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BigBearJohn

(11,410 posts)
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 01:32 AM Mar 2016

Vote Sanders. Everyone else will send your kids to war

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/03/19/vote-sanders-everyone-else-will-send-your-kids-war/aJzUYVFOaivEbPy3BiButO/story.html

Debate over intervention has naturally become part of this season’s presidential campaign. Most candidates sing from the same foreign policy hymnal. They share deeply ingrained assumptions: The United States is the indispensable nation that must lead the world; this leadership requires toughness; and toughness is best demonstrated by the threat or use of force. It is the Cold War consensus, untouched by the 21st century.

Only one of the remaining candidates has broken from this orthodoxy. Bernie Sanders is often described as inexperienced in world affairs. Certainly he has spent far fewer hours thinking about global issues than his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Yet recently he has found a theme: the long-term effects of intervention. Rather than cheer every show of American force, Sanders reminds us of the parlous consequences of past assaults on other countries.

This is a sharp break from our foreign policy catechism. Yet it is hardly new. Ever since the United States began intervening abroad more than a century ago, loud voices have been raised in dissent. Today’s protesters against foreign intervention are not a marginal fringe — “wacko birds,” as John McCain famously called them. They are deeply rooted in American politics. Unfortunately for Sanders, history shows that in the end, voters usually reject them.

Sanders does not simply censure American intervention as a vague or abstract concept. He has singled out several of the most misbegotten CIA operations, including the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran, the next year’s overthrow of President Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and the Contra war in Nicaragua during the 1980s. Moving to more recent history, he has criticized Clinton for promoting intervention against the Libyan dictator Moammar Khadaffy in 2011 — a project that now seems disastrously misconceived.

Clinton proudly claims her place in the interventionist mainstream. So do all the Republican presidential candidates — including Donald Trump, who despite some unorthodox views remains an unapologetic champion of raw power. Only Sanders is truly skeptical of what American intervention can accomplish. He has shown himself to be just as far outside the Washington consensus on foreign policy as he is on domestic policy.
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RobertEarl

(13,685 posts)
1. Clinton as pres means WW3`
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 01:53 AM
Mar 2016

Bernie's lack of desire to wage war means a lot. That's the 2nd main reason I wholly support him for president.

CoffeeCat

(24,411 posts)
4. All of the neocons have been screaming about wanting war with Iran
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 02:52 AM
Mar 2016

John Bolton and the rest of the neocon gang have really been hitting it hard about their demands that we enter in a full-on war with Iran.

That's what we'll be doing if Hillary is the President. The founder of the neocons, Robert Kagan was one of her foreign-policy advisers while she was Sec of State. Kagan, the godfather of the neocon war movement, endorsed Hillary for President.

Iran would be a horrific war. Iran is not Iraq. Much of the county has modern infrastructure and transportation. There are universities and the population is better educated than many Middle Eastern countries. This is not Afghanistan and people living in mud huts. Tehran and Mashhad are very populous cities that have all of the modern amenities and conveniences of any other large city.

But I'm sure the neocons will find many, many ways to justify the slaughter of these people and the destruction of their country. They'll find some evidence of Iran breaking the agreement and suddenly the US will be forced to bomb Tehran and kill two million innocent men, women and children.

I encourage everyone to read the neocon manifesto, Rebuilding America's Defenses. The neocons laid out their plans and the countries they want the US to have control of. They want the resources (oil), but they also want control of commerce and they've got plenty of corporate friends who stand to make billions if they can open their banks, construction companies, and other businesses in the Middle East. They clearly state--they want Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya. They crafted their plan in 1996.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

They're about half way there in their first steps. They first need to destabilize and devastate these countries. This is what is happening now. Iraq...check. Syria is partially there. Libya...check (Hillary's crowning foreign-policy achievement). Iran they haven't been able to get their paws on because Obama thwarted their plans with the agreement he brokered.

That will all go to hell when Obama is gone. Please vote for Bernie if your state primary is impending. We don't have to go down these roads!



 

RobertEarl

(13,685 posts)
5. TRUTH
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 03:02 AM
Mar 2016

Thanks Coffee Cat. Hopefully others will grok that Truth, but I am losing hope. This idea of Clinton in charge scares the crap out of me.

Bernie will keep the peace, and like you say, he's the only one running who will.

malletgirl02

(1,523 posts)
15. Also Iran has a modern very capable millitary
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 09:35 AM
Mar 2016

Going to war will also be a disaster for the U.S. Iran has a modern very capable military. Also if we go to war against Iran, the Iranians will unify, even those who are against the government and will fight back hard. There will be no victory in Iran for anyone.

 

Vattel

(9,289 posts)
9. Yes, Clinton's militarism means that voting for her would be tantamount to voting for murder.
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 08:00 AM
Mar 2016

I know that sounds extreme, but by murder I mean unjustifiably and inexcusably killing innocent people, and many of our wars involve doing just that.

Bassomar

(58 posts)
3. Most Hillary supporters I've seen
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 02:08 AM
Mar 2016

don't really care about it. Most still are unwilling to believe that Hillary Clinton played a hand in the Coup of honduras that helped put lots of those kids in our borders in 2014.

malletgirl02

(1,523 posts)
14. I agree they don't care
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 09:29 AM
Mar 2016

In posts about Iraq, Libya, and Honduras I see posts by Hillary supporters posting laughing and grinning smilies in response. This goes beyond DU. a few weeks ago a Bernie supporter posted that Hillary supporters were playing a drinking game about Bernie Sanders talking about his vote against the Iraq war. They think the vote to go to war against Iraq was no big deal and they think it is a joke, even though that vote was the most consequential votes of this century.

People can say what they want about Bernie supporters, but at least we don't laugh about death and destruction.

Divernan

(15,480 posts)
6. Free college interferes with enlisting cannon fodder!
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 03:32 AM
Mar 2016

I mean nobody wants to re-institute the draft, amiright, Verne?

But endless war requires an equally endless supply of young Americans desperate enough to believe military recruiters' rosy promises and voluntarily sign up. (Recruiters do not share that 20% of the homeless in the U.S. are veterans.)

And always remember, and never forget, what's good for U.S. backed regime change is good for small businesses - like, well, well - body bag makers! Yeah! That's the ticket.

Oh, wait - unless they're made in China.
http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Made-In-China-Comfortable-Body-Bags_60410938834.html

 

djean111

(14,255 posts)
8. And the kids know that. Which is why blandly and smugly spouting that the kids will fall into
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 06:47 AM
Mar 2016

line is pathetic - the kids were never in any oligarch's line to begin with.

malletgirl02

(1,523 posts)
13. I fear the rise of an American Coriolanous
Sat Mar 19, 2016, 09:22 AM
Mar 2016

I truly think that our republic will not survive another war. If we have another war, I think that we will see the rise of an American Coriolanous. Coriolanous is one of the lessor know works by William Shakespeare about a Roman General who returns home as a war hero, but in trying to gain political office is banished as a traitor.

Coriolanus is the name given to a Roman general after his more than adequate military success against various uprisings challenging the government of Rome. Following this success, Coriolanus becomes active in politics and seeks political leadership. His temperament is unsuited for popular leadership and he is quickly deposed, whereupon he aligns himself to set matters straight according to his own will. The alliances he forges to accomplish his own will result in his ultimate downfall and death.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolanus

The point point of this pay that last through time is that war changes people, especially people who have gone though multiple rotations in conflict zones. Coriolanus due to his years of war have been alienated form both his family and society. We see this same alienation in modern day military people.

If we have anymore wars, the alienation is going to turn to anger and our republic will be in danger.

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