OPINION:
“Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.” — George Washington
The latest furor over FBI Director James Comey’s reopening of his bureau’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server is a stark reminder of the slimy snail-trail of scandal and sleaze we can anticipate if Hillary and her prospective “First Husband” Bill Clinton return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. As the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass asks: “Has America become so numb by the decades of lies and cynicism oozing from Clinton Inc. that it could elect Hillary Clinton as president?”
If the answer turns out to be Yes – or if enough dead people and non-citizens vote – Hillary Clinton still might prevail. Already some Americans opposed to her are planning how to outlast her reign, preparing Congressional investigations into her various scandals, and anticipating the next election.
But if Hillary wins, her manifest corruption might not be our biggest problem. It cannot be stated too many times: Hillary has never met a war or “regime change” operation she didn’t like. If she wins, she will come into office with a horde of neoconservative and liberal-interventionist “indispensable” zealots who will make George W. Bush’s administration seem like a joint enterprise of Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa. If you liked Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Syria, you’ll love President Hillary Clinton. While it’s unlikely she would deliberately provoke a war with Russia or China, she’s reckless, aggressive, and arrogant enough to set a course that would risk that result.
Hillary justifies her warmongering on an appeal to American “values.” She extols “American Exceptionalism” but defines it in a way that our Founding Fathers never would tolerate. Disposing of Jefferson’s “decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” her shrill, Soviet-style universalism is contemptuous of both the U.S. Constitution (only Congress has the power to make war) and the U.N. Charter (under which the only legitimate use of force is self-defense or Security Council authorization). She touts the “indispensable nation” in pursuit of what her ideological supporters call “benevolent global hegemony.”
Hillary would put on steroids a warped and, frankly, un-American concept of our country’s role in the world that under Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Barack Obama has made us less free and less safe. While our domestic infrastructure crumbles trillions of tax dollars have been wasted. Thousands of American personnel have been killed, tens of thousands wounded or disabled or dying at their own hand, and their families devastated. That’s aside from the millions of refugees and hundreds of thousands killed and maimed in the process of “democratizing” them – not that anyone cares much, it seems.
Meanwhile, jihad terrorism proliferates in country after country, with Hillary ready to usher ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other jihad operatives into the U.S. lest we succumb to “Islamophobia.” Her leaked commitment to “open borders” would lock in permanent Democratic rule under her little-noted pledge not to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. This violates a president’s sworn obligation that the laws be faithfully executed. Does anyone care?
While this commentary focuses on the mortal danger a Hillary presidency would pose to the United States in foreign and military affairs, it goes without saying that her antipathy to anything like America’s traditional identity and values undermines our domestic peace, tranquility, and prosperity. On top of the Obama-Clinton failed foreign policy we see the tsunami of scandals, corruption like Clinton Foundation “pay-for-play,” “Clinton Cash”, and “Bill Clinton, Inc.,” as well as DNC election manipulations – which the media, a virtual arm of Hillary’s campaign, prefers to ignore.
Hillary’s pathetic and outrageous response to all her and her campaign staff’s criminal acts is to try to shift the blame onto Putin, Comey, Assange and everyone except the real perpetrators.
No one thinks Trump or his supporters are prefect but as Dilbert creator Scott Adams observed: “Trump’s message is about uniting all Americans under one flag”. The Clinton message on the other hand is that those who support her are good people but the others who don’t are deplorable. “She has literally turned Americans on each other. It is hard for me to imagine a worse thing for a presidential candidate to do,” – said Adams.
Americans must take up Hillary’s challenge to vote on “values.” Her and Bill’s “values” are on full display in the mega-avalanche of dishonesty and malfeasance that define their career. What possible “value” can there be in that?
• Edward Lozansky is president of the American University in Moscow. Jim Jatras is a former U.S. diplomat and foreign policy adviser to the Senate GOP leadership. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of their affiliated organizations.
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