I’m going to vote for Hillary Clinton, and not just because Donald Trump is a “sociopath” (as his former ghostwriter puts it). Clinton has the intelligence, empathy, and strength to become our greatest President–if she resolves a huge moral contradiction in her career.
Helping those who are most vulnerable, children and women, has been Clinton’s lifelong passion. But she is also a strong advocate for U.S. military interventions, which have devastated children and women.
Clinton is far more hawkish than Barack Obama. As Secretary of State, Clinton advocated more aggressive military actions than the President in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Clinton does not favor tough policies just to make herself more electable, according to New York Times reporter Mark Lander. As he noted last April in “How Hillary Clinton Became a Hawk,” Clinton’s foreign-policy “instincts” are “grounded in cold realism about human nature” and a belief in “American exceptionalism.”
The reference to Clinton’s “cold realism about human nature” chills me, because I fear it means she has fallen for the bogus claim that war has deep evolutionary roots. Clinton believes that “the calculated use of military power is vital to defending national interests [and] that American intervention does more good than harm,” Lander reports.
I italicize “more good than harm,” because… really? U.S. interventions since 9/11 have been disastrous, by any objective measure. Here are consequences of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan, as tallied by the Costs of War Project, based at Brown University:
370,000 people have died due to direct war violence. It is likely that many times more than 370,000 people have died indirectly in these wars, due to malnutrition, damaged infrastructure, and environmental degradation.
Many of the dead are women and children, those whom Clinton has worked especially hard to defend. According to Iraq Body Count, between 2003 and 2011, U.S. coalition forces killed at least 1,201 children in Iraq alone. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism estimates that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan over the past decade have killed between 172 and 207 children.
Clinton would no doubt respond that ISIS and the Taliban hurt children and women too, and attacks on them ultimately do more good than harm. But a just-war philosophy that permits killing of children and women is an oxymoron. Also, in strictly practical terms, U.S. military actions since 9/11 have failed miserably, because they have exacerbated the problem of Muslim militancy.
Clinton is famous for her “listening tours,” in which she seeks out others’ opinions on important issues. After she wins the election, she should go on a global listening tour aimed at finding nonviolent ways to resolve conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere.
The tour’s main purpose would be to gather ideas for ending war and even the threat of war once and for all. Clinton will hear lots of challenges to her belief in the righteousness of U.S. military power. She might start by talking to former President Jimmy Carter and the Pope, who have both suggested that U.S. militarism does more harm than good.
Clinton should how to scale back the vast U.S. military empire to make the world safer. Such a step would free up resources for investment in education, jobs, health care, clean energy and foreign aid and encourage other nations to reduce their armies.
Clinton will have a hard time—to put it mildly–convincing American voters to support deep cuts in the U.S. military, and she will be fiercely opposed by arms manufacturers and others who benefit from maintaining the status quo. At best, she can only initiate a trek toward peace that others must complete. When her resolve falters, she might remember how much war hurts children and women.
Clinton is unquestionably strong. Is she strong enough to renounce her hawkishness and become a Peace President? I’d love to see her try.
John Horgan directs the Center for Science Writings, which is part of the College of Arts & Letters. The column is adapted from one originally published on his ScientificAmerican.com blog, “Cross-check.”
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