Many Gabbad supporters make the false equation of other Democrats visiting Assad with her actions

[karynnj]

Last edited Sat Aug 17, 2019, 09:15 PM - Edit history (1)

I answered this on a long, dying thread, but decided to post my own thread on this.

Nancy Pelosi, Chris Dodd and John Kerry all visited Assad BEFORE the Syrian civil war when he committed documented war crimes against his own people.

All three of them visited when George Bush was President and there were questions of Syria's actions relative to the war in Iraq. When Bush was President, Kerry and Dodd represented the SFRC to meet Assad. Before going, they requested and got a list of questions that Secretary Rice and the State Department wanted asked. (That came out after the right attacked them and was verified by the Bush administration.)

Kerry visited alone, and once with Teresa, as Chair of the SFRC in the early years of the Obama administration when he was an unofficial envoy on this and other issues for Obama. The goal was to move Assad away from allowing material for Hezbollah to transit through Syria and to push Democratic reforms. He did this in support of Obama, but not as part of the administration to allow Obama to discretely pursue the possibility of diplomacy working with Syria - but to not put the administration on the line.

Kerry did NOT meet with him after he committed war crimes against his own people. He did, indirectly, work to get rid of a huge amount of Syrian chemical weapons that would otherwise have made the horrendous situation worse. In addition, he worked to get the UN resolution that defined the process for going forward diplomatically, that never was used, but is still referenced by other countries. Russia represented Assad's interest.

Gabbad, on the other hand, met Assad in 2016, after he was clearly a war criminal and backed the Russian lies that suggested that neither the Russians or Syrians were responsible for the planes that used gas on people. As the rebels had no planes, this blames the US led coalition.

In 2016, as many who followed either the Ukraine or Syrian threads on DU saw, there were posters - who we questioned as not being AMerican - who posted RT, Sputnik and other links that claimed that atrocities that the UN defined as Russian or Syrian were actually "false flag" American or our side atrocities. (Two examples - the shoot down of an airplane over Ukraine and the attack on the UN convoy, approved by Syria, brining humanitarian goods to Aleppo.)

I COMPLETELY sympathize with those who disagreed with Bush's attack on Iraq or the Libyan humanitarian effort that morphed into the US being the air force behind the rebels. Syria was extremely complex -- the US is accused both of supporting the rebels and not giving the rebels the support they needed against Assad - just using them against ISIS. In fact, the US had a problem that they needed people on the ground, native to that area to fight ISIS and to govern after areas were won, but many of these people thought the fight against Assad was more important. Ultimately, other than the Kurds, we could not get the rebels on our side to repudiate the groups linked to AQ. The problem is that they argued that groups like Al Nusra were the most effective against Assad.

In Syria, there were many innocents caught in the crossfire but very few good guys among the Syrian fighters - other than probably the Kurds.

However, Gabbad parroting the Russian troll factories in support of Assad and putting her weight as a Congresswoman behind the arguments that Syria (and Russia) were not to blame for much of the violence was not helpful.

[samnsara]

1. i heard Jimmy Carter was banned from going there once..FFS Jimmy Carter..?

[pnwmom]

2. Thank you for taking the time to put this very thoughtful piece together.

Could you please fix the last sentence though? I think it's missing a verb . . . or something.

[karynnj]

5. Thanks, Somehow I lost the last few words.

[Quemado]

3. There is another side to this story.

First of all, I am not a supporter of Tulsi Gabbard, nor am I a Russian troll. I'm just a guy who reads posts on this website. I do listen to what Tulsi Gabbard says, just like I listen to most of the rest of the candidates for the Democratic Presidential Primary. I can't speak for Tulsi Gabbard, and I don't pretend to. It's just that, IMO, people need to know there is another side to this story. People can make up their own minds about Tulsi Gabbard. They can choose to read what they read and watch video what they want to watch. They can choose to believe what they want to believe.

CNN.com, on February 6, 2019, posted a story about Gabbard at https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/06/politics/tulsi-gabbard-syria-assad/index. "When asked later in the interview if she thought Assad was a good person, Gabbard said, "No, I don't," and asked if Russian President Vladimir Putin was an adversary to the US, she responded, "Yes." Later Wednesday, Gabbard tweeted that "warmongers" were wrong to label her as a "'cozy' with evil regime."

USAToday.com, on August 2, 2019, posted a story about Gabbard, at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/08/02/tulsi-gabbard-bashar-al-assad-a-brutal-dictator/1902579001/, headlined "Tulsi Gabbard: Bashar al-Assad is 'a brutal dictator, just like Saddam Hussein'".

