A View From The Left- WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

Bernie Sanders Foreign Policy Speech:

Linking Domestic and Foreign Policy with Global Inequality

Throughout the winter and spring of 2016, Bernie Sanders challenged Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, proudly laying out an agenda that pulled together one progressive policy plank after another. But in one important area, there was near deafening silence: foreign policy. Well, today Sanders finally delivered the speech many of us have been hoping to hear, from him or anyone else, for quite some time. In laying out a principled and bold progressive vision for recentering US foreign policy at the core of a progressive platform, Senator Sanders has given voice to those of us who have always believed that our values don’t simply stop at the water’s edge. Taking to the same stage where Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” speech almost 70 years ago, Sanders’s challenge to the progressive movement, and indeed to all Americans, was to redefine for the 21st century a vision for America’s role in the world.    More

You can read the Senator’s speech – which was long on good principles but short on concrete proposals – here; and you can watch the video here (Sanders speaks at 1:24)

Sanders Interview: Saudi Arabia Is “Not an Ally” and the U.S. Should “Rethink” Its Approach to Iran

Sanders issued a scathing denunciation of the Gulf kingdom, which has recently embarked on a new round of domestic repression.  “I consider [Saudi Arabia] to be an undemocratic country that has supported terrorism around the world, it has funded terrorism. … They are not an ally of the United States.”  …“They are fomenting a lot of hatred,” he added. In June, Sanders joined 46 other senators in voting to try and block the sale of precision-guided munitions to Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition backed by the U.S. has been bombing Iranian-backed Houthi fighters in Yemen since 2015 and is accused of killing thousands of Yemeni civilians…  The senator suggested the United States should consider a pivot toward long-standing adversary Iran and away from traditional ally Saudi Arabia. The latter, he claimed, “has played a very bad role internationally, but we have sided with them time and time and time again, and yet Iran, which just held elections, Iran, whose young people really want to reach out to the West, we are … continuing to put them down.”   More

SENATE BACKS BILL TO PUMP $700 BILLION INTO MILITARY

The Senate has overwhelmingly approved a sweeping defense policy bill that would pump $700 billion into the military, putting the U.S. armed forces on track for a budget greater than at any time during the decade-plus wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Senators passed the legislation by an 89-8 vote Monday. The measure authorizes $700 billion in military spending for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, expands U.S. missile defenses in response to North Korea's growing hostility and refuses to allow excess military bases to be closed… Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and other national security hawks have insisted the military branches are at risk of losing their edge in combat without a dramatic influx of money to repair shortfalls in training and equipment…  The bill allots $10.6 billion for 94 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, which is two dozen more than Trump requested. The bill also provides $25 billion to pay for 13 ships, which is $5 billion and five ships more than the Trump sought.   More

The 89-9 roll call vote.  Sanders voted NO; shamefully, Warrren and Markey voted YES

The Senate’s Military Spending Increase Alone Is Enough to Make Public College Free

One of the most controversial proposals put forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2016 presidential campaign was a pledge to make tuition free at public colleges and universities. Critics from both parties howled that the pie-in-the-sky idea would bankrupt the country. Where, after all, would the money come from?  Those concerns were brushed aside Monday night, as the Senate overwhelmingly approved an $80 billion annual increase in military spending, enough to have fully satisfied Sanders’s campaign promise. Instead, the Senate handed President Donald Trump far more than the $54 billion he asked for. The lavish spending package gives Trump a major legislative victory, allowing him to boast about fulfilling his promise of a “great rebuilding of the armed services.”  The bill would set the U.S.’s annual military budget at around $700 billion, putting it within range of matching the spending level at the height of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.   More

Outlets That Scolded Sanders Over Deficits Uniformly Silent on $700B Pentagon Handout

Where did all the concern over deficits go? After two years of the media lamenting, worrying and feigning outrage over the cost of Bernie Sanders’ two big-budget items—free college and single-payer healthcare—the same outlets are uniformly silent, days after the largest military budget increase in history.  Monday, the Senate voted to increase military spending by a whopping $81 billion, from $619 billion to $700 billion–an increase of over 13 percent. (The House passed its own $696 billion Pentagon budget in July—Politico, 7/14/17.) The reaction thus far to this unprecedented handout to military contractors and weapons makers has been one big yawn.   More

After Failing to Prosecute Bankers, Obama Cashes In With Wall Street Speeches

Less than a year has passed since he departed from the White House, and former President Barack Obama has already joined the "well trod and well paid" Wall Street speaking circuit, a decision many argued will negatively impact the Democratic Party's credibility as it attempts to fashion a message around taking on corporate monopolies, tackling income inequality, and loosening the insurance industry's control over the American healthcare system…  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced a wave of intense criticism following her paid speeches to Wall Street during the 2016 presidential campaign, and later conceded that they weren't politically wise.  Obama, however, doesn't appear to harbor any concerns about the political impact his speeches may have—a fact that could be problematic for the Democratic Party, Bloomberg's Max Abelson notes. "While he can't run for president, he continues to be an influential voice in a party torn between celebrating and vilifying corporate power," Abelson writes. "His new work with banks might suggest which side of the debate he'll be on."   More