Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard Decries Interventionism

I agree Trump's administration is making things worse but our interventionism and bloated military budget were alive and well with a Democrat in office.

It was alive because the tendrils are so deep in our society. A significant portion of our economy is weapon sales and manufacturing.

But clearly based on government data it went down under Obama and is shooting back up under Trump and the Republican dominated government.

usgs_chart2p32.png
 
I'm saying we're going to sell weapons to whoever asks no matter what because Republicans need to provide to their voter base lucrative military contracts to stay in power.

Obama Administration Offered $115 Billion in Weapons to Saudi Arabia: Report.

"According to a new report, offers over eight years totalled more than any previous administration and were intended to replenish arsenal after war in Yemen."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...fered-115-billion-weapons-saudi-arabia-report
 
This conflict in Yemen is connected to the situation with Iran as the Houthi rebels in Yemen are Shia Muslims and aligned with Iran. It's essentially a proxy war between Iranian backed Houthi Shia's and a Saudi coalition of Sunnis with Western support.

Yeah, I know. The US has been busy taking out Sunni Muslims regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq and Lybia etc.
Now they have to turn to the Shia's again. Like back in the 80's. It an endless circle of war.
 
Obama Administration Offered $115 Billion in Weapons to Saudi Arabia: Report.

"According to a new report, offers over eight years totalled more than any previous administration and were intended to replenish arsenal after war in Yemen."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...fered-115-billion-weapons-saudi-arabia-report

I'm not sure what your point is here? I never tried to claim we stopped selling them weapons under Obama.

We're already hooked on Saudi money since the 70s. There's no going back now.
 
Everyone always wants to stop support for Saudi Arabia. And their first state visit is sword dancing with the Saudis.
Saudi Arabia is just a tool for the US the same as Israel. To constantly start other wars for its imperialist agenda.

Every presidential candidate in history has said they are going to stop the aggressive wars from the US.
And yet the US is already setting its eyes on Iran for the next one.
Exactly. We use our tools as we please. When Europe is in ashes we'll be there to pick it up again and reform it.
 
It was alive because the tendrils are so deep in our society. A significant portion of our economy is weapon sales and manufacturing.

But clearly based on government data it went down under Obama and is shooting back up under Trump and the Republican dominated government.

usgs_chart2p32.png
Isn't that Republican voting base opposed to interventionism though?

Also, it seems like weird framing. If military spending is a little lower under Obama, that doesn't change the fact that we're still engaging in interventionism. We were bombing more countries when Obama left office than we were with Bush. Yeah, the tendrils are deep, but that's how does that exonerate the Democrats role, particularly when many of them have voted for the Trump adminstration's military budget increases and even praised him for bombing Syria?
 
You framed it as a purely partisan issue, it is not.
Establishment democrats are just as bad. You need independents or progressives that are willing to take a stand against the needless killing of innocents. You guys started two wars that has spanned almost two decades now over 9/11, yet you are waging war allied with Saudi Arabia who vehemently fund terrorist organizations AND was the nationality of 15/19 of the terrorists hijackers ffs.
 
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It was alive because the tendrils are so deep in our society. A significant portion of our economy is weapon sales and manufacturing.

But clearly based on government data it went down under Obama and is shooting back up under Trump and the Republican dominated government.

usgs_chart2p32.png

Hmmmm, so US defense spending went up after 9/11 and two full on wars, very interesting. (By the way I'm not a supporter of Bush, didn't agree with the wars when I was old enough to form a valid opinion, this all started when I was in HS, and I maintain non-interventionist pro diplomacy beliefs. As well believing we should be spending all this money bettering our country and citizens here at home). Also, based on your graph, the spending seems relatively flat from the around 2014 through to today. Although it looks as if it's projected to pick up a bit.
 
Isn't that Republican voting base opposed to interventionism though?

Also, it seems like weird framing. If military spending is a little lower under Obama, that doesn't change the fact that we're still engaging in interventionism. We were bombing more countries when Obama left office than we were with Bush. Yeah, the tendrils are deep, but that's how does that exonerate the Democrats role, particularly when many of them have voted for the Trump adminstration's military budget increases and even praised him for bombing Syria?

As Sano noted, there are some "establisment" Dems who are in bed with the weapons corps too.

My point is and still remains.. voting down ticket Republican is never going to solve this problem.

If you really care you need to vote libertarian, independent, progressive, etc.

Trump clearly doesn't give a shit. He's in this for his own ego and will rubberstamp the Republican agenda. Mother fucker appointed John Bolton ffs.
 
I'm not sure what your point is hjere? I never tried to claim we stopped selling them weapons under Obama.

