THE SELECTIVE MORALITY OF HILLARY CLINTON

Jacinda Ardern sharing a cozy moment with Hillary Clinton.

The forcible separation of children from their parents by the Trump administration has provoked widespread criticism, including from former First Lady, senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. But her record on children's rights doesn't bare scrutiny.

THE FORCIBLE separation of children from their parents as part of Donald Trump's zero tolerance policy toward  people trying to cross the United States-Mexican border illegally has provoked widespread condemnation right across the American political spectrum and around the world.

That condemnation has also come from former First Lady, Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. She tweeted:

'What’s happening to families at the border right now is a humanitarian crisis. Every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged."

She added : “We should be a better country than one that tears families apart, turns a blind eye to women fleeing domestic violence, and treats frightened children as a means to a political end,”

But in 2014  she had entirely different views. She told CNN that children of illegal immigrants should be sent back.

"it may be safer for them to stay, but that's not he answer. They should be sent back', she said.

During her presidential campaign she repeatedly declined to answer whether she thought the family detention centres should be closed. .

Hilary Clinton's supposed  compassion for the children has gone largely unexamined by the American media.  

Clinton established her domestic political career on child welfare issues. In her 1996 book It Takes a Village she declared that “children will thrive only if their families thrive and if the whole of society cares enough to provide for them" and that government "“cannot retreat from its historic obligations to the poor and vulnerable.”

Despite her supposedly 'progressive views' Clinton, as a New York senator, endorsed the murderous sanctions regime imposed by the United States in 1990 on Iraq and which continued until 2003. It is estimated that half a million Iraqi children died as a result of those sanctions. Madeline Albright, who was Secretary of State in the Clinton administration, defended the sanctions and said that they had been 'worth it" even though they had resulted in the death of so many children.

And if Hillary Clinton displayed little compassion for the children of Iraq, she has also displayed next to no compassion for the children of Gaza. She has been a consistent supporter of Israeli aggression. In 2014 she supported Binyamin Netanyahu’s 2014 bombardment of Gaza as a way to maintain “security” throughout the occupied West Bank.

According to the Middle East Monitor 1,518 Palestinian children were killed by Israel’s occupation forces from the outbreak of the second Intifada in September 2000 up to April 2013. That number means that one Palestinian child was killed by the Israel military every 3 days for almost 13 years.

The recent protests in Gaza resulted in the death of 14 Palestinian children - shot by the Israeli military. Again, Clinton didn't protest.

While Clinton might be expressing her indignation about Donald Trump detaining children in makeshift camps, she has had nothing to say about the murderous military campaign presently being waged by Saudi Arabia in Yemen. The armed conflict has taken a terrible toll on the civilian population. The coalition has conducted scores of indiscriminate and disproportionate airstrikes that have killed thousands of civilians with munitions that the US, United Kingdom, and others still supply

According to the United Nations at least 5,295 civilians had been killed and 8,873 wounded in Yemen , although the actual civilian casualty count is likely much higher.

Under Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State of State arms exports from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia increased 97 percent. Around about  the same time, the Saudi Arabian government donated $10 million to the Clinton Foundation. The Podesta Group, founded by Clinton’s Campaign Manager, John Podesta, is also being paid $140,000 a month to lobby on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government.

Unfortunately American liberals went to sleep during the neoliberal administration of Barack Obama, the same administration that backed Hillary Clinton's bid for the presidency. But, with Trump in power, liberals have suddenly woken up. But their  unconditional support for Obama  laid down the conditions for the rise of Donald Trump.