The baseless vilification of Tulsi Gabbard: She's not an Assad apologist The knives came swiftly out for Tulsi Gabbard, the four-term Congresswoman from Hawaii, immediately after she announced last week that she intends to run for President. Gabbard inspires a particularly intense level of vitriol, which is unique in that it largely appears to come from her “own side.” Democratic Party operatives, liberals and leftists all have differing criticisms of Gabbard, and they’re worth distinguishing between. For mainstream Democrats, her most egregious and disqualifying sin was going to meet with Syrian leader Bashar Assad in January 2017. Though the trip was a diplomatic mission, intended to work toward brokering a peace settlement in the country — which had been ravaged by years of civil war, with hundreds of thousands killed, and a refugee crisis that continues to send political shockwaves through Europe — her domestic antagonists framed the trip as evidence that she was an Assad defender, apologist, sympathizer or some such other derogatory label.
I mean, Assad is a piece of shit, but attempting to establish an open line of communication for dialogue with him is literally what people in government should be doing. It was good to do it with NK, it was good to do it with Cuba, I don’t see how it wouldn’t be good to do it with Syria, given we have some troops there and are working with the Kurds and local militias in northern Syria. I’m not opposed to her for that fact, but I’m not a fan of some of the positions and beliefs she holds.
I'm not 100% all in on her either, but assuming that a D will win the white house in 2020 (solid assumption imo) then she's a no brainer choice out of that bunch. She's for socialized health care which I'm fine with if we can cut defense to pay for it. No other candidate is willing to do that.. They just want magic health care for all. As far as Assad, all I can say is that my Christian family who live in Syria love the guy. They say he's not what the western media make him out to be. But I don't live there so I can't speak on it. Anyone against diplomacy no matter how bad the enemy might be is an idiot. Ps. Dude been forever . Hope you're well my man.
Someone with a level of understanding of consequence wrote this. The new fanatical left viciously eats their own when they step out of the prescribed dogmas - and have little to no concept of consequence. Though, I don't limit that to the left, as I witnessed in the thread about Trump's withdrawal. It's idiotic to stamp in with no clue, and catastrophic to stamp out with no clue. I completely disagree with Tulsi on what people describe as 'imperialism', but there is much more to her than that. I'd love to see more diplomacy and careful placing of feet in Syria, and more knowledge about the factions down there. Americans know neither their friends nor their enemies, anymore.
I'm glad to see cooler heads have intervened on the 'instant' troop withdrawal, but many of the promises are paper thin, such as the one between Trump and Erdogan. What's your view on Trump's withdrawal? Given our shared affection for the Kurds
I donno man. I'm in the "get our troops out of everywhere yesterday" camp. We can leave Syria and impose massive sanctions on turkey if they fuck around. We have bases literally next door and can drop bombs in an instant if need be. The US needs to worry about it's own infrastructure and not someone else's right now. Our country is a dump. No one visits the US from abroad and says "this is the future" We need healthcare for our people, we have massive amounts of homeless, hungry etc.. We can't afford to police every county on the globe. I know that I'm coming off as a racist nationalist by saying that, but it is what it is. It's not like the old days where it takes weeks to deploy troops. We can be anywhere on the globe in hours if we have to. And the operation in Syria is unconstitutional anyway.. Never approved by the congress..
I know that you hold these beliefs, and I've had them presented by others both diplomatically and undiplomatically, and I do understand them. Were I American, and ignorant of American alliances and enemy sentiment as nearly all of you are (but you know when Trump orders burgers to the WH!), I would more than likely feel the same way. Norway first, I say, so I would say America first, were I that. It's the completely unearned confidence that I can't stand - the exact same confidence and unwillingness to consider consequence - that most of you had after 911. I ask you to consider, given how dogshit-.terrible American foreign policy understanding has been for the last 50 years, whether or not your confidence in this is warranted. Whether you should be looking into the consequences of your decisions more. I don't understand why "withdraw nownownownow!" is any better or any different than "invade nownownownow!".
