Never before were the two leading presidential candidates so disliked. Both major parties have nominated candidates that most Americans desperately want to reject.<\/p>\n
There many reasons to oppose Hillary Clinton: a history of scandal, reaching back to Bill Clinton\u2019s Arkansas governorship; greedy, grasping friendships with economic elites; and brutal partisan war against political opponents. She is smart, competent, and experienced, but so were Richard Nixon and Richard Cheney. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that she would put her virtues to good use as president. She almost certainly would lead America into more foolish wars. About the only reason to hope for a Clinton victory is her flawed opponent, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Yet despite his many failings, he remains superior to Clinton when it comes to foreign policy. No one knows what Trump would do in a given situation, which means there is a chance he would do the right thing. In contrast, Clinton\u2019s beliefs, behavior, and promises all suggest that she most likely would do the wrong thing, embracing a militaristic status quo which most Americans recognize has failed disastrously.<\/p>\n
In fact, her proclivity for promiscuous war-making has attracted the support of leading Neoconservatives, including some architects of the disastrous Iraq war, which as Senator she voted to authorize. Some otherwise obscure Neocons even have appeared in her campaign ads. Her record of backing every recent U.S. military intervention is far more attractive than Trump\u2019s intermittently blustering rhetoric to war-happy Republican hawks.<\/p>\n
As my Cato Institute colleague Christopher Preble pointed out, \u201cClinton supported every one of the last seven U.S. military interventions abroad, plus two others we ended up fighting.\u201d For instance, while First Lady she pushed for U.S. intervention in the Balkans\u2014attacking the Bosnian Serbs and then Serbia. She was an enthusiastic war advocate, explaining: \u201cI urged him [her husband] to bomb.\u201d Alas, Bosnia remains badly divided while Kosovo has turned into a gangster state which, according to the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>, is \u201ca font of Islamic extremism and a pipeline for jihadists.\u201d Oops.<\/p>\n She apparently took the same position toward Iraq, backing bombing that became almost routine during her husband\u2019s administration. He also turned a humanitarian mission in Somalia into nation-building on the cheap, threatened a military invasion of Haiti to enforce regime change, launched a lengthy occupation of the faux state of Bosnia, and expanded NATO toward Russia. None of them were in America\u2019s interest or turned out well, but Hillary Clinton apparently only objected to the Haiti misadventure. She was seen by aides as the most influential of the administration\u2019s many ivory tower warriors, always available to lobby Bill to do more bombing and killing abroad.<\/p>\n Sen. Hillary Clinton supported the overbroad Authorization for Use of Military Force after September 11, which 15 years later the Obama administration claims as warrant for its very different war against the Islamic State. She strongly backed the Iraq invasion. Only after it turned out badly and threatened to damage her political career did she acknowledge her mistake. Of course, that was too late to retrieve the thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and trillions of dollars squandered. At the same time, she said she was sorry for opposing the 2007 \u201csurge\u201d of troops, despite what Iraq became. Worse, a former State department aide reported that Clinton later announced she would not feel \u201cconstrained\u201d in the future by the failure in Iraq. She apparently sees no need to learn from one\u2019s mistakes.<\/p>\n Clinton supported the Obama administration\u2019s decision to double down, twice, on its expensive yet failed nation-building mission in Afghanistan. She pushed for even higher troop levels than did President Obama. Clinton once warned about the ill consequences of drone strikes in Pakistan, became a strong supporter as secretary of state. Then she backed the administration\u2019s drone wars in Pakistan and Yemen as well as Libya, Somalia, and Syria.<\/p>\n Clinton was more responsible than anyone else for America\u2019s Libyan misadventure, another attempt at regime change on the cheap, though with a humanitarian gloss. She reportedly warned President Obama against allowing America to \u201cbe left behind\u201d by not joining the foolish war parade in North Africa in early 2011. She responded to Moammar Qaddafy\u2019s death with a joke, but the war left another failed state, host to Islamic State killers and convulsed by civil war.<\/p>\n Her insistence on the ouster of Syria\u2019s President Bashar al-Assad discouraged a negotiated settlement, but the administration provided his opponents with no practical means to oust him. Clinton advocated lethal aid to rebels, who displayed a dismaying tendency to surrender and turn weapons over to radial groups, including ISIS. She later urged direct U.S. military intervention in the form of a \u201cno-fly\u201d zone.<\/p>\n Clinton backed NATO expansion up to Russia\u2019s borders, a policy guaranteed to poison bilateral relations. She further advocated including both Ukraine and Georgia, which would turn their next confrontation with Moscow into a potential nuclear war involving America. After leaving office she made the overwrought comparison of Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea with Nazi Germany and supported military aid to Ukraine, which would encourage Moscow to escalate accordingly.<\/p>\n Of her belligerent record Trump observed: \u201cSometimes it seemed like there wasn\u2019t a country in the Middle East that Hillary Clinton didn\u2019t want to invade, intervene in, or topple.\u201d Indeed, as he suggested, she is \u201ctrigger-happy and very unstable.\u201d This is one of the most important reasons Americans face a terrorist threat. While she previously contended that \u201cWe need a real plan for confronting terrorists,\u201d she apparently failed to recognize how bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, supporting murderous foreign rulers, intervening in other countries\u2019 conflicts, and killing foreign peoples all create enemies around the globe, some of whom retaliate against U.S. civilians.<\/p>\n Alas, her policies guarantee even more wars in the future. Every military action creates blowback, which is used to justify escalating involvement and new conflicts. Yet she believes that her mistakes entitle her to the presidency: \u201cI\u2019m proud to run on my record, because I think the choice before the American people in this election is clear.\u201d<\/p>\n It is. A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for more meddling, intervention, and war, with more dead Americans and wasted dollars, and ultimately even more meddling, intervention, and war.<\/p>\n She cloaks her constant push for war with praise of \u201cAmerican exceptionalism\u201d and America\u2019s role as \u201cthe indispensable nation.\u201d In her recent speech to the American Legion she cited Ronald Reagan\u2019s belief in America as a \u201cshining city on a hill,\u201d even though he urged the U.S. to lead by example, not by becoming an international dominatrix. In fact, Reagan was a veritable peacenik in comparison to Clinton, embracing missile defense out of his horror at the prospect of war.<\/p>\n As justification for her belligerence Clinton affirmed \u201cAmerica\u2019s unique and unparalleled ability to be a force for peace and progress, a champion for freedom and opportunity.\u201d Like intervening in Iraq and Libya, one wonders? Supporting Saudi Arabia in its brutal war in Yemen? Backing authoritarian dictatorships across Central Asia? Too bad Clinton never took seriously her admission that America\u2019s \u201cpower comes with a responsibility to lead, humbly, thoughtfully, and with a fierce commitment to our values.\u201d<\/p>\n