Newsweek.com, on August 1, 2019, posted a story about Gabbard at https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-bashar-assad-controversy-explained-1452141 headlined "The Tulsi Gabbard Bashar Al-Assad Controversy Explained". In that report, she is quoted as saying "In Iraq, serving in a medical unit, every single day confronted with that high human cost of war," Gabbard said, referring to her deployment in a country ravaged by unrest since a 2003 U.S. invasion that toppled its government. I will never apologize for doing all that I can to prevent more of my brothers and sisters from being sent into harm's way, to fight counter-productive regime-change wars that make our country less safe, that take more lives, and that cost taxpayers trillions more dollars," she added. "So if that means meeting with a dictator, or meeting with an adversary, absolutely. I would do it. This is about the national security of our country."

[pnwmom]

6. Apparently you missed a lot, while you were busy reading posts on this website.

While, since declaring her candidacy, she now acknowledges the evil of Assad's regime, that's a more recent development.

She also has said there is no difference between ISIS and the rebels fighting Assad.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/26/tulsi-gabbard-bashar-al-assad-syria-democrats

But in 2015, she was one of just 47 Democrats who sided with Republicans and backed a GOP-sponsored measure that would essentially block Syrian and Iraqi refugees from resettling in the US. Gabbard was also a vocal critic of the Obama administration – which repeatedly called for Assad to step down – for arming Syrian rebel groups.

In November, Gabbard met with then president-elect Donald Trump to discuss foreign policy. Trump has stated he will end assistance to US-backed Syrian rebels. His son, Donald Trump Jr, met privately with pro-Russia diplomats and political figures in October to discuss the Syrian conflict.

During her interview with CNN, Gabbard claimed the US was funding terrorist groups by assisting Syrian rebels and further pushed a talking point propagated by the Assad regime and the Russian government that there are no moderate rebels in Syria.

That argument was also at the center of an op-ed published by Gabbard on Thursday in her hometown newspaper, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

[thesquanderer]

4. The other side of the issue...

Article titled:

"Obama, Biden, Mattis and Clapper Expressed Skepticism on Syria, so Why Is Gabbard Singled Out?"

https://www.mintpressnews.com/skepticism-syria-why-tulsi-gabbard-singled-out/261257/

It's an opinion piece with an obvious bias, but that doesn't mean its facts are off. As you said, the issue is extremely complex. I'm not ready to state with certainty that Gabbard's visit--or her public skepticism of SOME of what has been said about Asaad (not all of it!)--is a good thing or a bad thing.

[pnwmom]

7. She's the only one who's equated the moderate rebels fighting Assad

with ISIS. That's one reason.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/26/tulsi-gabbard-bashar-al-assad-syria-democrats

During her interview with CNN, Gabbard claimed the US was funding terrorist groups by assisting Syrian rebels and further pushed a talking point propagated by the Assad regime and the Russian government that there are no moderate rebels in Syria.

That argument was also at the center of an op-ed published by Gabbard on Thursday in her hometown newspaper, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

“Repeatedly I was told there is no difference between ‘moderate’ rebels and al-Qaeda (al-Nusra) or Isis – they are all the same,” Gabbard wrote.

[thesquanderer]

8. Gabbard is not the only one to tie the rebels to ISIS or al-Qaeda

The Guardian, 2015:

More than half of the rebel fighters in Syria who are opposing President Bashar al-Assad are sympathetic to Islamic State views, a leading thinktank has claimed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/20/most-syrian-rebels-sympathise-with-isis-says-thinktank

USA Today, 2017:

Sophisticated weapons the U.S. military secretly provided to Syrian rebels quickly fell into the hands of the Islamic State, a study released Thursday disclosed.
...
Investigators were unable to determine whether ISIS captured the weapons on the battlefield or whether the rebels sold or gave the arms to the terror group.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/12/14/u-s-bought-weapons-syrian-rebels-and-some-wound-up-hands-isis-terrorists/949209001/

Daily Beast, 2017:

Key Syrian Rebels Tied to Al-Qaeda
One of the most successful groups fighting Bashar al-Assad in Syria is an al Qaeda offshoot, according to officials in Iraq. Fighters from the Nusra Front have distinguished themselves in battle...The group may prove hard to blacklist in Syria because of its successes fighting Assad’s forces.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/12/09/key-syrian-rebels-tied-to-al-qaeda

The Independent, Jan 2019:

