As if I needed another reason to be frustrated with progressives and liberals who support Hillary as a champion of change, everyone has great reason to be displeased with Clinton on foreign policy.
As an investigation by the International Business Times has revealed, the State Department under Clinton approved dozens of multi-Billion dollar weapons sales to nations who had donated large amounts to the Clinton Foundation. Including some (read:most) with abysmal human and civil rights records, such as Bahrain, Qatar, and everyone's favorite terrorist-financier Saudi Arabia.
And lest you say this was business as usual for our already humming war profiteering machine, the sales to those nations under Clinton's reign outsold Dubya during the same timeframe. By a LOT:
Under Clinton's leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. That figure -- derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) -- represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.
How does Hillary get paid by foreign states? She doesn't. But the Clinton Foundation sure does.
In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before the deal was finalized, Boeing -- the defense contractor that manufactures one of the fighter jets the Saudis were especially keen to acquire, the F-15 -- contributed $900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to a company press release.
Oh, wait... maybe she does.
In all, governments and corporations involved in the arms deals approved by Clinton’s State Department have delivered between $54 million and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the Clinton family, according to foundation and State Department records.
Moral of the story is: Don't trust a Hawk in Sheep's Clothing.
h/t to Joe Klein.