This US presidential candidate may have some fierce people at her side, but one man will not budge in his pronouncement of her incompetency and guilt
A never ending war?
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few months you will be familiar with WikiLeaks’ latest venture into Hillary Clinton’s emails. On March 16, 2016 30,322 of her emails and email attachments were made public.
Numerous mainstream news platforms have covered the story, detailing many controversies the emails revealed. A foremost example concerned Clinton’s involvement in foreign intervention into the Syrian civil war; an intervention which many believe to have resulted in the prominence of the terrorist group ISIS. There is also the claim that Qaddafi issued Viagra to his troops for mass rape and that bodies of casualties were staged by the Libyan Government at NATO bombing sites, specifically to give the appearance of the latter having killed civilians.
As a March 2011 email to Clinton from Sidney Blumenthal, her longtime confidant, detailed:
‘I communicated more than a week ago on this story—Qaddafi placing bodies to create PR stunts about supposed civilian casualties as a result of Allied bombing—though underlining it was a rumor. But now, as you know, Robert Gates gives credence to it.
Sources now say, again rumor (that is, this information comes from the rebel side and is unconfirmed independently by Western intelligence), that Qaddafi has adopted a rape policy and has even distributed Viagra to troops. The incident at the Tripoli press conference involving a woman claiming to be raped is likely to be part of a much larger outrage. Will seek further confirmation’.
At first glance, these claims might have supported the intervention in Libya. However, if Clinton acknowledged their status as rumours, where then was the evidence? Regardless of this, Defence Secretary Gates promoted his bizarre ‘staged bodies’ theory on CBS News’ Face the Nation, and the ‘Viagra rape’ fiction made international headlines.
This only illustrates that Clinton was aware of the lack of evidence, yet did not try to stop this potentially false information from becoming headline news. Instead, she sat back and let officials attack Libya with no substantial evidence. Indeed, another theory is that the ‘Viagra rape’ claim was largely due to Blumenthal.
Corrupt, corrupt and more corrupt.
Clinton played a major role in convincing allies such as France and the UK to help the US overthrow Qaddafi in August 2011. Not only that, but after his death in October she expressed glee and thrill at his murder. She boasted during an interview for CBS that ‘We came, we saw, he died‘ — a comment that understandably disgusted and angered those who interpreted her as taking enjoyment in killing.
Another controversy that hit less mainstream news platforms were her emails to ‘Diane Reynolds’. WikiLeaks uncovered that this was, in fact, Clinton’s daughter Chelsea. Harmless at first, yes. However, unauthorised use of a private email server is against the law.
Moreover, the timing of these emails was somewhat unforgiving; or do all Secretaries of State write to their children during foreign policy meetings and attacks like that which occurred in Benghazi?
Why ‘WikiLeak’ Clinton?
More interesting is why Julian Assange, Editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, targeted Clinton in the first place.
Assange and Clinton have a tumultuous relationship and he is likely to continue to criticise and expose her as the US presidential election nears. Posting on WikiLeaks, he argued that ‘She’s a war hawk with bad judgement who gets an unseemly emotional rush out of killing people’.
Echoing the concerns over Libya and Syria, he added that ‘Hillary lacks judgement and will push the United States into endless, stupid wars which spread terrorism’. He also argued that ‘Her personality combined with her poor policy decisions have directly contributed to the rise of ISIS‘.
Assange has described Clinton as representing the corruption he aims to combat and that a ‘vote for Clinton is a vote for stupid, endless war’. He criticises her highly for her illegal way of ‘helping’ the country and seems set on continuing his mission against her corruption.
Yet despite this, Assange lives in exile while Clinton is shielded by her political stature and on the verge of being elected as America’s next president.
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Imogen Faulkner
Recent graduate of English Literature at the University of Exeter. I'm interested in world politics and the importance of addressing the climate crisis.
