Our Little Thatcher

Hillary the Hawk

By PAUL W. LOVINGER

When Senator Hillary Clinton voted on October 11, 2002, to turn over to President George W. Bush the power that the Constitution vested in her and congressional colleagues to decide whether or not to wage war - or, quoting House Joint Resolution 114, whether an attack on Iraq was "necessary and appropriate" - she appeared to have a conflict of interest:

Her husband, Bill, was of course the former chief of the executive branch. And during her eight years as first lady, Mrs. Clinton never objected to Bill's eight wars, attacks, or interventions: in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, and Yugoslavia. He bombed Iraq in 1993 soon after taking office, again in 1996, and from 1998 till he left office. For a time, he was dropping bombs on Iraqis and Yugoslavs simultaneously in 1999.

None of those acts of war were authorized by Congress. The House of Representatives even voted its opposition to the undeclared bombing war on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, i.e. Serbia and Montenegro (4-28-99). Bill paid no attention and carried on his one-sided warfare for eleven weeks.

Mrs. Clinton had been instrumental in persuading Bill to attack Yugoslavia, according to multiple writers. Biographer Gail Sheehy wrote in "Hillary's Choice" (p. 345): "On March 21, 1999, Hillary expressed her views by phone to the president. 'I urged him to bomb [Yugoslavia].' " Bill was indecisive. She invoked the Holocaust, alluding to claims of mass killings by Milosovic and his men, and asked, "What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?" (Originally it was to defend western Europe against a possible Soviet attack.) Days later the president gave the go-ahead for war, thereby usurping the constitutional prerogative of Congress.

The Milosovic-massacre tale (which Senator Clinton repeated in her 2002 Senate speech) was subsequently debunked by several European pathological teams. The Clinton-NATO air raids, however, killed a couple of thousand civilians. A year later Amnesty International charged that international law was violated by indiscriminate bombings.

Calls aggression defense

Speaking in behalf of the Iraq war resolution Senator Clinton praised her husband's bombing of Iraq and argued that "undisputed" facts linked Saddam Hussein to weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear weapons program, and to ties to Al-Qaeda. But such a contention was indeed disputed by facts presented by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Knight Ridder newspaper chain, buried stories in the leading papers, and many Internet sites. She denied that the resolution amounted to a rush to war, though it came from the White House, which had already decided to wage war on Iraq.

When Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003, Senator Clinton called it defense. Even after the supposed facts about WMD and terrorist ties were exposed as monstrous lies, the senator defended her vote for war, never renouncing it. She claimed it was just to support negotiation, but the resolution said nothing about negotiation. And she claimed she had been given incorrect intelligence, but cited no details. She opposed any timetable for withdrawal and advocated more troops and permanent U.S. bases in Iraq.

As of last September, that supposed defensive war was estimated, by the British polling agency Opinion Research Business, to have taken 1.2 million Iraqi lives.

Even if the lies she fell for had been proven true, the senator's lack of concern for international law would still stand revealed. The Charter of the United Nations, which as a U.S. treaty has the force of law, says (in Article 2): "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state...."

The North Atlantic Treaty - the basis for the organization that Bill Clinton, with his wife's encouragement, perverted from a defensive to an aggressive force - echoes that principle (in Article 1): "The Parties undertake ... to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations."

Furthermore, before there was a UN or a NATO, there was the Kellogg-Briand Peace Pact of 1928, renouncing war as an instrument of national policy. It was used to convict Nazis of crimes against peace, and it remains in effect as a U.S. treaty.

Threatens Iran and others

Just as Senator Clinton accepted Bush and Cheney's fiction about danger from Iraq and supported the 2003 aggression against that country, she tends to accept their drive for an encore against Iran. At Princeton University in January 2006, she said, "A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, its neighbors and beyond. The regime's pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses."

In her own, anti-Iranian rhetoric, she threatened a nation that had not attacked anyone for centuries and that - U.S. intelligence now states - had given up its atomic bomb program three years earlier: "We cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran -- that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons." Three months later, Bush used nearly the same expression when asked if he planned a nuclear attack on that country: "All options are on the table" (AP, 4-8-06).