We're already hooked on Saudi money since the 70s. There's no going back now.

So why didn't you say that in your first post? You initially claimed this was all about Republicans socialism and Republican jobs, and implied the answer was to remove Republicans from power.

Was it Republican socialism under Obama? What will it be when it continues under the Democrats the next time around?
 
As Sano noted, there are some "establisment" Dems who are in bed with the weapons corps too.

My point is and still remains.. voting down ticket Republican is never going to solve this problem.

If you really care you need to vote libertarian, independent, progressive, etc.
All I was ever saying was that it's a bipartisan issue, not that voting Republican was the answer. I'm certainly not right wing.

This was a link I was trying to find earlier about a military spending bill that just made it through the senate (it's time stamped where the bill is talked about):



As for your last sentence, I agree.
 
Exactly. We use our tools as we please. When Europe is in ashes we'll be there to pick it up again and reform it.

Yeah, nothing wrong with that.
I just have to smile when people want to talk about the evil Saudis and Israel controlling the US. They couldn't even tie their own shoes without the US.
That would be like Rome being controlled by Corsica or something.
 
Yeah, nothing wrong with that.
I just have to smile when people want to talk about the evil Saudis and Israel controlling the US. They couldn't even tie their own shoes without the US.
That would be like Rome being controlled by Corsica or something.
Once the oil runs out SA will become a wasteland with chaos.
 
Establishment democrats are just as bad. You need independents or progressives that are willing to take a stand against the needless killing of innocents. You guys started two wars that has spanned almost two decades now over 9/11, yet you are waging war with Saudi Arabia who vehemently fund terrorist organizations AND was the nationality of 15/19 of the terrorists hijackers ffs.

Agreed. We need a third party and things like open primaries and rank choice voting.

It's really tough. A growing number of Americans are absolutely disgusted with what our country is doing abroad but the military industrial complex is strong here. We're struggling to even get a basic healthcare system like the rest of the developed world has, and our infrastructure and educational systems are crumbling.
 
Trump could have been the GOAT of he pulled us out of the M.E., cut aid, and told them "we will trade with you and buy oil, but that's it."

He made it sound like it was a possibility. Misleading.
 
Decrying interventionism on its own is easy, since no one supports interventionism on its own.

"In short, when it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk; when it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove." -
Tulsi Gabbard

The problem, however, is that no one (save for maybe Lindsay Graham) ever lobbies for interventionism for interventionism's sake or for wars that are known from the outset to be counterproductive, as a matter of ideology. They support it toward the goal of defeating an enemy and protecting national interests. And, with Gabbard's bountiful history of shaping her foreign policy rhetoric around traditional American militaristic paranoia -- pandering about patriotism, the good of the United States, and the wretchedness of our enemies, supporting the ethos that drive disastrous foreign policy decisions, and repeated rhetorical prioritization of American lives over the lives of foreign citizens, it's hard for me to view much of her "anti-interventionism" as more than can crushing.

Non-interventionism without a non-interventionist ideology is non-interventionism based on ease.

"But Gabbard’s almost singular focus on the damage these wars inflict domestically, and her comparative lack of focus on the carnage they wreak in the countries under attack, is troubling. It is nationalism in antiwar garb, reinforcing instead of undercutting the toxic rhetoric that treats foreigners as less deserving of dignity than Americans. (Gabbard’s brand of anti-interventionism has even received praise from former KKK grand wizard David Duke, who called for her to be named secretary of state.)

And it still produces its fair share of bloodshed. Like campaign-era Trump, Gabbard may be against miring the United States in blunderous, short-sighted conflicts that backfire, but she’s more than willing to use America’s military might to go after suspected terrorists around the world (and inevitably kill and maim civilians in the process). In the same Truthout interview, responding to a question about drones, Gabbard said that “there is a place for the use of this technology, as well as smaller, quick-strike special force teams versus tens, if not hundreds of thousands of soldiers occupying space within a country.”

It’s a point she’s repeated again and again. Responding to questions from Honolulu Civil Beat in 2012, Gabbard said that “the best way to defeat the terrorists is through strategically placed, small quick-strike special forces and drones — the strategy that took out Osama Bin Laden.” She told Fox in 2014 that she would direct “the great military that we have” to conduct “unconventional strategic precise operations to take out these terrorists wherever they are.” The same year, she told Civil Beat that military strategy must “put the safety of Americans above all else” and “utilize our highly skilled special operations forces, work with and support trusted foreign partners to seek and destroy this threat.”

“In short, when it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk,” she told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald last year. “When it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove.”

