Why is Sanders Taking Foreign Policy Advice from Someone Who Suggested Israel,Not Assad,Gassed Syria

[Mosby]

Today, Politico reported on the nascent coterie of foreign policy advisers that is slowly taking shape around Bernie Sanders, whose presidential campaign to date has focused almost entirely on domestic concerns. According to Politico, Sanders has hired Bill French, an analyst at the progressive National Security Network, as a full-time foreign policy staffer, and is receiving further counsel from the Center for American Progress’ Lawrence Korb, a former Obama 2008 campaign adviser.

The third and final person named in the report, however, is likely to raise some eyebrows: Lawrence Wilkerson. A former U.S. Army Colonel who became a Republican policy hand, Wilkerson eventually served as chief of staff to George W. Bush’s Secretary of State Colin Powell. Disillusioned by the Iraq War, he later remade himself as a sharp critic of American foreign policy, slowly sliding to the extremes of the political discourse–which is how he came to insinuate that Israel was gassing Syrians to frame their dictator, Bashar al-Assad.

In March 2013, after Western intelligence officials had confirmed that Assad had used chemical weapons on his own people, Wilkerson went on TV to alternately cast suspicion on the victims and the Jewish state. In an interview with Current TV, Wilkerson told host Cenk Uygur: “This could’ve been an Israeli false flag operation, it could’ve been an opposition in Syria … or it could’ve been an actual use by Bashar Assad.” In other words, the Syrian rebels might have gassed themselves to place blame on Assad, or Israel might have.

-snip-

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/197963/why-is-sanders-taking-foreign-policy-advice-from-someone-who-suggested-israel-not-assad-gassed-syrians

[angrychair]

1. Good question

We will answer as soon as HRC or her supporters explain why she is friends and seeks advice from a mass murdering rightwing asshole like Henry Kissinger?

As a follow-up: why don't friendships (her and her husband's words) with people like Henry Kissinger not upset them? She is seeking foreign policy advice from a genocidal maniac and not a peep...if that were Sanders we would never hear the end of it.

[Nitram]

4. Angrychair, I don't understand why you need an answer about Clinton before you will...

...address one about Bernie. And is that the "royal we" you employ, or are have you been elected to represent all Bernie supporters on DU?

[angrychair]

5. Seems par for the course

She won't release her paid speech transcripts until everyone else does. What, she can "wait till everyone else has" on a given subject but you insist Sanders has to answer your concern right now?

Lastly, since we all seemed to be demanding answers I figured that I could too.

Interesting that you didn't speak to the actual question itself. No matter how I make that point, outside of snark, not a single intelligent response yet.
That a Democratic Party presidential candidate is friends with and taking foreign policy advice from Henry Kissinger is avoided.

[angrychair]

7. Yea, didnt actually expect a response

Yet another drive by.

[blm]

2. He offered a list of 'could have been's including that possibility, he didn't claim it as fact.

That article is GRASPING straws to push that misleading headline.

[Wilms]

3. The headline is not supported by the article.

No problem. DU catches this kind of thing all the time.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

6. Not unhappy to see Wilkerson onboard at all.

I have found him to be very impressive in the years since he left behind the Bush disaster. He listed a variety of possibilities for the gas attack. False flag operations are a reality, even capable by the State of Israel.