doesn't
make the administration any less dedicated to achieving the goals and
getting out.
Trump wants to end war in Syria and Iraq by working with
the Russians and Iranians to defeat the number one enemy of
international peace, which is ISIS. He also wants a moratorium on the
importation of violent overseas ethnoreligious conflict into the United
States.
Clinton wants to continue fighting the de jure Assad government, which benefits ISIS vis-a-vis just as much as it benefits the “moderate” rebels and non-ISIS jihadist groups. At
the same time, she also wants to make the United States incrementally
more Muslim each year. That’s how immigration works—less
x and more
y each year. Why recreate Syria in Seattle? Iraq in Idaho?
MH
:
I would argue we do no know what Trump wants to do in Syria and Iraq.
He has proven himself unreliable and willing to say things which he
almost immediately denies. Still, if he does want to end that war, then
it will have to be with the end of ISIS as that is U.S. bi-partisan
policy.
MH: Americans have been told Russia is NOT fighting ISIS, but only Assad's enemies.
MH:
Clinton does oppose Assad since that is the current government policy. I
don't know how strongly the Republicans support that view, but with the
presence of Russia it is quite clear the Obama administration is
frustrated and has to wait to remove Assad. It's a political decision to
be made by U.S., Russia, and perhaps some other parties. That has been
U.S. policy for some time: that the war has to be resolved politically
and not militarily. I would guess Trump would follow that policy.
MH:
One note about Assad and Syria: I don't think America is opposed to the
Russian fueling station there, but to the man and his brutal policies
toward his people. If he could be replaced and those policies ended we
might reach an amicable peace with the Russians still able to port
there. As far as I know, we have never sought to eliminate the Russian
facility.
MH: These are bi-partisan U.S. policies
and not specifically Hillary Clinton's views. If a Trump administration
has a Secretary of State who advances those same policies aggressively,
then we may have the same difficulties with Russia. That would be very
unfortunate since our policies in Syria and Iraq really have nothing to
do with Russia.
MH: The U.S. was created with
immigration and we see it as a natural part of our identity. We welcome
people from many places. I know that is very different than in other
countries, so it may be hard to understand. It has nothing to do with
our foreign policy. These are two entirely different issues (except when
someone like Donald Trump or the Brexit supporters in the U.K. decide
to mix them). That is a rarity.
Trump wants to end the wars abroad and at home. He wants to put America First. What does Clinton want to put first?
MH: It has
been
argued she didn't clarify many of her positions as well as the voters
desired. Maybe the world community felt the same. My impression of her
political approach is that she preferred incremental change on most
issues, but she had an aggressive view on foreign policy and on women
& children's issues.
MH: As I wrote above, I don't
think it's at all clear what Trump wants. He seems quite pragmatic
(evidence: he has been a Democrat, Independent, and Republican) and
often self-centered (as are many business leaders). I suspect the people
around him, including senators, will have a big impact on his foreign
policy choices. That means he will act in a bi-partisan way: as most
presidents do.
MH: Peace!
