Discussion: Sanders On Brussels Attacks: 'This Type Of Barbarism' Cannot Continue

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Discussion for article #247707

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“This type of barbarism cannot be allowed to continue.”

Aaaaah, but Bernie, it’s been a hallmark of the human race for our entire history.

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@RandyAbraham. I agree with most of the comments in related stories that the nuances and complexities of the Mid East require much more thought than Trump’s shallow offerings.

As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, his measures kept tribal violence in check, blocked AlQaida and blocked an Islamist state within the borders of Iraq. A strong Iraq also served American and regional interests by keeping Iran in check. Now Iraq has a weak Shiite government that renders the part of Iraq not controlled by ISIL a mere satellite of Iran. It is no doubt FUBAR that leaving a brutal dictator like Saddam in power would have been the better course. But no rational person could say that the Neo-Con course of action made the Middle East a safer stable place. It did not help that the Bush-Cheney arrogance to micro manage the aftermath of Iraq resulted in the disbandment of the largely Sunni military that largely makes up ISIL now.

I think the commenters who pointed out that Hillary’s foreign policy experience is more important to voters today than it was yesterday are correct. The reason why there are suicide bombers in Europe now may even have little to do with western policies towards the Middle East that pre-date WWI. Sociopaths and psychotics often use religion as an excuse to kill whether it be right wing extremists here or their counterparts in the other parts of the world. It would be a big mistake to blame religion for those who blow up abortion clinics and shoot doctors. Likewise it would be wrong to go down the same rabbit hole to get at the causes of terrorism that only seem to originate from religion.

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I’ve seen every presidential candidate except Sanders give statements or interviews about the Brussels attack this morning.

Are the candidates not responding in time to meet your deadline? Does the media need more attention?

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Thank you. I was thinking similarly. To Schwarz it seems like this is a (disgusting) game. His shallow Tweet implies that he could not care a whit about the carnage in Brussels but rather “Who commented first!? Who commented first!? First one’s a real American!”

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Similar reaction here. That first tweet by Schwartz is sickening.

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I’d be angrier at TPM. What was the point of including those tweets except to rile everyone up? I had to look up Hunter Schwarz up to even know who that mook was (BuzzFeed alum, WaPo reporter – basically an insignificant). But, hey, if you can post something with the hopes of getting Bernie and Hillary supporters sniping at each other, it’s a good day for TPM, right?

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That does seem to be the plan.

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“Sanders On Brussels Attacks: ‘This Type Of Barbarism’ Cannot Continue”

But it will as long as the U.S. and Europe insist on being up to their asses in the affairs of Muslim nations, the ME and Central and South Asia in particular. We cannot take sides any longer. We need to admit that we really don’t have allies in these regions. And now that the Cold War is over and Russia just a shadow of it’s former self as the U.S.S.R., where is the “strategic” importance? The oil will flow and we will need less of it as time goes on.

As long as we meddle we have targets on our backs.

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To TPM: the time test for response to the tragedy in Brussels is ridiculous and surely not worthy of a post. Please use Fox as the model for practices to avoid. Silly, silly, silly.

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As long as we don’t convert to Islam we have targets on our backs. As long as we have people among us who are Muslims but don’t believe in the preachings of the Saudi fundamentalists we have targets on our backs.

We do have allies - the Kurds, the more liberal side of the Iranian population, the liberal minority in Israel. And we have enemies we aren’t facing squarely: the Sauds, the current Turkish government.

It’s time we stopped with the meme that these are “European-drawn” borders in the region. There were no national borders when this was all under the Roman or Byzantine or Ottoman or British empires. The drawing of boundaries was not to divide people, but to set them free. Who wants to erase those borders? ISIS and the other fundamentalists.

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This is part of the problem. No one is allowed to THINK anymore before the ‘tweeters’ are DEMANDING some acknowledgement and/or solution. If you take your time and think it through you are ‘weak’ even if your solution turns out to be the best one.

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Sure is. When I think of the way her foreign policy has helped to create the desolation that is the current mid-East situation, I am convinced more than ever that this abject failure at foreign policy and supporter of destructive US meddling around the globe should not be president of the United States.

