On a recent Democracy Now Facebook post, a video clip is shown with Amy Goodman and The Intercept founder, Jeremy Scahill. The question that is asked; Has Bernie Sanders been given a pass on his own record on regime change? Scahill says it “can't be ignored that Sanders supported brutal economic sanctions, drone assassinations and the neocon legislation that paved the way for the Iraq War.”
He does not hold back on his disdain and strong criticism against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton:
First of all, Hillary Clinton is one of the sort of legendary Democratic hawks in modern U.S. history. She’s – you know, what I like to call a cruise missle liberal, where you know they believe in launching missiles to solve problems and show they’re tough across the globe. Hillary Clinton, while she was secretary of state, really oversaw what amounted to a paramilitarization of some of the State Department’s divisions, and was the main employer of the private contractors that were working on behalf of the U.S government, and was one of the key people in the horrid destruction that we’re now – in creating the horrid destruction that we’re now seeing in Libya because of her embrace of regime change.
Scahill then backs up a bit to question why has Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders not received the same scrutiny.
Hillary Clinton, on these issues is sort of, you know, an easy target because she is so open about her militaristic tendancies, but Bernie Sanders in a way, has been given a sort of pass on these issues.
Recently, at a Democratic town hall meeting, Bernie Sanders was asked directly about whether or not he supports kill list. The actual term “the kill list” was used in an interview with him. And he said that the way that Obama is currently implementing it, he supports.
You know, Bernie Sanders goes after Hillary Clinton all the time for being a regime change candidate – and he’s right and blasting her for her alliance with people like Henry Kissinger.
But let’s be clear; Bernie Sanders in the 1990s was a supporter and signed onto legislation that was authored by Donald Rumsfeld, William Kristol, and these notorious neocons, who created the disaster of the Iraq Invasion with Democratic support.
In the short clip, Scahill shows no mercy for either Democratic candidate.
Bernie Sanders signed onto the key document demanding that Bill Clinton make regime change in Iraq the law of the land. Bernie Sanders then voted for that bill, that was the key document, the legislation that created as a result of the Project of the New American Century demanding that Bill Clinton make regime change in Iraq the law of the land. Bernie Sanders than voted for that bill, which, again, was largely authored by Donlad Rumsfeld and the neocons.
Bernie Sanders then supported the most brutal regime of economic sanctions in world history, that killed hundreds of thousand of Iraqis. He supported the bombings in Iraq under President Clinton, under the guise of the so-called no-fly zones, the longest sustained bombing campaing since Vietnam.
Scahill says “Bernie Sanders was about regime change.”
Bernie Sanders signed onto neocon-led legislation that made the Iraq invasion possible by codifying into U.S. law that Saddam Hussein’s regime must be overthrown.
At the end of the clip, Scahill adds:
So, when Bernie Sanders wants to hammer away at Hillary Clinton on this, go ahead. You are 100 percent right. She’s definitely the politics of empire right there. But Bernie Sanders needs to be asked about his embrace of regime change, because the policies that he supported in the 1990s were the precursor to the disastrous war in Iraq that he hammers on all the time without ever acknowledging his own role in supporting the legislation that laid the groundwork for it.
There is no perfect candidate. To believe one exists is a sure path to disappointment. To attack one without questioning the other is dishonest.
This I know; both democratic candidates have done far more good than bad. But Donald Trump has done nothing — nothing but incite hate and violence. Imagine what he can do holding the reigns of our entire military. Not a scare tactic. Just reality and one more reason to vote.