Bernie Sanders sides with Obama and against Clinton on no-fly zone in Syria

[bemildred]

BOSTON — Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Saturday that he opposes a unilateral American no-fly zone in Syria, offering a less hawkish stance on the war-torn region than Hillary Rodham Clinton, his chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, and a position more in line with President Obama.

“We must be very careful about not making a complex and dangerous situation in Syria even worse,” Sanders said in a statement to The Washington Post. “I support President Obama’s efforts to combat ISIS in Syria while at the same time supporting those in that country trying to remove the brutal dictatorship of Bashar Assad.”

But, Sanders added: “I oppose, at this point, a unilateral American no-fly zone in Syria, which could get us more deeply involved in that horrible civil war and lead to a never-ending U.S. entanglement in that region.”

In a television interview broadcast Thursday, Clinton advocated additional air power to protect civilians in the multi-front war, in which Syrian rebels and international advocates have said that air patrols in Syria’s north could give civilians a refuge from Assad’s bombing raids.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/03/bernie-sanders-sides-with-obama-and-against-clinton-on-no-fly-zone-in-syria/

[beam me up scottie]

1. Good.

Hillary made a mistake and she will be asked about it in the debates.

[restorefreedom]

11. how long do we think

before she either

a...walks it back
b....accuses bernie of being a big wuss

both will be seen as the transparent tactics they are.

[beam me up scottie]

12. I don't know.

After that speech at the Brookings Institute I doubt she'll walk it back.

Has O'Malley made a statement yet?

[restorefreedom]

13. haven't seen anything from him on the nf zones

maybe ellen or big tree has something.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

51. One of many mistakes by Hillary. She demonstrates poor judgment once again.

Bernie & Elizabeth 2016!!!

[NorthCarolina]

2. I have an idea

Why not just stay the hell out of it. We don't need any more of our youth dying on foreign soil when we already have too many getting killed for no apparent reason right here at home. Lets clean our own house first.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

52. Now there's an idea!

[jfern]

3. Hillary's middle east policy is "Do stupid stuff"

Remember when she criticized Obama last year, saying "Don't do stupid stuff' is not an organizing principle"? Crazy warmonger.

[sabrina 1]

18. Or 'do neocon stuff'. I'm with Obama and Bernie on this. The stupidity of

wanting to get our troops into yet another disaster in the ME, is just mindboggling.

The more I hear from her the more imperative it is that we elect a President who can put the brakes on these neocon wars which have made the world less safe.

WHAT is she thinking? IS she thinking?

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

53. I think that question answers itself.

Bernie & Elizabeth 2016!!!

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, bemildred.

[bemildred]

7. I am glad to see Bernie take the opening offered with such alacrity.

An easy chance to distinguish himself from Clinton and curry favor with his base, i.e. us.

[Uncle Joe]

9. One of Bernie's hallmarks being he doesn't wait for the parade only to then jump in front.

Bernie is a natural leader staying true to his North Star.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Henry David Thoreau


Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/henrydavid141463.html#quYKmhO4p0zgxwbZ.99

Over the past three decades increasing numbers of Americans are hearing the same drumbeat.

[jfern]

10. Hillary supporters are avoiding this thread like the plague

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

54. Can you blame em? Even they must know numerous instances of Hillary's exercise of poor judgment have doomed her campaign.

Bernie & Elizabeth 2016!!!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

6. Bernie is very wise

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

55. Beyond his years!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2016!!!

[Rafale]

8. GO!

Go Senator Sanders!!!

[Major Hogwash]

14. This is the best news I have read at DU in years.

Because it means that Bernie doesn't want the U.S. entangled in yet another long, never-ending war.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

56. Should come as no surprise. Meanwhile, Hillary has yet to hear of a war she doesn't support.

Enough is enough! Go Bernie!

Bernie & Elizabeth 2016!!!

[deadlinetony]

15. I hope this will be a very big question for Hillary Clinton to answer at the debate

I'm undecided, but I don't approve of the no-fly zone and would like to hear Clinton's rationale for it.

[moondust]

16. Russia has moved anti-aircraft weaponry into Syria.

And it's not for the rebels or ISIS since they have no aircraft. Some say it is to guarantee that nobody can establish a no-fly zone. Putin saw what happened in Libya to his buddy Gaddafi.

Is Hillary keeping up with what's going on there?

[bemildred]

17. I think she got bad advice.

Perhaps she ought to have waited a bit before taking a position.

And I think she is much too busy to keep up with world events without a reader to filter it down, which requires a sharp reader.

But she does have a lot of interventionists around her, and they generally believe their own bullshit, you can tell, so I think that is likely. Has she fired anyone lately?

