July 6, 2016
Exclusive: FBI Director
Comey’s judgment that Hillary Clinton was “extremely careless” but not criminal
in her sloppy email practices leaves her limping to the Democratic nomination
and stumbling toward the fall campaign, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Compared to Donald Trump,
Hillary Clinton presents herself as the well-qualified steady hand to manage
U.S. foreign policy over the next four years, yet she has associated herself
with a series of failed strategies and now faces an FBI judgment that she was
“extremely careless” in protecting national security secrets.
A partial list of her dubious
and dangerous judgments include voting for the catastrophic Iraq War, pushing
for a misguided counterinsurgency “surge” in Afghanistan, embracing an
anti-democratic coup in Honduras, undercutting President Obama’s efforts to
peacefully constrain Iran’s nuclear program, devising the disastrous Libyan
“regime change,” advocating a new invasion of Syria under the guise of creating
“safe zones,” likening Russian President Vladimir Putin to Hitler, and
– now according to FBI Director James Comey – failing to protect
classified material from possible exposure to foreign adversaries.
Clinton admits that some of
her judgments were “mistakes,” such as believing President George W. Bush’s
blatant falsehoods about Iraq’s alleged WMDs and using a personal email server
to communicate regarding her duties as Secretary of State. But arguably
even more troubling is the fact that she doesn’t regard other of her
official judgments as mistakes. Instead, she holds to them still or spins them
in deceptive ways.
For instance, Clinton has
never expressed regret about her support for the ouster of progressive Honduran
President Manuel Zelaya in 2009, or her siding with Defense Secretary Robert
Gates and General David Petraeus against President Obama in mouse-trapping him
into a foolhardy counterinsurgency escalation in Afghanistan, or her sabotaging
Obama’s plan in 2010 to use Brazil and Turkey to convince Iran to surrender
much of its refined uranium, or her propagandistic justification for bombing
Libya in 2011 and leaving behind what amounts to a failed state, or her similar
scheming for “regime change” in Syria that helped expand terrorist movements in
the Middle East and has now destabilized Europe, or her reckless demonizing of
Russia’s Putin and encouragement of a dangerous new Cold War.
In many of those cases,
Clinton has not been called on to apologize or admit error because Washington’s
neoconservative/liberal interventionist foreign-policy establishment marched in
lock-step with the former Secretary of State. It turns out that if you move
with the pack, you do enjoy relative safety even if your collective judgment is
unsound. Usually, the people picking up the messy and blood-spattered pieces
left behind by foolhardy policies are American soldiers and taxpayers
whose opinions don’t matter much in the rarefied atmosphere of Officialdom.
The Worst News
Arguably, Comey’s July 5
statement terming Clinton’s use of an unsecured email server as “extremely
careless” but not criminal was the worst possible news for the Democratic
Party. A recommendation to indict Clinton might have compelled her to step
aside and let the party nominate someone more likely to defeat Republican
Donald Trump, but the lack of an indictment probably means that Clinton will
persevere through the Democratic convention and go into the general election as
damaged goods.
That outcome means she
will be viewed by many voters as a privileged politician who was let off the
hook while more poorly connected Americans would likely have ended up in
prison.
Assessing Clinton’s sloppy use
of a private email server – a process that she justified as a matter of
personal convenience so she could keep her beloved Blackberry – Comey said laws
may well have been broken and national security secrets may have been
jeopardized to foreign governments though he couldn’t say for sure that her
server was successfully hacked.
Explaining his reasoning,
Comey said, “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes
regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no
responsible prosecutor would bring such a case.” Despite Comey’s
recommendation, the ultimate decision still rests with Justice Department
prosecutors.
But the impression that many
Americans will get is that there is one set of rules for the “great and
powerful” and another set for the rest of us, an extraordinarily damaging
message in a political year of obvious voter discontent with the Establishment.
While there will be enormous
pressure on responsible Americans not to elect the loose cannon known as Donald
Trump, there are serious worries that Hillary Clinton may present her own
enormous risks as President.
Will she surround herself with
neocons and liberal hawks who will be eager to jam the American people into new
and even more dangerous wars, including possibly the most reckless “regime
change” of all, in Moscow?
Will she turn U.S. policies in
the Middle East over to Israel’s right-wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu as she
has implied in her desire to take the relationship to “the next level”? Will
she display the same faulty warmongering judgment that she has demonstrated
again and again, but without the temporizing influence of President Obama?
These are legitimate questions
that Americans have the right to consider as they weigh which of the two highly
unpopular standard-bearers to pick between. Even as Clinton has shifted her
rhetoric toward a more populist style and given at least lip service to some of
Sen. Bernie Sanders’s social issues, she has shown no moderation of her hawkish
foreign policies.
That’s either because she’s
trying to reel in the Republican neocons in the general election or because she
truly believes in an interventionist approach toward the world. Either way,
pro-peace Americans have reason to be concerned
[For more on this topic, see
Consortiumnews.com’s “Would
a Clinton Win Mean More Wars?’”; “Yes,
Hillary Clinton Is a Neocon“; “Democrats
Are Now the Aggressive War Party”; “The
State Department’s Collective Madness”; and “Trading
Places: Neocons and Cockroaches.”]
No comments:
Post a Comment