Last September 26, Senator Clinton voted for a Senate resolution urging Bush to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a major branch of the Iranian armed forces, as a foreign terrorist organization. She has echoed the proofless Bush charges of support for Iraqi insurgents (mostly Sunni) by Iran (Shiite).

She has refused to rule out presidential use of nuclear weapons, notwithstanding the 1996 World Court ruling that use of the weapons violates international humanitarian law because they blindly strike civilians and military targets alike. And she voted to end restrictions on countries violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Senator Clinton has called for more toughness on Syria and leftist regimes in Latin America, supported arms and training for various repressive dictatorships, opposed bans on land mines and cluster-bomb exports, and advocated even more military spending than Bush requested. More contributions from war contractors have reached Hillary for President than any competing campaign.

The senator boasts of her experience. She is indeed experienced in jumping to bellicose conclusions on the basis of meager facts and false information. If she wins, I expect her to follow the pattern of husband Bill in shooting from the hip in actions abroad, to ignore both the Constitution and international law, and to try to prove that a woman president can be just as warlike as any man.

Krugman’s Fascist Fantasies

I just cannot kick the Krugman habit. Yes, his column is awful, and, yes, I read it every Monday and Friday, just as the editors of the New York Times want me to do. (Of course, they would like for me to believe that Krugman is the Great Prophet of Economics, but they will have to settle for the fact that I read Krugman precisely because he is so bad.)

As I read yet another column lavishing praise upon John Edwards, I realized that Krugman is nothing less than a hard-core 1930s fascist. No, he does not wear the black shirt (or I don’t think he wears a black shirt), and I doubt he has a flag with a swastika hanging in his closet, but nonetheless his economic doctrines are pure and unadulterated fascism.

In a recent column, he claimed that the entire sub-prime mortgage meltdown was due to free market ideology. That’s right, a financial bubble that was created by a socialist entity called the Federal Reserve System and backed up by government-created corporations called (how cute) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac really was an exercise in free markets. Yeah, and Princeton University (Krugman’s other employer) is offering me a job on the faculty.

As always, I will let Krugman’s words speak for themselves, as I do not want to put words in his mouth, given his own words are awful enough. Thus, I begin with his view of politics:

Broadly speaking, the serious contenders for the Democratic nomination are offering similar policy proposals – the dispute over health care mandates notwithstanding. But there are large differences among the candidates in their beliefs about what it will take to turn a progressive agenda into reality.

At one extreme, Barack Obama insists that the problem with America is that our politics are so "bitter and partisan," and insists that he can get things done by ushering in a "different kind of politics."

At the opposite extreme, John Edwards blames the power of the wealthy and corporate interests for our problems, and says, in effect, that America needs another F.D.R. – a polarizing figure, the object of much hatred from the right, who nonetheless succeeded in making big changes.

Krugman, not surprisingly, wants the guy who will confiscate property, imprison business executives, and generally destroy private enterprise. (Don’t forget, Krugman holds that the Great Depression really was a Golden Age of the U.S. economy because income inequality lessened during that time. In other words, he believes a world in which everyone is poor is better than a world in which some are poor and others are not.)

As the point man on socialist medical care, Krugman declares:

O.K., more seriously, it’s actually Mr. Obama who’s being unrealistic here, believing that the insurance and drug industries – which are, in large part, the cause of our health care problems – will be willing to play a constructive role in health reform. The fact is that there’s no way to reduce the gross wastefulness of our health system without also reducing the profits of the industries that generate the waste.

As a result, drug and insurance companies – backed by the conservative movement as a whole – will be implacably opposed to any significant reforms. And what would Mr. Obama do then? "I’ll get on television and say Harry and Louise are lying," he says. I’m sure the lobbyists are terrified.

As health care goes, so goes the rest of the progressive agenda. Anyone who thinks that the next president can achieve real change without bitter confrontation is living in a fantasy world.