[joshcryer]

22. Doubtful, Clinton is a presenting herself as a hawk.

She wouldn't give two shits about AA weaponry. Would it be that Russia shot down American aircraft. Good thing is this will likely come up in the debates, where she will have to defend her position.

[ellisonz]

19. So Hillary is for a safe zone?

What's the problem? Also, how does Sanders plan to deal with Putin's aggressive actions in Syria and Ukraine?

[Ichingcarpenter]

21. The US aggressive stand in the middle east

has caused this clusterfuck and that started years ago

[ellisonz]

31. That's not a defensible historical claim. n/t

[Comrade Grumpy]

34. It certainly is a defensible historical claim.

1. The US invasion of Iraq has blown that country to pieces, resulting in its effective fracturing. The US invasion also spawned Al Qaeda in Iraq, which has now morphed into ISIS.

2. The US did not invade Syria, but has been complicit with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE in funding, training, and arming insurgents against the Syrian government. And it has, up until now, taken the maximalist line that "Assad must go" and played a cynical game of bleeding Syria to win leverage.

Of course, the governments of Syria and Iraq bear some responsibility, too. But yes, our aggressive policies in the Middle East have led us to this place.

[ellisonz]

35. Sunni-Shia conflict in Syria is nothing new.

Hatred against Assad was nothing new, the US did not spark the Arab Spring nor did it force Assad to massacre people in the streets.

US policy in Syria has been in response to that event. There would be war in Syria and Sunni extremism even without the rise of ISIS (which followed the Arab Spring) or coalition bombing.

It's about the chronology, it's easy to go back to and back claims in hindsight that seem to be true, it's much harder to put the pieces together one after the other. You can paint a picture, doesn't make it true.

Bottomline: Historical forces beyond US policy in the Middle East have set this course. If anything, it has defrayed our desired policy.

Was POTUS supposed to support Assad the Butcher?

[delrem]

41. You're really arguing that the war in Syria is abstract from the PNAC wars.

That it's unconnected. That "Friends of Syria" didn't exist. That there isn't a continuum.

Congratulations, you totally boggled me.

[djean111]

28. Do you understand that a safe zone means that if a Russian plane flies over it, we would shoot it

down? IMO, this is an excuse for Hillary to look tough, and I believe Ms. More Muscular Foreign Policy wants and enjoys more war. She is a hawk. She has always been a hawk, and I don't see how anyone can reconcile that with "but she loves the women and children". A person who loved women and children would not have refused to stop using cluster bombs.

[ellisonz]

32. Yes. Mr. Putin can respect it. n/t

[Comrade Grumpy]

33. Funny, Russia is there with the consent of the internationally recognized government of Syria.

And the US?

By what right is the US waging war in Syria? Did we declare war? Do we have a UN authorization?

[ellisonz]

36. NATO and the Arab League

The Russians and Chinese have blocked UN authorization. No surprise there. If Assad as a complaint, he can take it to the International Court of Justice. You know why that hasn't happened? Because he's a war criminal and he doesn't give a fuck.

[delrem]

42. NATO and the Arab League don't have authority to enter into a war of aggression

to topple a foreign government.

What you mean is "might makes right", that the US controls NATO and has military understandings with a consortium of rich Arab dictatorship/monarchies, and the US decided to do it, so that gives the US the right to do it. And you're laughing in the face of those who are devastated by the PNAC wars.

[ellisonz]

44. Yes, PNAC made Syria rise up against a dictator!

[Ichingcarpenter]

45. CIA Interventions in Syria: A Partial Timeline

1940s and 1950s “…if you want to understand the origins of authoritarian rule in Syria today, it is important to go back to the 1940s and the 1950s and see the role the CIA played in that land.” See also here, p. 122: “In the late 1940’s, U.S. policymakers grew alarmed when the Syrian government, bowing to public pressure, refused to let a U.S. oil company build a pipeline through its territory. Washington also found the strong anti-Western sentiment and the large Communist party in the country ominous. Concerned that Syria was ‘drifting leftward’, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) laid plans to overthrow its three-year old civilian government.” CIA operatives met with right-wing military leaders in Damascus to discuss installing a “military-supported dictatorship”.


http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/01/16/the-great-game-and-the-cia-shaped-the-modern-middle-east


1947-1948 CIA attempts “to influence the 1947-8 elections by backing right-wing figures in the Nationalist Party…”

https://books.google.dk/books?id=xZT4SvjiTuYC&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq=cia+%2B+syria+1940s&source=bl&ots=0_SNwkwUaB&sig=UEVG79seZnB1wzN7hGoK8kfJmh4&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=cia%20%2B%20syria%201940s&f=false

