Elizabeth Warren: Failing the commander in chief test..Washington Post

[Gothmog]

48. I agree with Washington Post's analysis

Link to tweet

Realizing their candidate had made a gaffe, the Warren campaign sent out a mid-debate tweet in which “Warren” declared that we need to get our troops out of “Syria,” not the entire Middle East. Campaign spokesperson Alexis Krieg told me in an email Warren “was referring to ‘combat troops’ since we have multiple non-combat bases, in UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, etc and she did not mean those.”

“She believes we need to end the endless wars. That means getting all U.S. troops out of combat in the Middle East and using diplomacy to work with allies and partners to end conflicts and suffering in the region and around the world,” Krieg said.
Karen Tumulty: Elizabeth Warren hits some turbulence

The spin was worse than the gaffe. Does Warren (or the Warren campaign) not know that the United States’ Al Udeid base in Qatar flies “combat” missions fighting terrorists, including in Iraq and Syria, all the time? What is a “non-combat base” anyway? Are the U.S. bases in Iraq, to which our troops in Syria are now withdrawing, combat bases? Does Warren want to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq? The campaign declined to answer any of these questions....

Former vice president Joe Biden was quick to pounce on Warren’s mistake, telling reporters Wednesday that U.S. military deployments around the world serve as a crucial part of the international security architecture that the United States and its partners still depend on.

“I have never heard anyone say, with any serious background in foreign policy, that we pull all troops out of the Middle East. And I’m not sure exactly what she meant by it,” Biden said. “And I hope she didn’t mean in a literal sense because it would be, I think, a disaster for American security and American foreign policy.”