Amy Goodman asked the right question on ISIS and Boxer dodged it [View all]

[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