By Dr. Abdul Ruff
The US presidential poll is now taking a new phase of campaign as the two main contenders – one from Republican and another from Democrats –are going to be in the field as per US ‘democratic’ traditions to fight out a final battle for the White House. As it is known, the US president practically is placed by the world above UN and UNSC as entire world is regulated and controlled from Washington- no matter whether the president has innocent look and arrogant rhetoric.
Same stuff
And, finally Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton are now the front runners for US presidency. Except that one candidate is a man and other is a woman, there is hardly any difference in their political philosophy or world view as both are known to be on the side of corporate lords and imperialist war mongers. While Clinton spearheaded the terror war as foreign minister under President Obama, Trump could only support the global crimes of regimes of both Bush and Obama.
As the practice of world leaders, whether in domestic or foreign policy matters the American leaders also say one thing but do exactly different, and at times opposite ones after they assume office at White House. In fact, what the presidential candidates say during poll campaign is forgotten as the ‘winner’ begins their New Innings of political life by ruling over vast US global empire – known as well as unknown. The new president will have to obey the capitalist-imperialist system and the incumbent president also be surrounded by corporate lords, arms merchants, oil lobbyists, terror equipment manufacturers, Zionists and, of course, the war mongering Neocons.
Generally the presidential candidates do discuss foreign policy more as a habit than any serious intent. That is how US politics works. Former US Secretary of State and former First Lady and now the Democratic candidate for the Presidency Hillary Clinton and her supporters have been eager to tout the virtues of her foreign-policy experience relative to Republican opponent Donald Trump whose bona fides in that regard are not yet known.
Hillary
Mrs. Clinton touched upon several international issues. She mentioned that her first priority is to make America strong maybe she thinks her country is not strong enough under all presidents so far. That means investing in our infrastructure, education and innovation – the fundamentals of a strong economy. She repeatedly fell back into aspects of a Washington conventional wisdom that have made for the persistence of problems rather than the solution of them. amid her appropriate defense of the diplomacy leading to the nuclear agreement with Iran she started talking about the security of Israel—without mentioning that the Israeli government has done all it can to subvert and kill the very agreement she was defending.
Hillary Clinton delivered a devastating attack against Donald Trump’s foreign policy views. Clinton said his ideas are dangerously incoherent. “They’re not even really ideas – just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies…He is temperamentally unfit to hold the White House office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility.” Her foreign policy speech was to enumerate some of the many valid reasons that Donald Trump is unfit to lead the United States in its relations with the rest of the world.
Trump
Donald Trump has some new ideas, both bad and good, and he seems to have endeared himself to Republicans by his assertive and aggressive rhetoric on anything he spoke even without enough clarity. His hawkish assertions do comply with the terror war tactics of Neocons and US leaders who still thrive on Sept-11 hoax, cutting across the two-party-system and US political spectrum.
True, Trump’s efforts to sound coherent have been laden with contradictions and declarations that resemble bumper stickers more than carefully thought-out policy proposals. But he is not worried about what others say about his drawbacks. Some of Trump’s most specific and distinctive pronouncements belong in the realm of the fantastic, such as excluding all Muslims from the country, building a huge wall around America and also somehow getting a neighbor to pay for it. He is indirectly encouraging Saudi Arabia, Japan, and South Korea to get nuclear weapons.
Interestingly, unlike Hillary, Trump has ideas about a peaceful Middle East. He made a suggestion that sounds fresh and constructive, such as referring to neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He claims a past personal opposition to those interventions by US presidents against Palestinians.
Maybe, Trump has so little involvement or experience in foreign affairs that he did not even have to express any opinions about such military operations at the time they were undertaken. That lack of experience points to one of the biggest and most important differences between the two presumptive presidential nominees.
Devoid of ideas
Lacking new ideas, Clinton’s discussion of policy on ISIS reflected the usual Washington approach of just doing more, especially more militarily, in response to such problems without stepping back to ask more fundamental questions about costs, effects, and where major US interests lie. Clinton does not make it clear whether such action does anything at all on balance to reduce violence and extremism. He avoid making statements if the US forces now on “duty” of terror attacks abroad would return to American barracks any time soon.
