Amy Goodman asked the right question on ISIS and Boxer dodged it

[yurbud]

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now had a chance to interview Barbara Boxer at Sundance, and her answers on ISIS were as dishonest as any you'd get from a Republican.

Everyone knows these ISIS guys are bad. But like many Islamic extremists from those who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan to the 9/11 hijackers to ISIS as recently as two summers ago, they have been funded by SAUDI ARABIA and sometimes directly the US (when they were only a problem for Syria, a country on our shit list).

Wouldn't it be a hell of a lot cheaper to tell our allies to stop supporting assholes like this? Wouldn't it be cheaper and generate more good will toward the US if OUR GOVERNMENT stopped backing assholes like this when it's convenient to overthrow secular regimes they don't like, then spending more money to kill them later?

I rate Boxer in the top 5 or 10 progressive senators, but if any politician can't be honest about foreign policy that costs us hundreds of billions of dollars and costs people's lives, what can we trust them on?

SEN. BARBARA BOXER: So, let me just say, as a leader in what I call the peace movement, because I’ve been ever since Vietnam, I think if someone sits back and allows people like this, who don’t value human life, who enslave women, who rape women, who throw acid in the faces of women, if we can’t stand up to that—sure, if there’s a diplomatic way, you do that. War is a last resort, not a first resort. But for me to stand here and say I’m going to do nothing about ISIL, I think I would—I would be dead wrong.

AMY GOODMAN: But isn’t standing up to that perhaps looking behind that—for example, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. support of Saudi Arabia?

SEN. BARBARA BOXER: Well, look, if you won’t be—you and I just disagree, so why do we cut it off? It seems to me that you don’t see any reason ever to confront people who are uncivilized, who don’t care one stitch about your life or mine, who would just as soon cut off your head as say "good morning."

AMY GOODMAN: No, but what about cutting off their support?

SEN. BARBARA BOXER: And let me—you’re asking me a question. And I don’t support them. As a matter of fact, I already voted to give the president authority to go after them. So why don’t we leave it at that? And as far as trying to find out the root causes of why they are the way you are, I’ll leave that to you. I’m a senator. My people are threatened, and I’m going to take action. War is the last resort, never a first resort. I don’t support going to war and sending combat troops. I support President Obama’s plan, which is not to do that, but to make sure that we can help people fight against this terror group, which is so frightening and so frightening to humankind. Thank you so much.

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/28/sen_barbara_boxer_on_campus_rape

[Dont call me Shirley]

1. Way to go, Amy.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Weasel words are the stock and trade of politicians. K&R

[Scuba]

3. Extremely disappointing coming from Boxer.

[deutsey]

4. I saw that yesterday

Boxer danced around answering the question while resorting to fear mongering and even took a couple defensive potshots at Goodman.

[sabrina 1]

13. And the stock in trade of those trying to explain 'WAR', the use of women to emotionally manipulate

people. I am sick to death of these tactics when all else fails. USE THE WOMEN! When WE pointed out what war would do to women before the criminal invasion of Iraq, we were silenced.

ISIS is an outgrowth of that disastrous war, and our ally, if she is worried about women she might not want to be supporting the Saudis btw, Saudi ARabia's support for them is well known.

So disappointing to see her unable to answer that question honestly.

And it's great to see a real journalist at work.

[bvar22]

50. The Elephant in the Room....

Saudi Arabia

[yurbud]

58. so many follow up questions: Why are we saying guys who created problem will help solve it?

Either the Saudis are a loose cannon and it's a lie to cover it up or the whole thing is going roughly the way our government and Saudi want.

[stillwaiting]

16. I didn't see or hear that interview, but just reading it makes Boxer look...

... like an asshole.

And the words she used were very much like the words a Republican would use to communicate aka fear-mongering.

Very bad show for Boxer in my opinion.

[zeemike]

21. Let's face it, the political class on both sides think we are stupid.

And not notice that they all sound alike when pressed for an answer.

[Plucketeer]

23. Another case for term limits

Ms. Boxer's concluded that the very best of US has come to serve in DC.

[obxhead]

24. Let's face it, the politicians know we're stupid

and they're right for the most part.

