W.J. Astore
In a lengthy article (April 21st) at the “liberal” New York Times, “How Hillary Clinton Became a Hawk,” Hillary is variously described as “aggressive,” “tough,” a “military wonk” who’s “more muscular” than President Obama when it comes to advocating for the use of force. Noted for her “pugnacity” and “hardheadedness,” Hillary is praised for her close relationships with U.S. generals, to include David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal. Indeed, the article highlights the fact that Hillary is sometimes more aggressive in advocating for military force than the generals she confers with. Nevertheless, or rather because of this, the generals apparently like Hillary. They really like her!
What are we to make of this puff piece that praises Hillary the Hawk? Obviously, with Hillary’s victory in New York and her forthcoming, now nearly inevitable nomination as the Democratic candidate for president, Hillary Clinton and her allies have decided it’s time to sharpen her beak and claws. No more nonsense about being a touchy-feely progressive like Bernie Sanders. It’s time for Hillary the Hawk to take charge and soar, preempting any criticism by Republicans that she’ll be “weak” on defense.
But, tell me again, how did America’s wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and elsewhere go for the United States? At least three trillion dollars lost, tens of thousands of U.S. troops killed and wounded, hundreds of thousands of “foreigners” killed and wounded, millions made refugees, and for what, exactly?
Hillary the Hawk wants to double-down on a losing hand. That’s neither “aggressive” nor “tough”: It’s reckless and dumb. Worst of all, she’s playing with our chips as well as the lives of our troops, not to mention the lives of all those “foreigners” seeking shelter from American bombs and bullets and drones. (But we have a word for them: collateral damage.)
Hillary Clinton, like all of the remaining presidential candidates, never wore a military uniform. Her one child, Chelsea, married well and lives in a posh apartment (price: a cool $10.5 million) in New York City. Indeed, like most American politicians in Congress, Hillary is a millionaire without children in the military, therefore she risks little in advocating for more U.S. troops to be sent off to war. Her defenders (including Hillary herself) will say she will use force only as a last resort, yet the “Hillary Hawk” article cited above makes plain that she is no reluctant warrior. Hell, why not, when she earns such praise for her wonkish warrior posturing from the New York Times?
Admirer of Henry Kissinger, supporter of the Iraq War in 2003, self-styled conqueror of Qaddafi and Libya (“We came. We saw. He died,” Hillary the Hawk laughed), fervid supporter of Bibi Netanyahu and Israel, Hillary Clinton is ready to take on the world.
One thing is certain: We can’t say we weren’t warned.
Bracing Views 
She’s no Maggie Thatcher…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/margaret-thatcher/8508935/Margaret-Thatcher-a-woman-who-was-first-among-equals.html
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We could call You-Know-Her “Atilla the Hen,” but Margaret Thatcher already owns that one. You-Know-Her hasn’t even secured the Democratic Party’s nomination for President yet, but already she has begun her predictable lurch to the right which corporate, war-profiteering Democrats like to euphemistically call the “center.” Yes, fellow Crimestoppers, the betrayal of the working-class, anti-war base of the Democratic Party has already begun. Right on schedule. A black man flirted with the so-called “left” to win his nomination and election, then kept the war-profiteering going for eight years. Now a privileged white woman shows every sign of intending to do the same. Why not? In the United States, no penalty whatsoever attaches to getting war wrong over and over for decades. It simply pays too well, and until the day comes when it doesn’t pay, the world will just keep getting the chaos and misery that America has made its hysterical, not “historical” legacy.
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Since Attila the Hen is taken, how about “Hilligula” ?
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Good One. Although I always liked Bawl and Pillory for that “two-for-the-price-of-one” thing that Ross Perot twice bequeathed to the American electorate. Who knows but that another fractured Republican Party may just put the androgynous Clinton Twin back in the White House again. Talk about transgender issues!
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Or, put another way, we have You-Know-Her the chicken-hen, the very personification of her privileged ilk. You know the type:
Hothouse Orchids
(From The Triumph of Strife: an homage to Dante Alighieri and Percy Shelley)
So too with all the others of this kind
Concerned with just themselves and their careers
Who play at war with only this in mind:
To entertain the mob and hear its cheers.
For when they could have served and fought and learned
They hit the gas instead and shifted gears
Bypassing lessons better men had earned
Prolonging thus their adolescent years.
Yet never having all for which they yearned,
The corners of their mouths connect their ears,
So broad their grins in hopes of votes to buy
Just like the Cheshire cat that disappears
Behind a smile substantial as a sigh.
Their empty words live on while soldiers die.
