April 13, 2016
Hillary Clinton is proving to
be the “teflon candidate.” In her campaign for the Democratic
presidential nomination, she has escaped damage from major scandals, any one of
which would destroy a politician. Hillary has accepted massive bribes in
the form of speaking fees from financial organizations and corporations.
She is under investigation for misuse of classified data, an offense for which
a number of whistleblowers are in prison. Hillary has survived the bombing of
Libya, her creation of a failed Libyan state that is today a major source of
terrorist jihadists, and the Benghazi controversy. She has survived charges
that as Secretary of State she arranged favors for foreign interests in
exchange for donations to the Clintons’ foundation. And, of course, there
is a long list of previous scandals: Whitewater, Travelgate, Filegate.
Diana Johnstone’s book, Queen of Chaos,
describes Hillary Clinton as “the top salesperson for the ruling oligarchy.”
Hillary Clinton is a
bought-and-paid-for representative of the big banks, the military-security
complex, and the Israel Lobby. She will represent these interests, not
those of the American people or America’s European allies.
The Clintons’ purchase by
interest groups is public knowledge. For example, CNN reports that
between February 2001 and May 2015 Bill and Hillary Clinton were paid
$153 million in speaking fees for 729 speeches, an average price of $210,000.
As it became evident that
Hillary Clinton would emerge as the likely Democratic presidential candidate, she
was paid more. Deutsche Bank paid her $485,000 for one speech, and Goldman
Sachs paid her $675,000 for three speeches. Bank of American Morgan
Stanley, UBS, and Fidelity Investments each paid $225,000.
Despite Hillary’s blatent
willingness to be bribed in public, her opponent, Bernie Sanders, has not
succeeded in making an issue of Hillary’s shamelessness. Both of the main
establishment newspapers, the Washington Post and the New York Times have come
to Hillary’s defense.
Hillary is a war-monger.
She pushed the Obama regime into the destruction of a stable and largely
cooperative government in Libya where the “Arab Spring” was a CIA-backed group
of jihadists who were used to dislodge China from its oil investments in
eastern Libya. She urged her husband to bomb Yugoslavia. She has pushed for
“regime change” in Syria. She oversaw the coup that overthrew the
democratically elected president of Honduras. She brought neoconservative
Victoria Nuland, who arranged the coup that overthrew the democratically elected
president of Ukraine, into the State Department. Hillary has called President
Vladimir Putin of Russia the “new Hitler.” Hillary as president
guarantees war
and more war.
In the United States
government has been privatized. Office holders use their positions in
order to make themselves wealthy, not in order to serve the public interest.
Bill and Hillary Clinton epitomize the use of public office in behalf of the
office holder’s interest. For the Clintons government means using public
office to be rewarded for doing favors for private interests. The Wall Street
Journal reported that “at least 60 companies that lobbied the State Department
during her [Hillary Clinton’s] tenure as Secretary of State donated a total of
more than $26 million to the Clinton Foundation.”
According to washingtonsblog.com, “All told, the
Clinton Foundation and its affiliates have collected donations and pledges from
all sources of more than $1.6 billion, according to their tax returns.”
According to rootsactionteam.com, multi-million
dollar donors to the Clinton Foundation include Saudi Arabia, Ukrainian
oligarch Victor Pinchuk, Kuwait, ExxonMobil, Friends of Saudi Arabia, James
Murdoch, Qatar, Boeing, Dow, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, and the United Arab
Emirates.
According to the International
Business Times, “Under Hillary Clinton, the State Department approved $165
billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments had
given millions to the Clinton Foundation.”
Hillary Clinton has escaped
unharmed from so many crimes and scandals that she would likely be the most
reckless president in American history. With the arms race renewed, with Russia
declared “an existential threat to the United States,” and with Hillary’s
declaration of President Putin as the new Hitler, Hillary’s arrogant
self-confidence is likely to result in over-reach that ends in conflict between
NATO and Russia. Considering the extraordinary destructive force of
nuclear weapons, Hillary as president could mean the end of life on earth.
Paul Craig Roberts is a
former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall
Street Journal. Roberts’ How
the Economy Was Lost is now available from CounterPunch in electronic
format. His latest book is The
Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