March, 1949 CIA sponsors Syrian coup d’etat; CIA directly involved.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1949_Syrian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat


1957 CIA and MI6 devise plan to assassinate 3 top Syrian leaders and overthrow the government. “…they planned to use agents provocateurs to launch a series of incidents.” “A ‘Free Syria Committee’ should be funded and ‘political factions with paramilitary or other actionist capabilities’ in Syria should be armed.” [Does this sound familiar?] See also here.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/10/syri-o06.html


2006-2011 Prior to the onset of the Syrian war, the U.S. stirs up opposition to Syrian government (Assad). An April 18, 2011 article reads “Newly released WikiLeaks cables reveal that the US State Department has been secretly financing Syrian opposition groups and other opposition projects for at least five years, The Washington Post reports.”


http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2011/0418/Cables-reveal-covert-US-support-for-Syria-s-opposition



March 2011 Daraa violence launches Syrian war. “The Daraa ‘protest movement’ on March 17-18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence.” “In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and demonstrators.” [Notice that this technique also occurred in the Kiev, Ukraine violence.] See also here.

August 18, 2011 Obama says Assad must go. “President Obama and European leaders called Thursday for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resign, after months of his violent crackdown on protesters. The rhetorical escalation was backed by new U.S. sanctions designed to undermine Assad’s ability to finance his military operation.”


http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/assad-must-go-obama-says/2011/08/18/gIQAelheOJ_story.html


http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-who-is-behind-the-protest-movement-fabricating-a-pretext-for-a-us-nato-humanitarian-intervention/24591

August 1, 2012 “Obama authorizes secret support for Syrian rebels”. “The full extent of clandestine support that agencies like the CIA might be providing also is unclear.”




October 2, 2013 “The CIA is expanding a clandestine effort to train opposition fighters in Syria amid concern that moderate, U.S.-backed militias are rapidly losing ground in the country’s civil war, U.S. officials said.” “The pace of the CIA program amounts to a trickle into the ranks of opposition fighters, who total about 100,000. U.S. intelligence officials said that as many as 20,000 of those are considered ‘extremists’ with militant Islamist agendas.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-ramping-up-covert-training-program-for-moderate-syrian-rebels/2013/10/02/a0bba084-2af6-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html


“Those hard-line factions have drained momentum and support from moderate rebel groups. The most prominent Islamist groups, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Jabhat al-Nusra, include fighters who have extensive experience from the war in Iraq, have ties to al-Qaeda and have carried out high-profile strikes against Assad’s government.”




April 23, 2014 “The U.S. is providing more arms and training to the moderate rebels in Syria, under a growing secret program run by the CIA in Jordan.” “Skeptics doubt the U.S. effort will help much, given the weakened state of the opposition and the inroads made by al-Qaida fighters. The moderate fighters being supported currently have relatively little influence on the ground.”


http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/04/23/306233248/cia-is-quietly-ramping-up-aid-to-syrian-rebels-sources-say

Oct. 2, 2015 “The CIA has provided the thousands of fighters it has trained at secret bases in Jordan with communications equipment, intelligence support and arms, including antitank missiles. Those CIA-backed fighters reentered Syria across that country’s southern border with Jordan, but many have made their way into units that are now arrayed north and east of Damascus — areas that have been pounded by Russian strikes over the past several days.”


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/2015/10/02/44c1f7fc-6932-11e5-9223-70cb36460919_story.html


In my opinion, the most serious U.S. meddling is what the Wikileaks cables reveal, which is the State Department’s organization of domestic opposition to its elected government. This provoked the revolution that started in Daraa, and that provided an opening for radical and armed Muslim elements to enter the battle.

[ellisonz]

47. World Socialist News and Globalresearch?

The CIA controls all those people

[Ichingcarpenter]

48. I gave you 9 other links showing you the pattern

Yet its we that laugh at you for your
incontrovertible ignorance On documented evidence




Yes the CIA is your friend and doesn't have a history
of fucking things up.

[ellisonz]

49. Several of which are garbage.

March 2011 Daraa violence launches Syrian war. “The Daraa ‘protest movement’ on March 17-18 had all the appearances of a staged event involving covert support to Islamic terrorists by Mossad and/or Western intelligence.” “In Daraa, roof top snipers were targeting both police and demonstrators.” See also here.

Where is this coming from? It's not in the WaPo article it's posted next to? And I'm shocked, shocked that the CIA supports pro-democracy groups. Really this is news? Are they responsible for ISIS too? This is an attribution problem. I would look forward to seeing where you copy and pasted this from

[delrem]

50. Lordy. The US intends REGIME CHANGE in Syria.

It's on the record. There's a bloody history.

