Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Hillary Clinton’s speech to the American Legion this week raised eyebrows among some one the left with her jingoism and praise for American exceptionalism. One segment was particularly disturbing as she sounds like she is threatening military action against Russia:

We’ll invest in the next frontier of military engagement, protecting U.S. interests in outer space and cyberspace. You’ve seen reports. Russia’s hacked into a lot of things. China’s hacked into a lot of things. Russia even hacked into the Democratic National Committee, maybe even some state election systems. So, we’ve got to step up our game. Make sure we are well defended and able to take the fight to those who go after us.

As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack. We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses. And we’re going to invest in protecting our governmental networks and our national infrastructure. I want us to lead the world in setting the rules of cyberspace.

Justin Raimondo responded at Antiwar.com:

If that isn’t a veiled threat to attack Russia in retaliation for their alleged “cyber-attacks” on the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton Foundation, then what is she trying to say?

This should scare the bejesus out of “liberals” and others on the left who have been scammed into jumping on the Clinton bandwagon in the name of stopping Trump. Are we really going to start World War III in order to avenge the honor of Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Given how problematic attribution is in the case of cyber-attacks, this threat of “military action” makes Dr. Strangelove look sane.

For all the yelping and screeching in the media about how Trump is “unstable,” and even crazy, this threat shows that Hillary in quite simply unhinged. Her major theme these days resembles something out of Joe McCarthy’s playbook: her campaign has come right out and said Trump is “Putin’s puppet.” And since she so clearly believes the Russians are actively disrupting her efforts to take the White House, it’s reasonable to assume her policy toward Russia will reflect this in a vindictive campaign of revenge.

And they tell us Trump is “scary”!

If Hillary Clinton doesn’t scare you, then you aren’t paying attention.

It is no surprise that the arms industry has been donating so much money to Hillary Clinton. There is a long history of bad blood between Clinton and  Putin, and neocons have long desired to try regime change in Russia. We saw how well that worked out in Iraq. Donald Trump’s naive man-crush on Putin in response to a compliment from Putin is also disturbing, but Clinton’s long history of belligerence towards Russia really should scare us.

The facts behind the DNC hack remain unclear, with the anti-Russia hysteria raised by the Clinton camp sounding remarkably like the both Cold War red-baiting and like the anti-Iraq hysteria during the run-up to that war (with Hillary Clinton falsely claiming that their were ties between Saddam and al Qaeda). While I would not exclude the possibility of Russian involvement, Putin has again denied responsibility.

The lack of a credible opponent this year is allowing Hillary Clinton to get a pass on her rather alarming views on foreign policy and military interventionism. Voters have forgotten that eight years ago Clinton was rejected by Democrats and found by many to be the scary one. This included alarm raised by many Democrats when Hillary Clinton criticized Barack Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons against terrorists and for being willing to speak with our adversaries. From The Washington Post nine years ago:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton drew another distinction between herself and Sen. Barack Obama yesterday, refusing to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden or other terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Clinton’s comments came in response to Obama’s remarks earlier in the day that nuclear weapons are “not on the table” in dealing with ungoverned territories in the two countries, and they continued a steady tug of war among the Democratic presidential candidates over foreign policy…

“Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrents to keep the peace, and I don’t believe any president should make blanket statements with the regard to use or nonuse,” Clinton said.

At a debate last week in South Carolina, Clinton directly criticized Obama for saying he would meet with leaders traditionally hostile to the United States. Obama responded, and the sniping went on most of the week…

U.S. officials rarely rule out nuclear attacks as a matter of diplomacy, preferring to keep the threat as a deterrent. Yet several foreign policy experts said Obama was essentially right: It would be unwise to target an individual or a small group with nuclear weapons that could kill civilians and worsen the United States’ image around the world.

Michael O’Hanlon, a Brookings Institution scholar, said Obama “clearly gave the right answer.”

This year Donald Trump has been criticized for not taking nuclear weapons off the table in fighting ISIS. While he was wrong, his position was essentially the same as the position promoted by Hillary Clinton.