Nearly everyone I speak to about politics has absolutely no clue and those are the smart ones. The rest are severely misinformed and believe complete bullshit.

We live in a very dangerous country.

[zeemike]

31. There are benefits to making politics distasteful and contentious.

People just tune it out and soon they are ignorant of what is going on.
Sometimes it seems to me that is the intent, to turn people off not on.

[obxhead]

48. That is the exact intent.

That is how they shift all of the money upwards.

We are a very stupid society. TPTB have worked very hard to make that happen.

[aspirant]

55. Isn't that the point

Last edited Fri Jan 30, 2015, 12:06 AM - Edit history (1)

of true populist politicians, to educate the people to the truth.

When pols dodge these questions, where does the problem lie of the people being uninformed? Isn't it time we stop blaming only the media and clean house of these anti-people dems?

[arcane1]

26. It appeared to be nothing but lies and slogans

[TBF]

5. K&R for visibility -

I'll tell you "root cause" - "root cause" is that we won't confront Saudi Arabia because they have OIL. Period. And it's disgusting no matter who is defending them.

[jeff47]

9. It's a lot further back than that.

The root cause is the fall of the Ottoman Empire when they chose the wrong side of WWI.

The French and British drew the borders of North Africa and the Middle East to suit their own political goals, instead of the borders forming along cultural boundaries. The only thing that kept that stable was pure brutality. Which is starting to fail, either through dumb acts like the Iraq war, or natural problems like the drought that caused the disintegration of Syria.

We don't confront Saudi Arabia because it won't fix the problem. We have no leverage - they'll happily sell their oil to other countries.

The only long-term fix is to let the borders be redrawn to where they should have originally been drawn. Our involvement is to try and weaken the most brutal of the "line drawing" states so that the result doesn't involve horrors like genocide.

Sometimes, there are no good solutions.

[TBF]

11. Thank you -

I appreciate the history behind it.

[KingCharlemagne]

15. Ah, but there's the rub. Where should they have 'originally been drawn' and who

shall be the new cartographer?

[jeff47]

19. The locals.

People tend to cluster into culturally-similar groups. The borders should have been drawn based on those groups.

They will work it out, but if we go completely hands-off, groups like ISIS will be the ones working it out. And they've already demonstrated they're willing to use genocide to move other groups out of territory they want to claim.

[CJCRANE]

25. The ISIS people are interlopers, foreign fighters

from other countries. That's why they're happy to redraw the borders, wipe out local minorities and blow up local architecture.

[jeff47]

28. Depends on which country you're talking about and which territory you're talking about.

Lots of ISIS are Sunni Iraqis. Yes, ISIS is also recruiting foreign fighters, but foreigners do not make up the bulk of their forces.

[CJCRANE]

41. It's hard to tell. The German journalist who stayed with them

said there are whole towns where you don't hear Arabic, just European and other languages.

The NYT back in 2007 also said that "Al Baghadi" was probably a fictional character invented to disguise the fact that most of them were foreigners. (Yes, we've seen video of him giving a sermon in Mosul, but there's no guarantee that he's the actual leader or that that's his name).

So it's possible that at this point in time the Iraqis are a subject population under occupation of foreign criminals and psychopaths (and that's what reports coming out of those areas seem to indicate, but again it's hard to tell from our vantage point).

[yurbud]

27. one of two things is going on: Saudi is a loose cannon OR they are doing our elite favors with the

flying monkeys of terrorism.

Given their track record of recruiting terrorists to help our foreign policy goals in Afghanistan in the 80's, Yugoslavia in the 90's, and ISIS as recently as two summers ago (if not still) to bedevil Syria, it seems a lot more likely that our government wants them to do what their doing, and ISIS either got out of control, or they're an excuse to do something else in Iraq.

[TBF]

47. I maintain that as long as there is oil

in the middle east we will be there. One way or another. We'll take friends where we can find them and bomb the rest into submission. Where we don't like the dictators we will replace them. In fact, GWBush showed how clearly inept he was by getting rid of Saddam. SH basically had things under control over there for us in many ways. Now it's an even bigger clusterfuck than it was.

[bvar22]

59. Libya too.

We really f***ed that place up.