In other words, Gabbard would continue the Obama administration’s foreign policy, which itself was a continuation (and in some ways ramping up) of George W. Bush’s foreign policy. She would keep up the drone bombing of seven Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa — perhaps even expand it — while also relying more on special operations forces, which are already raiding, assassinating, and gathering intelligence in 70 percent of the world’s countries.

Drones killed hundreds of civilians over Obama’s eight years, while special operations forces like SEAL Team 6 — which Gabbard specifically name-checked in her positive allusion to the bin Laden raid — are known for their fair share of brutality. It was “quick-strike special forces” conducting a “strategic precise operation,” to use Gabbard’s term, that a little less than four months ago killed thirty civilians in a botched raid in Yemen.

Not surprisingly, Gabbard has received plaudits from conservatives for her foreign policy stances. The National Review published a glowing profile of the congresswoman in April 2015, complete with a quote from American Enterprise Institute (AEI) president Arthur Brooks saying that he “like her thinking a lot.”

Gabbard was subsequently one of three Democrats — the others being New Jersey senator Cory Booker and Maryland congressman John Delaney — who secured an invitation to AEI’s annual closed-to-the-press retreat, where she hobnobbed with the likes of Dick Cheney, Bill Kristol, Mike Pence, Rupert Murdoch, the DeVoses, and a host of other major conservative figures. At the AEI’s urging, she had earlier spoken at the Halifax International Security Forum, an annual gathering of national security wonks sponsored by Lockheed Martin, Canada’s Department of National Defence, and others.

Another reason Gabbard started receiving applause from the Right was her very public skepticism of the Iran deal.

The Obama administration may have continued much of the Bush approach to the “war on terror,” but it at least recognized the value of diplomacy. Not Gabbard, however, who told Fox News she was “cynical” toward the pact, and agreed with host Greta van Susteren that it was akin to Neville Chamberlain’s infamous Munich agreement with Hitler in 1938.

Breitbart gleefully quoted her in headlines expressing “many” and “great” concerns over the deal as it was being negotiated. On the day the agreement was finalized, she issued a statement saying, “We cannot afford to make the same mistake with Iran that was made with North Korea,” citing North Korea’s abrogation of the Agreed Framework agreement it had signed in 1994. When Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his unprecedented speech to Congress in March 2015 in an attempt to torpedo the deal, Gabbard didn’t join the significant number of Democrats who boycotted the speech. She attended it.

In light of this, the fact that Gabbard received a “Champion of Freedom” award at the Jewish Values Gala — an awards ceremony held by the World Values Network, which was founded by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, an enthusiastic Trump supporter — in between campaigning for Sanders is less puzzling.

On Rabbi Shmuley’s Facebook page, Gabbard’s award win is recounted in the same post that celebrates making then–Secretary of State John Kerry renounce his statements that Israeli policies contribute to terrorism against Israel. A photo from the event shows Gabbard posing with Rabbi Shmuley and Miriam Adelson, the wife of Sheldon Adelson (Adelson himself is a major Trump supporter, and happens to believe Palestinians are “a made-up people”). As her Democratic primary opponent pointed out, Gabbard has introducedAdelson-backed legislation to Congress before.

Clearly liberals and leftists who admire Gabbard’s foreign policy are mistaking her anti-interventionism for dovishness. But Gabbard’s foreign policy, while an improvement on Trump’s — and what isn’t? — would continue to foment anti-American resentment and anger around the world, with its casualties, destruction, and casual violations of national sovereignty, fueling the very “endless war” she despises."
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/tulsi-gabbard-president-sanders-democratic-party


Let's applaud Tulsi when she's right, but maybe stop short of branding her a maverick for world peace, something that she clearly is not. Let's instead ask that she take the necessary steps forward toward confronting and deconstructing the moral, ideological, and political underpinnings of interventionist impulses, and articulating the humanity of our international brothers and sisters outside of venture capitalist terminology.
 
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Decrying interventionism on its own is easy, since no one supports interventionism on its own.

"In short, when it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk; when it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove." -
Tulsi Gabbard

The problem, however, is that no one (save for maybe Lindsay Graham) ever lobbies for interventionism for interventionism's sake or for wars that are known from the outset to be counterproductive, as a matter of ideology. They support it toward the goal of defeating an enemy and protecting national interests. And, with Gabbard's bountiful history of shaping her foreign policy rhetoric around traditional American militaristic paranoia -- pandering about patriotism, the good of the United States, and the wretchedness of our enemies, supporting the ethos that drive disastrous foreign policy decisions, and repeated rhetorical prioritization of American lives over the lives of foreign citizens, it's hard for me to view much of her "anti-interventionism" as more than can crushing.