Like crocodiles they practice crying tears
Till they can shed them from a single eye:
An ersatz empathy to mask the fears
That glassy, shining, saucer eyes belie:
Their plan to rush ahead and celebrate
A victory they’ll win when pigs can fly
Has only turned to mourning now that fate
Has served us broken eggshells for a meal
And eaten all the lunch upon our plate
While leaving them to consummate a deal
For omelets promised off a menu fake.
Our soldiers suffer agonies too real
While those in charge continue on the take
And “leaders” off the top the profits rake.
So as our blood and money drain away
In torrents sinking into desert sands
She ponders which new pose to strike today
And urges war on hapless foreign lands
To demonstrate how chicken hawks can cluck
While grabbing cash and limply shaking hands
Oblivious to soldiers vainly stuck
In quagmires authorized by this vain hack
Who daily finds new ways to pass the buck.
With heels worn round from lying on her back
And lips chapped raw from lying when upright
She hides from each imagined new attack
Too weak to wage the peace in her own right
But always strong for someone else’s fight.
An image of irresolute intrigue
She offers up herself somewhere in line.
No mighty branch but just a slender twig,
She dithers while our monarch’s friends consign
Our freedoms to more hot air overblown.
Obsessed with sewer sailors who malign
Her party’s past no matter how it shone
She promises to settle in advance
For any scrap of meat from off the bone,
And then proceeds read her true romance:
A plan for how to satisfy her greed
While those who perish get no second chance.
Our frantic warnings she chose not to heed.
If only we’d decide then she would “lead.”
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2006-2010
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w j astore, We need an article from you on a need for a better “Recruiting” system for CEO of USA. How To Better HR CEO of USA? Someone with the leadership and moral character of the fictional character Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek. !! well done Hillary-hawk article… we’ll certainly vote for Hillary over any current republican with hat in circle… but with great trepidation and head held over toilet just in case the nausea in stomach rises. we had hoped Bernie would have done better.we sent him $30 twice Bernie lacks Hillary’s brains and international “experience” but he has a moral center around foreign intervention that is needed desperately (too bad it doesn’t extend into wiser gun control language.) new article: We need a good headhunting company (a smart experienced HR citizens group not wedded to either party) to ferret out really good candidates for CEO of the US. I am very very serious. The current “recruiting” system or the lack thereof really sucks. Another article building on your existing…How many Jihadists does the U.S. create every day?…. because of our despicable “Kafir” disregard for the lives we are disrupting and the Storm Trooper mentality perceived by all but Congress. How many Jihadists does the U.S. train and supply every day?…. (Are we still giving millions to Taliban not to bomb certain supply routes?) – a fan David King Keller, PhD david@kbdag.comApr 22, 2016 03:37:31 PM, comment+eqmo4nij09sljor0n2zumomi@comment.wordpress.com wrote:
wjastore posted: ” W.J. Astore In a lengthy article (April 21st) at the âliberalâ New York Times, âHow Hillary Clinton Became a Hawk,â Hillary is variously described as âaggressive,â âtough,â a âmilitary wonkâ whoâs âmore muscularâ than President Obama when it comes to a”
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“Never wore a military uniform,” however, she did dodge enemy bullets in Boznia. Oh wait, that was a lie – a lie that were she a he, would have shamed her out of the public spotlight.
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Yes. Self-promoting lies from You-Know-Her. Sort of like when we heard from the Obama administration that Osama Bin Laden hid behind his wives and used them as human shields while he shot it out with a troop of temendously brave Navy Seal goons sent to assassinate him as he sat unarmed at home watching television. Never any photos of the bullet riddled corpse, though. Nor any videos of the solemn, reverential Muslim burial at sea that we heard so much about. Just a constant parade of self-serving lies from officials of the U.S. government. They lie just to keep in practice; just so they won’t forget how. And the ones wearing military uniforms lie just as baldly and brazenly as the politicians who think — like our generals do — that killing innocent peasants makes them look “all tough and stuff” — to each other.
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Reblogged this on Nick Robson's Blog.
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Colonel, don’t you get it by now? You’re not aggressive unless you’re reckless, and you’re not tough unless you’re dumb. Military strategy is now just another flavor of performative masculinity.
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Yes, “performative masculinity” aptly describes the last several decades of U.S. policy — both domestically and internationally — at least since Ronald Raygun, but when the Amazons take over next year, with You-Know-Her clucking and glaring at the world from her chicken-henhouse in Washington, all the clipped-capon guys who have fouled things up so badly in recent decades will finally get to see how the ovarian hormones “get it done” so much better than the stuff American testicles would have secreted had the United States not neutered itself for no other reason than to make a mere handful of billionaires even wealthier. Anyway, call it “performative fantasy feminism” or “shield-maiden showtime,” whatever, but I sincerely doubt that the world will find “womanized” America either admirable or frightening in the least.
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“Military force”? How about “military violence”?
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