What Would Bernie Bomb?

[DonViejo]

In 2020, Sanders is campaigning as a peace candidate. But his congressional record, and his top foreign policy adviser, suggest that events could turn him into a war president.

By BILL SCHER June 23, 2019

Bill Scher is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine, and co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show “The DMZ.”

Bernie Sanders’ top foreign policy adviser has an unusual résumé for someone in that role. Matt Duss comes from the progressive blogosphere, not the foreign service. He worked for Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign, and he joked after it was over that he and his colleagues will “get jobs in the Bush administration.” As The Nation’s David Klion wrote earlier this year, “No one besides Sanders has hired an adviser with such a clear track record of defying the Blob”—the mass of conventional thinkers in Washington’s foreign policy establishment.

But Duss sounded quite Blob-like earlier this month when I asked him what Sanders would do if he faced a humanitarian crisis such as imminent genocide. Would a President Sanders consider using American military force without the support of Congress and the broader public? “If there’s a situation in which, as president, Senator Sanders feels that he needs to act,” said Duss, “and he’s spoken to the experts, and he’s engaged with as many people as he possibly could, and comes to that decision point, he’s going to do what he feels is right.”

Coming from the foreign policy adviser to any other candidate, this statement wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. But Sanders has tried to position himself as a radical alternative to all his hawkish rivals in both parties. In a recent online video, he made “no apologies” for his “opposition to war.” In a major address before his official entry into the presidential race, he pledged to turbocharge American diplomacy with the help of a “global progressive movement.” In Congress, he has led the effort to end all U.S. involvement in the Yemen civil war, insisting that Congress must take back from the president its “constitutional responsibility over war making.” After running in 2016 on reshaping the American economy, it seems Sanders has now given himself the even more audacious task of dismantling the military-industrial complex.

And yet, as Duss’ comment indicates, Sanders is not a pacifist and his opposition to war is not absolute. He has supported military operations on humanitarian grounds. He’s campaigning as a peace candidate, but it’s not implausible that he could end up a war president.

During the 2020 campaign, Sanders has talked about foreign policy far more than any other major presidential candidate—even Joe Biden, whose foreign policy experience is unmatched in the Democratic field. That’s a shift from Sanders‘ 2016 bid, when he campaigned heavily on his democratic-socialist domestic agenda, leaving himself vulnerable to charges he wasn’t prepared to be commander in chief. Before beginning his second presidential run, Sanders laid out a foreign policy vision that is nothing less than transformational—rejecting the entire “mindset” that “military force is decisive in a way that diplomacy is not.” When MoveOn.org invited presidential candidates to share a single “big idea” at a California forum last month, Sanders did not highlight single-payer health insurance, his signature domestic policy proposal. He chose “ending endless wars.”

more
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/06/23/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy-doctrine-227193

[Autumn]

1. It's possible that any of our Dem candidates could end up a war president.

It's the world we live in.

[Vegas Roller]

3. More likely with someone short-tempered

and with a one-size-fits-all view of the world.

[Autumn]

4. You should read up on your choice.

[Vegas Roller]

5. You think I have not?

I made that statement with full analysis of the personas of various candidates.

Cranky, short-tempered people who have a one-track mind stuck in the 60's, who cannot take criticism without lashing out, who refuse to listen to sane advice and who depend on dirty tricks and smears to run a campaign are the most likely to drive us into a war.

[Autumn]

6. IF your talking about Bernie you have no room to talk. Bernie isn't the only candidate with a record

from the 60's. There's a big difference between smears and vetting. A politicians actions and words are not smears. Do you think the Republicans are going to keep their powder dry on the Dems, Biden, in particular, should he win the nomination? In a short sentence...hell no they won't.

[ehrnst]

16. It's interesting the history of the Dem primary candidates GOP doesn't go after

isn't it?

Also interesting is which candidates have remained silent about it when they are the beneficiary of GOP superpac money in ads against other Dem primary candidates.

