I was struck by a remark that Senator Clinton made at the last Democratic debate. The topic was Iraq and it moved on to Pakistan and what to do about Al Qaeda and whether or not the candidates would be willing to send forces into Pakistan to get Bin Laden even if the government of Pakistan did not comply. She hedged on the government compliance part, but in the end she declared that as President she would get Bin Laden and his fellow terrorists.
She followed up her commitment to get Bin Laden with a declaration that (paraphrasing) "any country that harbors terrorists would suffer severe military retaliation." This struck me when I heard it and I thought - huh, this is pretty much what President Bush defined as what become known as "the Bush Doctrine."

So I'm driving home from work listening to Convservative talk radio and one of the callers says, "The last people I want to see back in the White House are Bill and Hillary Clinton. But, you know, if the Democrats are destined to win the White House in November I would think she is our (Conservatives) best option because she'll be the best steward of the War on Terror. Especially Iraq."

Now taking what the Senator said in the last debate and weighing that with what this caller said, I began to think - do Hillary Clinton and President Bush see eye-to-eye in regards to how to use our military?

Then I remembered a few months ago - BIll Clinton was stumping for Hillary, and one of the remarks he made was one of the regrets he has is not intervening in Rwanda to stop the genocide. He noted, however, that Hillary would have stopped it as soon as it started by sending our military in to get the situation under control and save all of those lives.
Couple that with all of the overseas involvement that occured during the Clinton Administration....Kosovo, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan. While not a war monger by any means, Bill Clinton did use the military in a way that would fit the neoconservative mold. Tack on his assertion that he should have intervened in Rwanda, and we are talking about the neoconservative philosophy of being the world's lone superpower and having the obligation of policing the world and supporting democracies through military force.

So I was wondering if anyone else would share the opinion that Hillary Clinton could be considered a neoconservative in regards to foreign policy?

Just to note - there is no "concern trolling" with this - I fear Barack Obama moving on to the general election.

I have no doubt she would have basically the same foreign policy as bush, whether its because she "needs" to look tough because shes a broad or for any other political reason. Even if she didn't feel that way personally I think she would toss that aside in an instant to do whatever she felt was politically right.

Well I don't know if it would she would adopt the "Bush Doctrine" to the letter, but she sure sounded like President Bush (Sept. 20, 2001) during that debate.

At first I thought she was beefing up her rhetoric for the general election (can't be accused of being soft on terrorism), however I'm starting to think she really believes in policing the world. I can see her committing troops to Darfur and such.

Where I think she is being as crafty as her husband is is in her Iraq rhetoric. To say "I'll end this war" doesn't mean all troops out within a year. She has been talking about ending the war "responsibly." She needs to clarify exactly what she means without triangulation (I'm for pulling the troops out as soon as possible but not before security has been established. I will expect the Maliki government to settle their differences in an expedient manner but judging by how fast our Senate works I would certainly understand why they would have difficulties doing so.)

I think if we ARE destined to "police the world", I'd rather our troops throw their hats in the rings of situations like Darfur or Rwanda than chasing "Terrorists" around.

The irony is Bush has turned the left/right foreign policy on it's head. Used to be, Democrats were the intervention/pre-emptive types (think Vietnam), and the conservatives were the isolationist (think WWI and WWII).

Bush got his party to jump on board for Iraq, and it's no looking back with intervention/pre-emptive. I assume your use of "neo-con" is indicative of you being aware of this.

Well, she did give Lyndon Johnson more credit than MLK for the civil rights advances of the 60s. I don't know what it has to do with foreign policy, but giving a white man credit for black advances IS very neoconservative!

Not really. Pre- WWI and WWII almost EVERYBODY was isolationist. In 1939 95% of Americans did not want to go to war in Europe. That isn't right/left anything. Before WWI, again the vast majority of Americans did not want to go to war. In fact, there is evidence that points to big players in the steel industry pushing for American involvement for obvious reasons.

And Vietnam was assuredly not a "pre-emptive" action. The buzzword you're looking for is containment. The fact is that Republicans wanted to fight in Vietnam a heckuva lot more aggressively than LBJ was willing to. Remember how his presidency came down in shambles where he had basically no support from the right or the left?? The right wanted to do away with the "limited war" and fight all out, possibly using nuclear weapons. Remember the "Daisy commercial" in the '64 campaign where LBJ implies that Goldwater would be reckless with nuclear weapons? Meanwhile the left didn't want them in Vietnam at all.

I think you're generalizations are based on the fact that there were sitting Democratic presidents at the time of these actions, which doesn't look at the real circumstances.

Yes, I am aware of President Bush and Iraq....I assume you read my post and noted that part in it (i.e. Hillary Clinton, at the last Democratic debate, sounding like she was reading from the "Bush Doctrine").

I wonder if the Democrats who are lining up to vote for her know this....a few I've talked to said that her foreign policy platform is the opposite of what has taken place in the past 6 years. That's not accurate, and if "neo-con" is going to carry the negative connotation that it has then it should be noted that Hillary Clinton, in regards to foreign policy, would be considered a "neo-con."

It's not that they don't know. It's just that they absolutely refuse to recognize it. My mom is like that.

Ironically, neo-cons were nervous right before the 2000 election that Bush did not share their foreign policy ambitions, worrying that he was a bad candidate for them.

9/11 changed Bush and not for the better.

Very true. During the campaign President Bush flatly stated "no nation building."

Then 9/11 came and the strategy to defend against future attacks tossed that commitment right out the window.

So is wanting to stop genocide (as Clinton refered to) now a neo-conservative policy?

1.) No.

2.) Bill Clinton is lying. Hillary wouldn't have done sh*t for them. The memory of 'black hawk down' was far to fresh in thier minds. They are just trying to hop on the 'we love brown people' bandwagon to get back their voting block from Obama.

Well then maybe stopping genocide is a neo-conservative policy. The Clintons as Democrats would not stop it.

Stopping genocide has never been a prioirty for the US, outside of economic concerns. We sat by while Rwanda, Serbia, Checnya, and now Darfur all happened. Oh sure, there was the usual 'this is so tragic' crap coming from our leaders, but that's all it was. The Us will not commit troops to what it perceives will be another Vietnam and thats what anti-genocide actions would be.

The idea is that using African Union troops would be more effective do to 'legitimacy' shows a complete ignorance of post-colonial African conflict history at best and cowardly desire to use under trained Africans as cannon fodder at worst.