US Presidential Election 2016: The Battle of the HawksBy Steven MacMillan Yet many media outlets fail to ask the most important and fundamental question pertaining to the presidential contest: Is the fight rigged so that the establishment is the only winner? Clinton is evidently controlled by the establishment and will serve her masters loyally if installed into the White House, although her deteriorating health will be a worry for the puppet masters, as even puppets need to be able to dance on strings when needed. The real issue is whether or not Trump is the establishment outsider he claims to be, and will actually challenge the parallel government. Judging by the Wall Street connections of Trumps advisers, however, the elite seem to be in control of both major candidates, with the election merely serving as a political circus to distract the masses from the bankrupt economy and the perennial foreign wars. The more digging you do into Trump, the more he seems to be just another flavour of the establishment. By looking at Trumps stances on two previous wars, we can get an indication of what US foreign policy will look like under Trump. Although the real estate magnate has criticized both the wars in Iraq and Libya after the fact, he did support both imperial endeavours before they were launched. In a September, 2002 interview with Howard Stern, Trump was asked whether he would support a war in Iraq, in which he replied: Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly. To be fair, this is hardly the most belligerent comments youve ever heard, but it is still disingenuous for Trump to claim he was against the 2003 war. What should really worry those who are opposed to Western imperialism, however, is the position Trump took on the 2011 humanitarian intervention in Libya, which led to the complete destruction of the country. Despite criticizing Clinton for her pivotal role in the war, Trump himself was a major cheerleader of the intervention. In a video posted on one of Trumps official YouTube channels from the 28th of February, 2011, the reality TV star couldnt be more in favour of the war that caused such widespread devastation: Trump continues: But we have to go in to save these lives; these people are being slaughtered like animals. Its horrible whats going on; it has to be stopped. Were making decisions like trade embargoes what does this have to do with a trade embargo? Hes [Qaddafis] killing people with machine guns in the streets. We should do it on a humanitarian basis, immediately go into Libya [and] knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively, and save the lives. After its all done, we go to the protestors who end up running the country and we should then say: by the way, from all of your oil, we want reimbursement. Out of the two candidates, Clinton is clearly the number one pick of the establishment. Clinton is one of the most hawkish individuals in Washington, and she has supported every US military venture in recent decades. Clinton has received over $300,000 from war contractors in her presidential bid so far, the second highest amount (after Bernie Sanders) out of all the candidates who initially ran for the White House. There is not one thinking person on earth that disputes Clintons hawkishness, as the evidence is too insurmountable to challenge. Apparently, establishment academics live in a world of their own, however. In an article published by Vox and republished by the Brookings Institution and European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) on the 8th of August, two establishment academics engaged in the most absurd argument one has read in a while. Written by Jeremy Shapiro, a nonresident senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy and the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, and Richard Sokolsky, a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the article was titled: Why Hillary Clinton wouldnt be a foreign policy hawk as President. Shapiro and Sokolsky start by acknowledging that every human being who has an IQ above single digits believes Clinton is a hawk, and that US foreign policy will be more aggressive under a Clinton administration. They then progress to document that she has supported countless wars and interventions in the last two decades: including in the former Yugoslavia, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya and in Syria. So far, so good. But then, with a not-so-subtle flip of reality, they try to argue that her hawkish history is not a good indication of how she will behave if she becomes President, claiming that Clinton will be more focused on domestic policy rather than foreign affairs. From this article we can draw the following conclusion: Clintons reputation is so tarnished, and her warmongering so transparent, that the establishment has to engage in total damage control to try and keep her in the race. If Hillary wasnt a woman, and didnt have the weight of the establishment behind her, there would be absolutely no chance that she could win in a fair vote, considering the array of scandals she has been at the centre of. As Clinton has supported at least five major wars and interventions over the past two decades, there is no question that she would be hawkish as Commander-in-Chief. Although Hillary is (rightly) lambasted for being a hawk, Trump should also be criticized for supporting illegal and immoral wars in the past. Trumps brazen endorsement of military intervention in Libya in 2011 should be a warning as to the type of administration a Trump one would be. The evidence indicates that regardless of who is crowned the champion in November, we can expect US foreign policy to continue to be destructive and belligerent. Steven MacMillan is an independent writer, researcher, geopolitical analyst and editor of The Analyst Report, especially for the online magazine New Eastern Outlook, where this article first appeared. Battle of the liars is more like it Always be a light that is shininginthedark Seems to me Trump could have been just another believer in Americas official narrative of those days. I believe it went something like Qadaffi is a crazed butcher. America/NATO has to do something Then the hawks bombed them into the stone age. Sent in the terrorists. (Again). Destroyed the country. Stole all the Libyans gold and oil and saddled them with a central bank. Oh and in the doing they created a huge refugee problem for Europe. The truth around this war crime was (as usual) being hidden from every day Americans by their own government and the media manipulating shills of the day. Kinda like whats happening right now. The leading causes Our present: do you watch television? Hear lies. ..the most important and fundamental question: Is the fight rigged so that the establishment is the only winner? LOL THAT is supposed to be the MOST fundmental question ?????? If you ask fundamental questions, you are branded a kook. The government is the party who benefits from being seen as this shining hope and savior to the people protecting them etc. The massive media complex is all part of the same system the status QUO. Thats why the only debate that is allowed must stick to the facts, as GIVEN by the government media complex. The MSM and Connors did a realy good job on Ron Paul, making him look like he was off center. HillBilary gets a free ride and is the most corrupt of all the syphilis infected bipeds in DeCeit, the land of transparency is nothing but smoke and mirrors and money laundering. A very long comment, but very worthwhile. Thanks for a big dose of common sense! 