Non-interventionism without a non-interventionist ideology is non-interventionism based on ease.


https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/tulsi-gabbard-president-sanders-democratic-party


Let's applaud Tulsi when she's right, but maybe stop short of branding her a maverick for world peace, something that she clearly is not. Let's instead ask that she take the necessary steps forward toward confronting and deconstructing the moral, ideological, and political underpinnings of interventionist impulses, and articulating the humanity of our international brothers and sisters outside of venture capitalist terminology.
Interesting if disappointing read so far, thanks for posting.

I wasn't attempting to brand her as a maverick, it's just that in any interviews or things I'd read about her she seemed on the correct side of the issues (healthcare, interventionism, etc).
 
It was alive because the tendrils are so deep in our society. A significant portion of our economy is weapon sales and manufacturing.

But clearly based on government data it went down under Obama and is shooting back up under Trump and the Republican dominated government.

usgs_chart2p32.png

Defense spending isnt really the complete picture of arms manufacturing and trade -- spending went down but actual international sales of weaponry went up under obama's watch (nearly a 50% increase). This is neither an indictment against him, or praise for the other side, its just a fact that US is the major player in weaponry tech sales.

But even if you guys pull out, other states that make up large chunks of saudi's importers like france, canada, germany are ready to take the helm, at least from a western connection standpoint. The most concerning aspect is that China is now doing everything they can to pick up ground in the region and absolutely ready to jump in to fill that void. Coupled with the fact that China now is the largest investor in Israel - you have to ask yourselves what you want to do here: Get out of ME, lose the contracts and cede power to China -- but feel good about yourselves OR continue to control the twisted narrative yourselves.
 
Decrying interventionism on its own is easy, since no one supports interventionism on its own.

"In short, when it comes to the war against terrorists, I’m a hawk; when it comes to counterproductive wars of regime change, I’m a dove." -
Tulsi Gabbard

The problem, however, is that no one (save for maybe Lindsay Graham) ever lobbies for interventionism for interventionism's sake or for wars that are known from the outset to be counterproductive, as a matter of ideology. They support it toward the goal of defeating an enemy and protecting national interests. And, with Gabbard's bountiful history of shaping her foreign policy rhetoric around traditional American militaristic paranoia -- pandering about patriotism, the good of the United States, and the wretchedness of our enemies, supporting the ethos that drive disastrous foreign policy decisions, and repeated rhetorical prioritization of American lives over the lives of foreign citizens, it's hard for me to view much of her "anti-interventionism" as more than can crushing.

Non-interventionism without a non-interventionist ideology is non-interventionism based on ease.


https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/05/tulsi-gabbard-president-sanders-democratic-party


Let's applaud Tulsi when she's right, but maybe stop short of branding her a maverick for world peace, something that she clearly is not. Let's instead ask that she take the necessary steps forward toward confronting and deconstructing the moral, ideological, and political underpinnings of interventionist impulses, and articulating the humanity of our international brothers and sisters outside of venture capitalist terminology.
Are you serious?

Her goal, if not to bring back war authorization to Congress and end support for Saudi terrorism, is to at the very least force the conversation as to exactly what our role is and to force other congressmen and women to declare where their loyalties lie.

A congresswoman holding her colleagues accountable on an issue very few people have even acknowledged. Yet you find some weird way to twist it around and question her motive.

You should be ashamed.
 
Edit: After reading the full article, I'm gonna have to disagree with this post I made.


While noting some bad positions she's held and things she's done, this article is seeming like somewhat of a smear piece in terms of its framing. For example it details her being against gay rights and abortion, which is majorly troubling, while also noting that she changed her views. Then says things like this:

"Gabbard does not actively work against gay rights. In fact, she’s cosponsored and supported numerous bills favoring the LGBT community during her time in Congress, from the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Still, her questionable loyalty to LGBT and abortion rights is disquieting considering her public reputation as a beacon of progressivism.

Stuff like that catches my attention because yeah, you have a point about her, obviously, but if she's "supported numerous bills favoring the LGBT community during her time in congress", that seems like progress, yeah? But then the article tries to discredit those actions in the next sentence.

In the anti-interventionism section, it focuses on her being more concerned with our troops than the lives of people our occupations are hurting. If true, that's a fair criticism, but a lot of assumptions are being made about her motivations, and they're being made as if they're 100% true and not an observation and opinion on the writer's part.

Then it makes the leap that she'll keep up Obama's foreign policy because of her comments of being a "hawk" about going after terrorists and using drones and special forces. That may or may not be true, but it's an awfully strong assumption, especially given her anti-interventionist positions.

Her stance on the Iran deal is disconcerting.

I still need to keep reading though.
 
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