Dozens killed as al-Qaeda-linked rebels try to consolidate control in northern Syria
...
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was once a part of al-Qaeda and still espouses the same ideology, has captured several villages in Idlib and western Aleppo...The area in question is the last remaining holdout of opposition rebels in the country. In September last year, a long-threatened Syrian government offensive to recapture Idlib from rebels was averted after a deal was struck between Turkey and Russia.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-rebels-al-qaeda-idlib-russia-turkey-hayat-tahrir-al-sham-a8709511.html

and another on the same topic, from the admittedly more opinionated mintpress, 2018

Idlib’s Rebels Unite Under Al Qaeda Banner While Syria Prepares Offensive
...
The U.S. will likely do all it can to prevent an upcoming Syrian military offensive in Idlib, with the aim of protecting its own interests in Syria, even if it means backing a force of rebels united in their allegiance to al Qaeda.
...
all of the rebels in the Idlib province have now united under the single banner of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS is the rebel collective formerly known as al-Nusra Front, which is Syria’s al Qaeda branch.'

Last Wednesday, American-born ‘journalist’ and al-Nusra Front “media man” Bilal Abdul Kareem published a video on YouTube in which he interviewed al-Nusra Front/HTS spokesman Abu Khaled. In the video, Khaled states...that this cooperation includes “all factions [in Idlib] without exemption” and that this was the “first time” that all Idlib rebels had united under one banner.

Prior to this announcement, HTS/al-Nusra was the largest faction in Syria’s Idlib, with an estimated 10,000 fighters. Over the past few years, it has come to dominate much of Syria’s rebel-held territory, a fact that has even been admitted by mainstream Western media since early last year.
...
With all Idlib rebels now operating under the al Qaeda banner, it is no longer possible to make the assertion that the province includes “moderate rebels.” Furthermore, given that the Idlib demilitarization agreement was created with the aim of separating “moderate rebels” from groups like the al-Nusra Front, the fact that the rebel groups have instead united behind al-Nusra eliminates the agreement’s entire purpose for existing: there are no longer any “moderate rebels” in the region to protect, by the rebels’ own admission.
...
top U.S. government officials claimed that militants in the province are “not terrorists, but people fighting a civil war against a brutal dictator.” However, just a year earlier, the U.S. government’s Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (Daesh, ISIS) Brett McGurk called Syria’s Idlib province “the largest al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11, tied directly to Ayman al-Zawahiri [current leader of al Qaeda],” immediately adding that al Qaeda’s presence in Idlib was a “huge problem” and had been so “for some time.”

https://www.mintpressnews.com/idlibs-rebels-unite-under-al-qaeda-banner-while-syria-prepares-offensive/252045/

The fact is, Syria is a mess. I don't pretend to fully understand how all the factions and pieces fit together, and I assume that even those who do understand it all don't always agree about all the implications. But it is clearly not a matter of government vs. rebels, and as evidenced from the above, it is not a simple matter for us to "support these rebels, but not those rebels" in an area with complex and shifting alliances.

Point being, Gabbard is not AT ALL alone in suggesting that our support for rebels has also ended up being, at least in part, support for ISIS or al-Qaeda.

Asaad is awful. Saddam Hussein was awful, we got rid of him, and ended up making things worse. Can you really say with certainty that backing the rebels against Asaad is the right move? I honestly don't know. But I do know that our government tried very hard to convince us that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the right move, and that didn't work out so well. So I don't automatically dismiss skepticism of our "regime change" policies, and backing the rebels in Syria is indeed a regime change policy.

You can disagree with Gabbard on this, and say you think we should support the rebels, that's fine. But I think this continual pointing to her position on this as being an apologist, being a stooge of putin, etc. is simplistic and unfounded character assassination.

[pnwmom]

9. Gabbard is the only one of the CANDIDATES. Warren hasn't. No one else has, either. n/t

[thesquanderer]

10. I didn't know you meant only CANDIDATE, but even so, what's wrong with that?

It's a valid perspective, she's allowed to have it without being pilloried for it.

Yang is the only candidate calling for universal basic income. Does that automatically make it a position not worth considering? Why should "only candidate saying it" make any difference at all?

[pnwmom]

11. It's not a valid perspective, in my opinion. And it's a good reason for deciding not to vote

for her, because it reflects on her judgment. The same positions that make people like Steve Bannon and Breitbart applaud her make me doubt her.

It isn't comparable at all to Yang's call for universal basic income.

[thesquanderer]

12. The Yang comparison was only a counter to your "she's the only candidate who..."

to point out that being the only candidate to say something is irrelevant to whether it is a good thought or a bad one.

