Clinton, Be A War Hawk President
Last Thursday, Hillary Rodham Clinton accepted the Democratic party nomination to become the next president of The United States — and once again, Democrats made history!
When any barrier falls in America, it clears the way for everyone. pic.twitter.com/nz6Y29DMwP
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 30, 2016
Clinton is the first woman in American history to become a presidential candidate — and no matter what candidate in the primary — and what party during the upcoming presidential election you are supporting — no one can discount this moment as historical, inspiring, and progressive for all the right reasons.
Now that Clinton is in, I hope she can correct something that has bothered me for quite some time. The manic and misconfigured response to Islamic terrorism. Our foreign policy on the subject has been nothing but short of tragic.
When Secretary of State, I thought Clinton and President Obama mishandled the foreign policy for Syria. The whole we’re going to intervene and stop Assad from using chemical weapons against his people to oops never mind, well, this action was irresponsible and immoral.
“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” said Clinton.
Goldberg noted when Secretary of State, Clinton recognized the dangers Islamic terrorism posed for The Middle East and Europe.
“One of the reasons why I worry about what’s happening in the Middle East right now is because of the breakout capacity of jihadist groups that can affect Europe, can affect the United States,” she said. “Jihadist groups are governing territory. They will never stay there, though. They are driven to expand. Their raison d’etre is to be against the West, against the Crusaders, against the fill-in-the-blank—and we all fit into one of these categories. How do we try to contain that? I’m thinking a lot about containment, deterrence, and defeat.”
Thus, I cannot understand what happened to Clinton’s forceful hand at combating terrorism. Did she not want to be confrontational against President Obama who was reluctant to put foot soldiers in Syria and to authorize more war? Was she afraid the public would turn against her for pressing Obama’s hand after the public later turned on her for voting for the Iraq War?
On the Middle East, once again, Clinton proved to be a careless leader, and I lost respect for her prowess as a woman. The same occurred in Libya; Clinton gave up on helping the oppressed. It was all so jarring and disappointing. I always thought of Clinton as the moral one who didn’t support the idea of watching innocent people die.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” said Clinton at a Democratic rally in North Carolina.
So what happened, then?
The response of reluctance, this isolationism rising, well, it resulted in the unthinkable against an American embassy: The Benghazi attack.
A February 2016 article by Anne Barnard of The New York Times wrote about the death toll of Syrians from finding by the Syrian Center for Policy Research. It said, “470,000 Syrians had died as a result of the war, almost twice the 250,000 counted a year and a half ago by the United Nations until it stopped counting because of a lack of confidence in the data.”
The report goes on to say, life expectancy in Syria dropped by 14 years and, “the war’s economic cost at $255 billion, virtually wiping out the nation’s wealth.” This data should shock everyone awake. As the new saying against police brutality in America goes, “Stay Woke.” Well, we should do the same with regards to Syria and all other countries imminently affected by ISIS (and Al Queda and the Taliban).
The fact is, our reluctance to invade and this desire for isolationism keeps no one safe. For as much action with drones, President Obama has authorized, these Islamic terrorist groups aren’t dying. They’re like cockroaches; they just keep showing up, no matter how much poison you spray at them.
If you want to see the best of America, you need look no further than the example set by Army Captain Humayun Khan.https://t.co/aEhY06r7St
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) July 30, 2016
The reason for this, there’s no barrier in the field, there’s no stable government with the will power to protect its citizens. It’s the role of Western democratic societies, and it’s always been the position of liberalism to stand up for the minority and the oppressed. Liberals don’t turn their backs on the broken, we stand side-by-side with them, we give them water to grow stronger. Shame on all liberals, including myself, for forgetting this.
I know our country is tired of endless wars. I’m tired too. But aren’t you also tired of beheadings, explosions, oppression against Muslim women and children? Aren’t you tired of homegrown terrorism? Aren’t you sick of villains misusing religion? Mostly, aren’t you sick of watching innocent people die? For a party that is tired of gun violence, I cannot understand how you’ve become immune to the pain and suffering of Muslims, believing, “So what, that’s their problem.”
On war, Aristotle said the following.
“The goal of war is peace, of business, leisure.”
Karl Von Clausewitz said, “The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.”
Being pro-war isn’t an easy position for me to have, but enough is enough. I’m tired of the religious persecution of Muslims, Christians, and Jews at the hands of radicals Islamists. We’ve passed the point of reasoning with the likes of terrorists.
“Strong Together,” said Clinton during her acceptance speech in Philadelphia for president. I hope this doesn’t include just Americans but all people around the world. Please, Hillary Clinton, be the war hawk president that the world needs to combat radical Islamists.
[Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