[yurbud]

60. The problem if our elites don't realize there are limits to what even a dictator like Saddam

Can do to screw his own people.

De-nationalizing their oil and/or giving all the profits from oil to foreign oil companies would have been more than he or any government could get away with.

[dhill926]

6. really disappointed...

what a load of shit from Boxer...

[jeff47]

7. So, what should we do to Saudi Arabia?

The Sauds are using Wahhabism to keep their people distracted from problems in Saudi Arabia. It's how they continue to hold on to power.

So what do you suggest we do to stop it?

Sanctions? Plenty of other people will buy their oil, and sell them arms. What do we do when nothing changes?

"At least we aren't helping them"? Well, we'd still be fighting ISIS. And with sanctions in place, the Saudis have no reason to restrain Wahhabism (they've kept it from getting so bad in Saudi Arabia that it interferes with oil sales to the US.).

Some problems can not be solved from the outside. Saudi Arabia is one of them. ISIS is another. The borders of the Middle East are being corrected from the lines arbitrarily drawn at the end of WWI. The most we can do is try to weaken the worst states, so that the final result is not quite as horrifically brutal.

If you think the current situation is a mess, just wait until the new Kurdistan wants chunks of Turkey.

[staggerleem]

14. There is nothing on this Earth that would make the Saudis happier ...

... than turning the Shiite stronghold of Syria to Sunni. Sunni mosques in Damascus have been a Saudi wet dream ever since the end of WWII. That's why they support ISIL, which seeks the overthrow of Assad (among other things.) It's also why they were so hot to have the US intervene in the Syrian Civil War on the rebel side. I've long suspected that the recent drop in oil prices is because we ARE involved in the Syrian conflict now, and it's how the Saudis are saying "Thanks ... Yankee devils."

[yurbud]

30. honesty about the Saudi role in 9/11 would be a good start to develop some public trust

I have a feeling it's less likely that Saudi is barely controlling their inner demons and more that they are creating them for their business partners.

[jeff47]

34. To what end?

How would "public trust" stop the Saudis from using Wahhabism to deflect internal strife?

[yurbud]

35. it won't, but it might shock people into switching from oil a lot sooner than they otherwise would

so the Saudi royal family can wither away and die.

[jeff47]

38. Except we've got plenty of other places to buy oil from.

And a backlash would probably result in more demand for fracking, so we don't have to import oil.

[JonLP24]

61. I've long posted about my "lesser of two evils" view of pipeline & fracking

Even Jimmy Carter in his "Crisis in Confidence" speech pointed to Shale gas reserves as a way to win the war against Saudi oil.

[yurbud]

36. We cannot know for certain that is what they are doing or if they are just deftly manipulating

useful idiots.

[jeff47]

39. They tamp it down whenever it threatens them, or gets in the way of selling oil.

It would be very difficult to explain their behavior otherwise.

[yurbud]

40. they could also be two separate and somewhat unrelated things: their domestic unrest and

the assholes they export to the rest of the Middle East.

[dirtydickcheney]

8. You'd think Boxer was some real progressive when you hear her talk

But when you press her on the military she's a big supporter of the Military Industrial Complex.


Robert Scheer went into this in some detail in one of his talks saying that it was probably due to the huge number of Military Contractors in her state (hell, in any state when you think about it though!)

Someone asked her point blank about a fighter jet that obvioulsy had no real use - she was like "It's a really wonderful, wonderful jet"

[BrotherIvan]

10. California can do so much better!

[frylock]

29. we'll find out soon enough

[BrotherIvan]

49. Hopefully it won't turn into another Trojan Horse situation

[TeamPooka]

12. and now Boxer is the Chuck Todd of Senators. "i'll leave that to you" RE: the truth.

Sounds very Chuck Todd.
Let's elect a progressive Senator for CA this time.

[tclambert]

17. When 9/11 happened, the Bush administration at first said, "Follow the money," but cut that short

when money trails led back to Saudi Arabia and "friends" the Bushes would kiss on the lips.