And I mean to specifically reference not only her promotion of the Iraq War (I purposefully do not say her vote for it because she went much farther than that), but also her destructive co-sponsorship of the Syria Accountability Act as a Senator, her wrongheadedness on all things Syria going forward from there, her support for the “surge” in Afghanistan, her lobbying for ousting Qadaffi in Libya and winning the president over to that pathetic failed state creating policy (“we came, we saw, he died”), her endless neo-con light same old same old as evidenced in her address to AIPAC yesterday, her continued demonization of Iran as opposed to her love of Saudi arms deals, and her all abiding never ending belief in regime change.

But let’s please not forget her handling of the 2009 coup in Honduras either.

I fear for this country under a President Hillary Clinton.

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Not her foreign policy. She was not part of the executive branch when she, like so many other senators voted only to authorize force if diplomacy did not work. Unlike so many other senators of both parties, she acknowledges it was the wrong vote in hindsight.

It is always easy to cherry pick the things you don’t like about those who have lengthy records in both the Executive and Legislative branches. She has been charged with executive authority to make actual decisions on how to proceed on many domestic and foreign policy endeavors; and yet you ignore her accomplishments. Her experience in her failed health care fight helped President Obama achieve ACA. You also fail to credit her with her openings to Iran, Myanamar and Cuba just to name a few.

You are also wrong to characterize her as a “nation-builder”. The term originated with the Neo-Cons and Bush-Cheney. You don’t get to discredit her as a “nation builder” just because she made a vote that the nation builders asked the Senate to make based either on their lies or faulty intelligence. Neither she nor Bill ever
were or are nation builders.

If you fear for this country under a President HRC more than under a President Cruz, Trump or Sanders, than I challenge your own sense of perspective. I certainly do not “fear” Sanders or Hillary as president, but the thought of either of the other two is truly frightening.

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I didn’t use the term “nation builder” and have no idea why you seize on that term to form an argument. You choose, in fact, not to respond to any points I made, including that my problem with Hillary Clinton and the Iraq War is not her vote, but her promotion of the war, which she did do.

Beyond that, your talking about Trump and Cruz is what aboutism. I don’t bring them up nor do I say they would be better at foreign policy. But the fact that they would be worse doesn’t make Hillary Clinton better than she is.

And I am very tired of the clap trap about her foreign policy bona fides. Foreign policy is perhaps the foremost area in which she has repeatedly shown poor judgment and just a short perusal of serious commentary about her long history in foreign affairs reflects this.

I will no doubt wind up having to vote for her, and she will most likely wind up president, but until she gets the message that the many many people in this country want to move beyond meddling all over the world, and a belief in America’s right to do so, I will not join the adoring chorus for her as next commander in chief.

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Ok. You got me if “(Hillary) winning the president over to that pathetic failed state creating policy” is not the same as calling her a “nation builder.”

I did not respond to your specific attacks because they were just plain wrong. The Neo-Cons were wrong because they advocated attacking Iraq not because some or all advocated attacking Afghanistan before that. The Taliban Afghan rulers harbored AlQaida, and were the nation state responsible for 911. Hence Afghanistan was just as responsible for 911 as Bin Laden, while Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with 911. This is the distinction that set Richard Clark and policy experts apart from Bolton, Wolfowitz, Bush and Cheney et al. As Clarke advised Bush, “Attacking Iraq over 911 would be like attacking Mexico” because of it. The fact that Hillary supported the Afghan surge and intervening in Libya later were arguably made necessary by Bush-Cheney and the Neo-Cons running our Mid East policy off the rails with Iraq in the first place (though I agree Hillary is closer to the McCain-Graham interventionist camp than I would like). In fact the Afghan surge may not have been necessary if Bush-Cheney had not taken their eyes off the Afghanistan ball for Iraq.

(Para Edit). It does not make Hillary (or Obama for that matter) a Neo-Con because she supported the Afghan surge and some measured interventions elsewhere that include Mid-East allies and exit strategies just as it does not make Bernie a pacifist because he voted against the measure to give President Bush the authority to wage war if necessary.

History will judge whether Hillary was right about everything she did as Secretary of State. However, I would rather trust someone who has had to grapple with executive decisions both foreign and domestic than someone who has not… And I would rather have someone like Bernie who has shown the capability of sound judgment (though without the experience) than someone also without the experience whose speeches reflect wrongheadedness, religious and ethnic intolerance and decidedly un-American values as do Cruz and Trump.

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