Short Take 2
In Memoriam—Captain Humayun Khan
“Let me ask you [Donald Trump]–Have you ever read the US constitution? …In this document look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘protection of law’ … Look at the graves of those who died defending America… We are stronger together. And we will keep getting stronger when Hillary Clinton becomes our president…Vote for the healer, vote for the strongest, most qualified candidate, Hillary Clinton.”
Khizr Khan at the Democratic National Convention
Words from a grieving father who lost his son, Captain Humayun Khan, on June 8, 2004 in Iraq. The question he asks is a valid one. However, a better target than Trump for his rage and grief is a rogues’ gallery of presidents who have made war an instrument of national policy. (War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning –Chris Hedges) Trump’s inane comments on undocumented Mexicans, his inchoate ramblings on barring Muslims from entering the US, are brutish – calculated to appeal to the lowest common denominator of what passes for political thought in the US. But to uncover the reasons Khizr Khan’s son died and the sons and daughters of so many other fathers is to uncover the shameful conduct of four American presidents – 3 Republicans and 1 Democrat —five if you count President Obama taking ownership of his predecessor’s malignant policies exemplified by his complicity with the divas of destruction, Hillary, Samantha, and Susan, in the destruction of Libya, his seemingly unquestioned support of Saudi Arabia’s mindless destruction of Yemen, his support of neoliberal power grabs, overthrowing democratically elected heads of state, in Honduras and Ukraine, another notch on Hillary’s belt.
A brief look at the history of US involvement in Iraq solidifies the case against these warmongers. Beginning in the 1980s, President Reagan got the ball rolling by authorizing financial, military, and diplomatic support of Saddam Hussein in his brutal war with Iran, and overruling international attempts to punish Saddam for using mustard gas against both the Iranians and his own people. Finally Saddam fell from US grace by invading Kuwait in 1990. Bush the Elder sent in the troops (first Gulf War) and in short order Saddam scurried back across the border. But President Bush wasn’t satisfied with that “minor” concession. It was good enough for most of the UN Security Council who voted to remove UN-imposed sanctions. The US, using its veto power, refused to go along claiming that sanctions were needed to disarm Iraq. The complicity of three US administrations in the rape and eventual destruction of a sovereign state was in full swing. The sanctions remained throughout the rest of Bush’s term. By 1992 two events that were to prove transformative had happened: Clinton defeated Bush, and the US and the rest of the world knew that Iraq had given up its pursuit of WMDs. Clinton was not about to let that stop him. Bush could relax–his legacy was safe.
Not only did Clinton inherit Bush’s murderous sanctions regime, he doubled down on it “the sanctions will be there until the end of time or as long as he [Saddam] lasts.” (Clinton, 1997) Even garden-variety pencils were embargoed on the laughable theory they could be fashioned into bullets. More catastrophic the embargo produced a desperate shortage of food, medicine and clean drinking water. Bill Clinton’s take on the killing effects of sanctions? Saddam had the money to feed Iraq’s children but he elected not to so he could develop WMDs. Bottom line: Bush set the sanctions in motion but Clinton used them as a tool of regime change. By 1995, the journal Lancet estimated that 516,000 children under 5 had died as a result of five years of sanctions.
That wasn’t the only bipartisan policy spanning the two administrations. Clinton also inherited from Bush a “no-fly zone” covering 60% of Iraq that he proceeded to expand in 1996. Using the cover of the no-fly zone, in 1993, Clinton ordered a bombing mission to Baghdad in retaliation for a specious threat to assassinate George H W Bush. By 1998, Clinton was going full bore on his campaign to topple Saddam. He signed the Iraq Liberation Act –“It shall be the policy of the US to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power…” (the act included a $97 million appropriation to fund opposition groups to fight Saddam and, shades of Afghanistan, we all know how that turned out) and he kicked off the Desert Fox campaign to “punish” Saddam for ordering UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq (word on the street is that not Saddam but President Clinton himself ordered the inspectors out).
Three presidents, Bush the Elder, Clinton, and Bush the Younger jointly administered death blows to the sovereign state of Iraq. Bush authored the no-fly zone and sanctions policy that Clinton happily carried out. By the time George W. entered the White House in 2001, the US (with the help of its willing shill, the UK) was already dropping bombs on Iraq an average of three times a week. By 2000, Clinton was spending almost $1.5 billion on his air war. Clinton’s failed strategy (bombing and sanctions) in pursuit of an illusory goal (stopping Iraq from producing WMDs) left the door open for further carnage and George W walked right through with the help of his neoliberal buddies, the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and sent US ground troops, including Captain Humayun Khan, into Iraq based on a lie that had as its genesis neoliberal strategic designs on the middle east.
Hillary’s complicity can be summed up in her own words — Commenting on her husband’s war, Desert Fox, “I think the vast majority of Americans share my approval and pride in the job that the president [Clinton] has been doing for our country.” (Living History} Voting for the Iraq War in 2002, she cited her support for the Iraq Liberation Act — “I agreed with it in 1998, I agree with it now.”
To believe that the solution to America’s ills lies with another Clinton in the White House is to ignore history. The present Clinton supports policies that run the gamut of war to more war —from her efforts to lobby for the Kosovo War in 1999 (as first lady), her support for the Iraq War (as senator), her support for escalating the Afghanistan war and beating the war drums for regime change in Libya (as secretary of state) and supporting the escalation of US special forces in Syria (as the democratic presidential nominee).
As a public official three times over, Hillary has given short shrift to the Constitution, particularly Article 1, Section 8 “The congress shall have the power To…declare War. Bottom line: Lots of wars later, an AUMF tortured and twisted to fit the war designs of George W and Obama, yet no declaration of war.
As to which of the two candidates is more in need of a refresher course on the US constitution, at best it’s a hung jury.
(Thanks to Jon Schwarz for his thought provoking and insightful article “Hillary Clinton has a Long History of Collaboration with GOP Foreign Policy” in The Intercept)
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