But you didn't, and it did, and here we are. The situation is new, and can't be unmade by going backwards the same way you came. And Germany, Japan, and South Korea are examples that all completely defy your claims - don't you agree? Maybe you shouldn't have nuked Japan and occupied it aftwards, but you did, and there have been massive benefits to that. Valuable trade partners and military allies, now. Because you didn't withdraw, even though there were forces that wanted it. I think it's more pragmatic to treat the world as it is now and may look going forward, rather than how we would want it to be, or what decisions we wish we had taken. Had different steps been taken previously, then the situation would be different - but one can't simply backtrack and expect to reach the same place, in politics. The situation now is different. Do you think the people you have bombed will forgive you if you withdraw? What of the people who have fought with you, who you are now abandoning? While tending to the homeless, infrastructure, education and so on are critical, what consequences might arise from withdrawing from international hegemony? These questions are washed away by insults, when I raise them, and it's clear that only the tiniest minority have considered the consequences of decisions they agree with. I assert that Americans are not driven by the analysis and in-depth understanding that their position in the world warrants - but rather media influences. And people tend to be blind to that, as long as the medias agree with them - and the chicken/egg debate there can go on. I don't disagree with your position, again, as an American I would most likely feel the same. Especially if I read lots of smokinp-style posts, I'd be asking myself why give a fuck? But asking that question, outside of the America-is-an-evil-empire paradigm, I reach different conclusions. We have different perspectives on this, though. As someone who has suffered directly from self-righteous American withdrawal, and the resulting migrant fucktastrophe. The strong do as they will, the weak suffer as they must. Edit edit: removed the edit
Everythings been good on my end, my man, life has been treating me well. It’s good to see you’re still around AW, I miss the back and forth with some of y’all in here from time to time. I’ve just been busy as hell with all of the hours I’ve been putting in on the ambulance lately. Trying to make that OT money lol. I’m sitting at 96 hours so far this week. I try to poke my head in every now and then but I’ve been way too busy to post much at the moment. As you know, I’m not in favor of socialized healthcare, and I may be a little more biased on that topic than I was before just from first-hand experience alone from working in the field. Healthcare in the US has its issues, but there is also a fuck ton of abuse of the system that most people don’t get to see from not working in the field themselves. As far as Syria, I support us staying in Syria right now so we can help assist and defend the Kurds/SDF in northern Syria. The Kurds are a valuable partner in the region and I would not like to lose them over some bullshit with Turkey. If we can help them achieve independence and statehood, I’ll be pleased with our involvement in the conflict in Syria. If we’re able to help the Kurds establish a state, they’ll be a strategic partner of our’s in the region for decades to come. In regards to Assad, I definitely don’t support overthrowing him, but I also don’t believe he is a good dude by any means. Regardless of that, we should definitely be in a position to have open dialogue with him solely based on the fact that we are involved in a conflict in his country.
I support a withdrawal of most troops....we've been there 20 yrs and will be there wasting billions for 20 more yrs.......it cost 5 billion a month to be in afghanastan.... Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk
In politics, everything has consequences. Staying has consequences. Leaving, also has consequences. There is rarely a singularly good move, but rather a choice between bad moves and different consequences of those moves.
Glad everything is good dude, miss bullshitting with you guys as well. Re. Healthcare, I'm not an advocate of socialized Healthcare at all, but I'm not against it if it can be funded by drastically decreasing the military budget, foreign aid and wasteful spending all around. If it's keeping the empire and bureaucracy at status quo, and just taxing people to death then I'm very much against it. As far as Syria.. Nothing will convince me that the US military on foreign soil is some sort of force for good like their TV ads suggest. We've destroyed the middle east, and US being there is not good ever. No one will change my mind on that, and I know I won't change yours or @VikingToker mind either. I have lots of family in the ME and have strong feelings about it. I get both of your points, and sympathize but I just disagree.. Neither one of us are gonna change the others mind on this topic.
Nah man, I understand. Not too long ago I would’ve agreed with you, but as time goes on, opinions are bound you change. I definitely don’t see us as a “force for good” in general, but I do agree with what we’re doing there and who we’re helping at this moment. I will never have a problem respectfully disagreeing with you because you’re always respectful with your disagreements and opinions.
Yeah all good dudes, would be a boring world without disagreement. Is probably be a little more comfortable with staying if every single neocon politician and pundit on the news wasn't adamant about staying as well.. That doesn't sit well with me.
I hear you. It's a shitty effect. When Trump made his immigrant-from-shithole-countries comment, Norway was the comparison. Far-left-leaning friends of mine who were quick to talk up Norway as a functioning socialist utopia were suddenly more interested in complaining about how white we were, cos Trump loves us and he's an evil racist bigot yaddayadda.