Clinton also overstates the role that US alliances have played in ensuring global peace and security, and especially in terms of nuclear nonproliferation. Those it opposes nuclear ambitions of Iran or North Koreas, US foreign policy has encouraged a few states to defy or renounce the NPT and to embark on the costly and dangerous road toward becoming a nuclear-weapon state. As a proponent of permanent war to ensure US interests globally, she believes US military intervention in Arab world is justified and should continue to ensure energy security of USA.
While she scored points against Trump, Clinton did not answer questions about her own foreign-policy views, and the foreign-policy consensus that she represents. Clinton’s vague explanations have contributed to the very unease and wishing for change that have helped to build support for Donald Trump, notwithstanding how little he has to contribute in the way of solutions.
Oil war and lies as favorite hobby
USA and NATO allies with help from puppet Pakistan invaded Afghanistan saying one Osama bin Laden was hiding between mountains after ‘successfully’ blasted USA with terror attacks by taking away a couple of planes from US airports just like that. Thanks to corporate media support for permanent wars in Islamic world, USA could blast that as major news for years up till now.
One of the most favorite hobbies of the Neocons to coerce the Arab leaders to reform their Islamic system to make them so-called democracies, though they themselves have no idea about what exactly democracy is. NATO attack on Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and later Libya and their strenuous efforts to attack Iran etc are the part of their regime change ideology, practiced in Arab world by genocides and destruction.
In fact, in pursuance of US directions, many Islamic nations have made amendments to Islamic system to accommodate the anti-Islamic terror war mongers and terror experts. Today, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and many other countries just obey the US high command in lieu of Islamic governance. Certainly that is a marvelous achievement of Neocons made possible by US precedents Bush and Obama.
Undertaken without UN endorsement, with a justification that was totally wrong, Iraq fast became a strategic quagmire. President George bush had lied that Iraq has WMD kept in hidden places, and justified the US terror war on Iraq. In order to prolong terror war, killing Iraqis, destroying cities and destabilizing Iraq, Pentagon-CIA duo invented new ideas and targeted Iraqis by calling them all terrorists and insurgents.
President Saddam was assassinated by America’s henchmen. But was did not end there because USA wanted to control Iran oil fields and oil production and supply routes. De-Baathification destroyed the Iraqi state, gave rise to a Sunni insurgency, and cost thousands of American lives and trillions of dollars. Hillary Clinton voted for the war.
Iran resorted to active diplomacy to avert any Iraq type terror war being planned in Washington with Israeli counseling. Iran agreed to dismantle its legitimate nuclear program, but would assist the USA stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq, cease its support of proxy militants and even accept the existence of Israel if the Zionist regime let the Palestinians also live in peace. However, Bush government was not showing seriousness on the subject. Back then Iran had tested a single ten-centrifuge cascade, which increased to over nineteen thousand centrifuges by 2014. Under the 2015 nuclear deal that limit is now over five thousand centrifuges, which continue to enrich uranium and will be upgraded in less than eight years’ time.
In Libya President Col. Qaddafi had previously given up his WMD program and sought to reconstitute himself into the international system. The price he paid for this cooperation was severe. Relying on Clinton’s assurances, Russia abstained from UN Resolution 1973, enabling military intervention to protect civilians under the explicit understanding that this would not mean regime change.
NATO bombing led to Qaddafi’s overthrow in favor of ISIS-style militants. Later, four Americans including Ambassador Stevens were murdered at an American diplomatic compound in Benghazi on Clinton’s watch. Today Libya is a failed state. Obama has since labeled this his single greatest failure as president, a failure for which Clinton is largely responsible.
The Arab uprisings led to the formation of ISIS, which subsequently took over much of Iraq and Syria, extending its reach deep into the surrounding Arab states.