I think it is fine for someone to say they don't support Gabbard because they disagree with some (or all) of her perspectives on foreign policy. But I don't think people should be disparaging one of our candidates by going beyond that and saying she's Putin's candidate, she's an apologist for dictators, etc., especially when there are plenty of other people and press reports (even if no other candidates) supporting that same position. It's a complicated situation, and one that people can simply disagree about, without denigrating one of our candidates.

[pnwmom]

13. But there aren't plenty of other progressives in government, who have dealt with the issues,

who take her position. She came back from meeting Assad and said she believed him that he hadn't gassed his own people -- despite what the US government and Nato said. And she criticized Obama instead.

She finds more of her support on her Assad position on the right side of the aisle.

She also lined up with them on banning Syrian and Iraqi refugees from settling here -- even though some of them aided us and, because of that, are in danger.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/26/tulsi-gabbard-bashar-al-assad-syria-democrats

But in 2015, she was one of just 47 Democrats who sided with Republicans and backed a GOP-sponsored measure that would essentially block Syrian and Iraqi refugees from resettling in the US. Gabbard was also a vocal critic of the Obama administration – which repeatedly called for Assad to step down – for arming Syrian rebel groups.

In November, Gabbard met with then president-elect Donald Trump to discuss foreign policy. Trump has stated he will end assistance to US-backed Syrian rebels. His son, Donald Trump Jr, met privately with pro-Russia diplomats and political figures in October to discuss the Syrian conflict.

During her interview with CNN, Gabbard claimed the US was funding terrorist groups by assisting Syrian rebels and further pushed a talking point propagated by the Assad regime and the Russian government that there are no moderate rebels in Syria.

[thesquanderer]

14. Some good points, but also counterpoints

there aren't plenty of other progressives in government, who have dealt with the issues, who take her position

True. But being the only one who takes a position, or taking an unpopular position, does not automatically make it wrong.

She came back from meeting Assad and said she believed him that he hadn't gassed his own people

I could be wrong about this, but my understanding was that she never absolved him from using chemical warfare on his own people, but was unconvinced about two particular incidents. At least that's what's on her web site where she says:

There is evidence that both the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad as well as the armed opposition groups aligned against him have used chemical weapons (CW) during the Syrian war.

I have in the past expressed skepticism as to the actual source of two specific chemical weapons attacks: one at Khan Sheikhun on April 4, 2017, and the other at Douma on April 7, 2018.

Is this inconsistent with what she has said in the past?

She finds more of her support on her Assad position on the right side of the aisle.

True. But not every view more supported by the right is always automatically wrong, and not every view more supported by the left is always automatically right. Things don't always fall into simple Left-is-good and Right-is-bad boxes. Heck, Obama's ACA was originally a Republican plan. And here's a clip of Bernie Sanders actually agreeing with Trump about something, and like him or not, no one is going to say he doesn't generally represent the views of a significant chunk of the party.

I don't think knee-jerking the opposite view of the prevailing right position on EVERY topic has to be the definition of an acceptable Dem.

She also lined up with them on banning Syrian and Iraqi refugees from settling here

It wasn't a ban. Though at least this time she wasn't out on her own. As your link says, 46 other Democratic house members voted for it.

During her interview with CNN, Gabbard claimed the US was funding terrorist groups by assisting Syrian rebels

and others have also expressed that view, as I detailed extensively in my post #8.

A lot of your criticism is based on association with bad people who have that view, but that doesn't really speak to the inherent legitimacy of that view.

And again, I'm not trying to change anyone's mind about what we should do in Syria. Damned if I know. I'm just saying one can disagree with Gabbard's position and not automatically consider her to be an awful candidate, an apologist for dictators, a Putin stooge, or whatever else. Especially when (as again I showed in post #8) there is plenty of non right-wing support for her perspective, i.e. that it is basically impossible to help "just the good rebels" without aiding our enemies. Or that regime change policies tend to go awry more often than not.

[pnwmom]

15. "Being the only one who takes a position, or taking an unpopular position, does not automatically

make it wrong."

I didn't say it did. But in this case it is the unpopular position because it IS WRONG.

Any time we choose among candidates, we're comparing them. She ranks near the bottom of the 20 in my opinion because of her positions on some important issues. And I don't trust her farther than I could throw her.

She is also the woman who said, in an interview with Ozy in 2015, that her personal views on LGBT and abortion haven't changed -- just her political views. After being in Iraq, she says she decided that she shouldn't impose her personal views on others -- so she changed her political positions.

Conveniently, her new political positions fit with the Democratic party she'd decided to run in. But I don't know why any LGBT person or ally would trust support from someone like her.