[Turin_C3PO]

7. Not buying what you're selling.

I‘m not a Bernie fan but implying he would get us into unnecessary wars is a despicable smear. He’s not Bush or Trump.

[Recursion]

8. He supported intervention in Haiti, Kosovo, and Rwanda under Bill Clinton

Ironically he was more of a hawk than the first lady at the time, who opposed them. Why do you see it as a smear to say he could get militarily pulled in to something?

[Turin_C3PO]

9. I just don't think it's right to imply

that any of our candidates would be anything like a Bush, for instance, in getting us into unnecessary wars.

I was having a bad day when I posted that comment and looking back, the posters comment wasn’t really a smear, I’ll admit.

[ehrnst]

11. Bernie, like any other politician will vote for a war if it's an election year and he thinks

Last edited Sun Jun 30, 2019, 04:08 PM - Edit history (2)

his constituency is in favor of it.

In August, 1990 –after the Bush administration enticed Iraq into invading Kuwait– Sanders said he wasn’t “going to let some damn war cost him the election,” according to a staff member In August, 1990–after the Bush administration enticed Iraq into invading Kuwait–Sanders said he wasn’t “going to let some damn war cost him the election,” according to a staff member who was present at the time who was present at the time.

https://www.democraticunderground.org/1287161953

He also voted for Clinton administration policy of regime change in Iraq.

In 1998 Sanders voted in favor of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which said: “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”

Later that same year, Sanders also backed a resolution that stated: “Congress reaffirms that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”

[Turin_C3PO]

12. I just meant he's not a war monger in the neocon sense.

I said above that I shouldn’t have said it was a “despicable smear” against Sanders. I was having a bad day that day lol.

[ehrnst]

14. "In the neocon sense"

How is that different than being a "regular war monger?"

Isn't voting for war voting for war, or isn't it?

[Turin_C3PO]

15. Neocons have an ideology of war.

They think war is the answer to all our foreign policy problems. I don’t believe Sanders thinks that way. I don’t consider him a war monger in any sense of the word.

[ehrnst]

17. What modern Democrat POTUS candidate has ever had a "Neocon ideology of war?"

Or a "warmonger in the neocon sense" as you put it?

During the 1990s, Congressman Sanders voted for and/or otherwise supported:

* Economic sanctions that killed more than a million Iraqi civilians

* Every U.S. bombing of Iraq from 1992 on

* The sending of U.S. military units to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to threaten Iraq because “we cannot tolerate aggression”

[ehrnst]

10. +1000. (nt)

[Scurrilous]

2. ...

[mtnsnake]

13. Who is the only 2020 candidate who voted to bomb Iraq? Bernie voted "No", so who was it?

[ehrnst]

18. While in Congress, Bernie voted yes or supported every bombing of Iraq from 1992 on.

During the 1990s, Congressman Sanders voted for and/or otherwise supported:

* Economic sanctions that killed more than a million Iraqi civilians

* Every U.S. bombing of Iraq from 1992 on

* The sending of U.S. military units to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia to threaten Iraq because “we cannot tolerate aggression”

In 1998 Sanders voted in favor of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which said: “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”

Later that same year, Sanders also backed a resolution that stated: “Congress reaffirms that it should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime.”

[mtnsnake]

19. But did Sanders vote for the Iraq War? No, he did not. So who is the only 2020 candidate who did?

[ehrnst]

20. So if a candidate has a long history of voting for military intervention in Iraq, but voted no once

in 2003, that long history doesn't count?

[mtnsnake]

21. Is Biden the ONLY 2020 candidate to have voted for the Iraq War?

[ehrnst]

22. How many of the 2020 candidates were even in Congress or the Senate in 2003?

How many voted to keep funding the war - that might be a more accurate measure of their support for the Iraq war than the single 2003 vote.... because of the reality of them not being able to vote one way or another.

Don't you think?

That's like asking "Which of the 2020 candidates participated in the March on Washington in 1963?" as a measure of the comparative social justice bona fides of the candidates...