More future crimes
As evolving international norms have steadily eroded sovereign rights, some countries have sought other means for protecting themselves from foreign intervention. This includes developing nuclear weapons as a deterrent. This process did not start with the Iraq war, though that likely accelerated it. Iran, and certainly North Korea, felt a renewed urgency to acquire a nuclear deterrent after witnessing what happened to fellow Axis of Evil member Iraq. But Bill Clinton’s rough treatment of nonnuclear Serbia in the late 1990s might also have factored into their decision making.
The worst case to prove importance of nuclear deterrents was the Libya war of 2011. Hillary Clinton pushed a reluctant President Obama to intervene militarily in Libya. It is now clear that foreign intervention, though undertaken with the best of intentions, had awful side effects. President Qaddafi had agreed to abandon his nascent nuclear program in exchange for assurances that he would be readmitted into the international community as a member in good standing. But USA wanted to kill him for opposing it at one time. A few years later, he was killed, and his country was in chaos. Pyongyang pointed to this as proof that they had made the right decision in not giving up their nuclear weapons, and renewed their vow that they would never do so. Hillary Clinton has subsequently said that the Libyan intervention was “smart power at its best.” She chortled after the dictator was injured by a US drone, and then brutally killed by rebels on the ground
Upon making a terrorist Israel acquire nukes illegally, USA began selling the theme that the ‘terrorists’ have acquired the capability to conduct a nuclear strike on the United States and that clicked well with many anti-Islamic nations to extend support for US led war on Arab world. Obama and Clinton should know that failed policies result in continued losses at war and in prestige. Hillary Clinton represents precisely the continuity to shield Israeli criminals and US leaders who are responsible for terror wars.
Clinton is widely despised as a corrupt personification of the political status quo. Hence the calculated effort to promote right-wing agitation tied to issues of gender identity. Bernie Sanders, who describes himself a “democratic socialist” and based his campaign on denunciations of the “billionaire class” and calls for a “political revolution.” The major driving force of this political radicalization is the impact of the 2008 economic crash, which has been followed by a restructuring of class relations with devastating consequences for the lives of millions of people.
Hillary and Democratic Party have been less concerned about the rise of Donald Trump than it is about the broad support for Sanders within the party people, which created a political crisis for Clinton and seriously jeopardized her planned coronation. The surge in support for Sanders came as a frightening shock to the entire political establishment—including Sanders himself—and the corporate-controlled media, because it demonstrated the emergence of a mass constituency for anti-capitalist, socialistic ideas.
Interestingly, an extremely right-wing campaign by the Democrats aimed at winning support from sections of the Republican Party on the grounds that Clinton, with her close links to both Wall Street and the military-intelligence establishment, is the most competent and reliable figure for waging war abroad and deepening the attack on the working class at home.
Very shrewdly Clinton set the tone in her victory speech, preceded by a campaign video that presented her candidacy as the culmination of a struggle for women’s rights extending over nearly two centuries and going back to the first stirrings of support for women’s suffrage. Her appeal for votes for the lone woman candidate the party thinks would click and sink well with women voters. That is an illusion. .
Clinton was less concerned about the rise of Donald Trump than it is about the broad support for Sanders, which created a political crisis for Clinton and seriously jeopardized her planned coronation. The surge in support for Sanders came as a frightening shock to the entire political establishment—including Sanders himself—and the corporate-controlled media, because it demonstrated the emergence of a mass constituency for anti-capitalist, socialistic ideas. She thought Tromp would fall on his own with his ‘incoherent’ ideas.
One of the two will have to be elected to presidency but the truth is that common people of USA instinctively, and for good reason, regard both Trump and Clinton with distaste. These are the two most unpopular politicians ever to contest the presidency. It is a measure of the isolation and bankruptcy of the US financial aristocracy that such is the “choice” its political system offers to the American people.