Yes, as health care goes, so goes the rest of the progressive agenda. While I and many other libertarians have been critical of the pharmaceutical and health insurance industries, Krugman is going into the netherworld of fascism in which the government directs everything these companies do – if they even are permitted to exist. Krugman has written elsewhere that perhaps all of these private firms must be destroyed or "cut out of the picture altogether" (same thing as destruction, since they would not be permitted to sell products and services).

You see, Krugman really believes (1) central government planning is what this world needs most, (2) people like him – because they can do funky mathematical modeling for journal articles – are the most qualified to do central planning, and (3) that private enterprise and especially profits are the source of all ills in the economy. Anyone who truly believes that the New Deal "ended" the Great Depression and thinks that John Edwards’ "populism" is an intelligent discussion of economics should be shown the back door of any competent economics department. (I forgot. He is on the Princeton faculty. "Elite" universities don’t have to be competent, just arrogant.)

For all of the talk of confiscating property, imprisoning executives, and just trashing anyone who supposedly is rich, I find it interesting to see Krugman – a millionaire himself – shilling for John Edwards. Edwards is a former trial lawyer who raked in millions suing doctors and hospitals, and who recently built the largest house in Orange County, North Carolina, a 29,000-square-foot behemoth. Here is a guy who lives a life of sartorial splendor, yet he claims that rich people are screwing up the economy. Rich people other than himself and Krugman.

My sense is that Edwards would find a way to exempt the Paul Krugmans of the world from onerous taxation and regulation. After all, Krugman has a doctorate from M.I.T., which means he really is more intelligent than we are, and intelligent socialists really should not have to deal with the consequences of the policies they demand for others. Thus, I guess an Edwards presidency would find a way for Krugman to keep his millions – as well as Edwards’ own mansion.

As Robert Higgs has pointed out, the New Deal did not bring back prosperity. Instead, prosperity came back only after Franklin Roosevelt had died and the New Deal took a back seat to private enterprise. Writes Higgs:

Evidence from public opinion polls and corporate bond markets shows that FDR’s policies prevented a robust recovery of long-term private investment by significantly reducing investors’ confidence in the durability of private property rights. Not until the New Deal/war economy ended and resources became available for peacetime production did private investment – and the nation’s economic health – fully recover.

That is not what Krugman would like us to believe, but nonetheless for all of the accolades Krugman receives (and the big income that accompanies his fame), the man is little different than the black-shirted hoods who marched in the streets of Rome in support of Benito Mussolini (who did not make the trains run on time). Writes Krugman:

There’s a strong populist tide running in America right now. For example, a recent Democracy Corps survey of voter discontent found that the most commonly chosen phrase explaining what’s wrong with the country was "Big businesses get whatever they want in Washington."

And there’s every reason to believe that the Democrats can win big next year if they run with that populist tide. The latest evidence came from focus groups run by both Fox News and CNN during last week’s Democratic debate: both declared Mr. Edwards the clear winner.

But the news media recoil from populist appeals. The Des Moines Register, which endorsed Mr. Edwards in 2004, rejected him this time on the grounds that his "harsh anti-corporate rhetoric would make it difficult to work with the business community to forge change."

Yes, yes, it is that dastardly right-wing, free-enterprising news media. Oh, if only people would listen to Paul Krugman and the man for whom he shills in every other column, John Edwards. Oh, yes, Edwards would shut down those businesses and the government would make everyone do the right thing – or else.

As one who grew up during the Cold War and attended college at a time when professors believed that Mao’s Great Leap Forward was the economic model for all of us to follow, I have had my fill of socialist Ph.D.s in economics who would not be able to explain a price system any better than a two-year-old can explain the origin of babies.

So, I will cut to the chase. Krugman can call this garbage "populism," but the better word is fascism. That is right; Paul Krugman might be a respectable college professor, but he is a fascist, pure and simple. And being that he is the darling of the left wing these days, I guess the Left has come full circle: starting out as communists, and ending as fascists. Could not happen to nicer people.