[yurbud]

33. yep

[Duval]

18. Amy is a top notch reporter and

I admire her for asking tough questions. However, apparently Sen. Boxer is a bit too cowed to answer. After all, she just might reveal something best left unsaid? We The People (who don't have the advantage of listening to Thom Hartmann) may find out about Sens McCain's and Graham's visit to Saudi Arabia. Of course, our Corporate Media remains silent about this and most of us remain ignorant.

[KG]

20. boxer obviously shocked to be asked a real question by a real journalist

[obxhead]

22. When the door hits Boxer squarely in the ass I'll celebrate.

I read the whole interview and she has positive views on women's rights and protection, but she's just another clown in the pro war party.

Hopefully CA can put a true progressive in her seat.

[yurbud]

37. pols are free to do what they want on social issues as long as it doesn't interfere with big money

[frylock]

32. Boxer had absolutely nothing to lose in answering the question honestly..

disappointed in my Senator.

[yurbud]

44. it tells you how big the dogs are that want war

[lark]

42. Color me disgusted and dismayed.

Even one of the not RW batship crazy pols refuses to look at root causes and how we create and manufacture these wars for the benefit of the MIC. How sad. So it doesn't matter that we (and Saudi Arabia) created ISIS, and that we continue to fund those mf'ers, we will still spend millions (ha, billions) of dollars to stop the movement we helped create.

Oh, joy, that makes so much sense! This is one screwed up world we live in.

[yurbud]

46. She doesn't have to look. She knows.

[pathansen]

43. I heard that Boxer is leaving the Senate

Maybe this has something to do with it.

[Utopian Leftist]

45. Yes, Boxer is retiring.

Elizabeth Warren is supporting Kamala Harris, another progressive, to replace Boxer.

[Cal33]

51. It would be nice if Sen. Feinstein were retiring, too. How come Californians keep on voting for

them? They've both been in the Senate for 20+ years.

[abelenkpe]

53. No other democrats run

and so we're left with the lesser of two evils. D or R

D's waaaaaaaaaay better than R.

[Utopian Leftist]

54. I too would be happy to see Feinstein replaced with a true liberal.

I don't understand why a state so liberal as California can't get two liberal senators.

[yurbud]

57. Boxer does a better job of looking progressive, which is why I posted this

that answer would not have surprised me at all from Feinstein.

[abelenkpe]

52. "I’m a senator. My people are threatened, and I’m going to take action."

Nope, nope, not feeling threatened.

Damn, what happened to her?

[yurbud]

56. a handful of people are beheaded. That's something the police would handle if it were domestic.

[JonLP24]

62. I recommend reading everything there is to know

about Sibel Edmonds & Saudi Arabia history.

If anything, the idea that US maintains a partnership is naive & FBI, CIA, etc are incredibly naive & poorly uninformed when it comes to Wahabbism. That is at-best. Logically, there is a corrupt partnership going on.`

[yurbud]

63. I've read some of the Sibel Edmonds stuff. Do you have a link to the part you're thinking of

or an excerpt?

[JonLP24]

64. Mainly that the US has maintained a relationship with OBL

longer than known. There was 1 person (I forget who) she claimed who they couldn't deny a was right person. Operation Gladio B

What is never in doubt is Saudi Arabia finances these groups which the government still tries to deny based on your OP and other things.


9/11 Families 'Ecstatic' They Can Finally Sue Saudi Arabia

Families of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks today celebrated a federal court's ruling that allows relatives of people who died in the 9/11 terror attacks to sue Saudi Arabia.

Most of the hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 were from Saudi Arabia, and the complaint states that much of the funding for the al-Qaeda terrorists came from Saudi Arabia.

An attempt to Saudi Arabia in 2002 was blocked by a federal court ruling that said the kingdom had sovereign immunity. That ruling was reversed Thursday by a three-judge federal panel.

"I'm ecstatic.... For 12 years we've been fighting to expose the people who financed those bastards," said William Doyle, the father of Joseph Doyle, 25, a Cantor-Fitzgerald employee who was killed in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

<snip>

The ruling struck down an earlier decision that found Saudi Arabia immune from lawsuits. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said it's in the "interests of justice" to allow them to proceed.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/911-families-ecstatic-finally-sue-saudi-arabia/story?id=21290177

Corruption reeks considering their pathetic attempt to protect Saudi Arabia.