Rise of China
Neocons and many US leaders view that China benefited greatly from NATO terror wars in Mideast. When George W. Bush went into Iraq with troops and military equipment, the US economy was eight times larger than China’s. Today, China’s economy is about three-quarters that of the USA and will certainly eclipse it within a decade. China is America’s greatest long-term challenge, and is fast reemerging as a global superpower that seeks to expel the USA from Asia. President Obama’s Asia pivot only emboldened Beijing to speed up its military activities in South China Sea. China’s bid for regional hegemony is as much logical as American hegemony over entire world.
Observations
The United States has, through several governments, been suffering from some fundamental misdirection and a historical lack of a new credible direction. Americans are the fallen victims to expansionist wars of US presidents as per the direction of Neocons and endorsed by the Senate/Congress.
Many people who have that sense, even if they would have difficulty articulating exactly what would characterize a new direction, are now attracted to Trump because, amid all the rants and incoherence, he seems to stand for change, including change in foreign affairs, in Mideast.
In promoting the terror wars in Mideast launched by Republican president Bush and in strongly supporting the Zionist criminal regime in Mideast with regular supply of terror goods and latest drone technology to Israel, Clinton has been in favor of all the biggest catastrophes befalling on humanity. Afghan War and Iraq War are glaring examples of how US rulers led the nation to catastrophes, willingly.
It would, however, make no difference whether Madam Hillary Clinton or Mr. Trump or someone else assumes power at White House to replace a tired Barack Obama. Obama has undertaken all strenuous efforts to see his former foreign minister Hillary replaces him so that he would still have full access to the government. Like Obama the new incumbent at the Oval House would also pursue the same or similar capitalist and imperialist policies, by taking clues form Neocons.
If elected, Clinton, like Bush and Obama have done, would make a ‘historic visit’ to Israel for sumptuous dinner of her favorite Jewish dishes with the criminal leaders there with Islamic blood on their palms and declare US support for the Zionist regime in Mideast and even called the Palestinians as ‘terrorists’.
Though Hillary now claims to regret her decision to vote for George W. Bush’s ill-fated war in Iraq in 2002, she has not expressed any sympathy for those murdered by US “solders” just like she has no concern for the Palestinians being crushed and killed by Israeli military. Clinton is also a capitalist-imperialist leader of America.
Like any anti-Islam world leader, Hillary is anti-Iran, anti-Palestine and pro-Israel and as such one can visualize what all she would do from the White House, if she manages entry to that spectacular building as its full time custodian.
If she wins the poll, Clinton presidency would be like that of Obama presidency, following the Bushdom legacy of terror wars. In clear contrast, Trump is centered in realism. Trump’s foreign policy resembles that of Henry Kissinger. And this approach, many foreign policy experts see, is best able to meet America’s key challenges and restore its pre-eminence in the world
Hillary is eager to establish a Clinton dynasty in US politics to popularize it third world where dynasty is commonly practiced.
If Americans decide to prefer Trump to Clinton to be the next President as there is hardly any difference between the two, no one can find fault with their decision. Trump cannot be worse than Clinton who also supports capitalist imperialism and permanent war strategy.
All said and done, one thing has assumed clarity: Republican Trump suits better than Democratic Clinton for advancing America’s global interests, like capitalism and imperialism, terror wars and security of US energy requirements, etc.
Since both want to prolong the terror wars in Mideast, frankly, the world is not bothered who wins or who loses in the US presidency poll. Indeed humanity is fed up with terror wars and imperialist tactics.
However, Trump could surprise the Americans and world with his new ideas as president. He may not have enough experience national governance or in foreign policy matters but Trump would take the counseling of foreign policy experts to formulate his ideas about future policy for his government, if elected to White house.
It does, however, mean, Trump can redeem the prestige and credibility of USA lost during reins of Bush and Obama since world cannot control USA, nor can make Washington accept new ideas but USA would continue to control entire world. US president would do exactly what he would be told by the “concerned” just like Precedent Obama has been performing like a tactful actor.
Finally, to advance capitalist-imperialist agenda of USA, Republican Trump is better suited than Democratic Hillary.
