HRC partisans are strangely silent on the hawkish views of their candidate, but there is abundant evidence that her aggressive attitude toward use of American military force is contrary to the policies of President Obama and more hawkish than even those of candidate Trump. I submit that Hillary Clinton’s belligerent stance on foreign interventions is a calculated political decision intended to ward off accusations of “softness,” to which a female presidential candidate with no military experience is vulnerable.
I believe that Clinton is operating under the theory that the American electorate perceives foreign affairs as a theatrical production in which the US must act the part of a Western cowboy hero, constantly riding to the rescue of victims of injustice and defeating “bad guys” with superior force. Ordinarily nobody dies in a theatrical production, but in America’s theater of war (AKA, the Global War on Terror), many people die. What makes our use of military force theatrical, rather than decisive, is that it is exercised for domestic political purposes. Reagan invaded Grenada not because there was any practical military threat, but because he needed to show “toughness” after the disastrous bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon.
The ancient Greeks transformed warfare by fighting for decisive outcomes. Earlier peoples viewed warfare as a ritualistic display, often fought by individual champions. The citizen-soldiers of the Greek city states viewed warfare as a necessary nuisance and wanted to destroy enemies completely so that they would not have to fight again. We have now returned to the ritual, theatrical practice of warfare, with a war on terror that has become the longest running theatrical military violence show in American history, with no end in sight.
The reason Hillary Clinton wanted to be Secretary of State was twofold: she needed foreign policy credentials, and she needed a display of military toughness. That is why she urged Obama to bomb Libya and why she tried to persuade him to do the same to Syria. To Obama’s credit he avoided the Syrian morass. The reason HRC touts her involvement in the killing of Bin Laden and laughs about the murder of Ghaddafi is that these are excellent performances in her theater of toughness.
Clinton supporters may be assured that if she is President she will do her utmost to maintain her toughness credentials — not because she gives a damn about the people she is “protecting,” but because she wants another term in office. That is the reason the eerie silence about Clinton’s hawkishness will persist: her supporters know that to sustain her career, she needs to keep up her tough woman act, no matter how many lives it costs.