Now you're going on ignore.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

57. Hillary is a warmonger, plain and simple. She shows her true colors once again.

Bernie & Elizabeth 2016!!!

[Ichingcarpenter]

20. Hillary sides with Jeb Bush and Gov. John Kasich

Sanders sides with President Obama
Think about that...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/02/in-break-with-white-house-clinton-advocates-syria-no-fly-zone/


If that doesn't tell you something about her
Iraqi vote and aggressive pro war stances what will?

[bemildred]

23. I still remember what she did with her husband's health care reform effort.

And I watched her as SoS.

And I will vote for her if necessary, but only as the least-bad of a bad lot.

Like Biden, she is 100% insider, has been for a long time.

It annoys me, because I'd like to help vote in the first Madame President before I die, and this would be the year unless some fool decides to "distance themselves" from Obama like Gore did with "Clinton, the One with a Dick" in 2000.

I think her coming out for LGBT rights is a better strategy for her than anything else I've heard, she has credibility there, she can take the lead.

But we need a Red President, NOW, so Bernie is the man.

[Ichingcarpenter]

25. When Billions are needed to support her MIC ambitions

it leaves little left for national needs

Clinton sides with a Bush on foreign policy should be like a siren screaming in one's ear. Are we really listening?


But we know her love for Kissinger and his evil intentions she said it in a fawning review of his latest book, World Order


At the end of the review, she notes that Kissinger is "surprisingly idealistic":

''Even when there are tensions between our values and other objectives, America, he reminds us, succeeds by standing up for our values, not shirking them, and leads by engaging peoples and societies, the sources of legitimacy, not governments alone.''

Kissinger reminds us that America succeeds by standing up for its values?

Are you fucking kidding me?


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/hillary-clinton-henry-kissinger-world-order

She said yes to

Kissinger?
Bush?
Iraq war vote?
Anti Obama on Syria?

Geez people ........... wake the fuck up

[delrem]

43. She has more credibility as an extreme war hawk, vintage PNAC,

than as a leader of the LGBT rights movement.

People are going to look at where she's shown her heart is. Her most passionate speeches regarding what she believes, what she said God laid down in fundamental principles, accorded with a very conservative Christian view regarding the "sanctity of marriage". Not LGBT friendly. Her "evolution" in 2013 had all the heart of the rollout of "New Coke".

But when it comes to war, Hillary is a constant, unwavering hawk. Much more believable, trustworthy, and furthermore the Republicans won't challenge her on this. She's on the PNAC team.

[bemildred]

46. I can't really argue with that.

She has always been a weathervane, and not a good one either. And she has always been conservative. But then have you ever been to Arkansas or Missouri? It is Bible Belt all the way, disneyland for Christian Consumers. Look at what has happened there recently.

But if she is the Nom, what can you do? We gotta get Bernie the Nom. Then at least we can vote honestly for someone we agree with.

[Vinca]

24. A no-fly zone would be an especially bad idea now that Russian jets are in the air.

You couldn't shoot down a Russian fighter without risking a nuclear war.

[bemildred]

26. It is an attempt to create an incident, there is no other reason for it.

Russia is the tenth nation to start bombing Syria, I can guarantee you all of those planes flying around have all the air defense the owners have available and they are not going to pay the slightest attention to our no fly zone until somebody shoots one down.

[Ichingcarpenter]

27. Well Bush and Clinton disagree with you

And Senator Sanders and President Obama

I know what side you and I are on..... and it an't Bush's side.

[Vinca]

37. I'm not taking sides, just pointing out the likelihood of disaster.

[Ichingcarpenter]

38. I said you are on the right side. Hillary and Bush are not

Sanders and Obama are on the right side.
as are you

[Vinca]

39. Sorry - I misunderstood.

Or, in the words of Kevin McCarthy, misunderstanded.

[jfern]

40. I can not vote for someone stupid enough to support this now

Thankfully Obama and Sanders realize this is a stupid position.

[BlueStateLib]

29. An agreement reached between Turkey and the United States

on what they call cooperation against the ISIL terrorist group also includes establishing a no-fly zone over the Arab country, a Turkish newspaper says.

Turkey’s leaders had on Friday confirmed that a deal had been reached, and said it would enable the US to use the key Turkish Incirlik Air Base, which is located near Syria.

However, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet said that the agreement also outlines a 90-kilometer (56 mile) no-fly zone between the Syrian towns of Marea and Jarabulus.
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/07/24/421691/Turkey-US-Syria-nofly-zone-Erdogan-Davutoglu-ISIL

[bemildred]

30. That's dated July 24th. nt