Gabbard Dares to Criticize Washington’s Global Empire

August 8th, 2019 - by David Bromwich / Mondoweiss

Tulsi Gabbard Has Done the Unpardonable: Criticized US Global Hegemony

David Bromwich / Mondoweiss

(August 3, 2019) — The Times full spread hit piece on Tulsi Gabbard is a new low, even for the Times. It is yellow journalism half disguised as human interest, with a few random points of political information.

Headline: “Unorthodox Campaign Shows Isolationism May Have a Hold.”

Opening sentence: “Tulsi Gabbard is running for president of a country that she believes has wrought horror on the world.”

Their initial strategy was simply to starve her out – no coverage, no candidacy. Now, because she’s still in and lately told a truth that weakened the Times choice Kamala Harris, they are giving her the Bernie 2016 treatment: i.e. this candidate is outlandish, absurd, unaccountably heartless (her sister fell off a horse while the story was being written and her reaction was lacking in warmth), mystical (she spoke at a solar panel dedication event), a tool of the wicked (she points out that Syria never went to war against the US) – and possibly a Russian agent.

Among Times readers, fewer than one in 50 is likely to be a supporter of Gabbard, but turning off voters is the secondary purpose of such an article. The primary purpose is to shape attitudes at CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, the Washington Post, and the Times sister publication The New Yorker. Legitimize flat-out condescension and contempt in the influential outlets and you keep her numbers down, since people won’t hear her voice at all.

A war veteran, an experienced and respected lawmaker, and a woman of color, but she commits the unpardonable error of criticizing worldwide US hegemony and so they follow the corporate reflex: make her a laughingstock.

Postscript. Gabbard stands up to an MSNBC hack who tries to overwhelm her with pro-war talking points. MSNBC is part of the perpetual war machine, as is the Times; they backed the Iraq war, and they’ll do the same for the next war, whether it’s in North Africa, east Asia, or Ukraine.

Gabbard Accuses MSNBC Anchor Of Being Fed Talking Points By Harris’s Team

MSNBC

(August 7, 2019) — Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard accused Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris’s team of feeding talking points to MSNBC anchor Yasmin Vossoughian.

Gabbard got testy while talking to Vossoughian on Thursday.

“Every time I come back here on MSNBC, you guys talk to me about these issues. It sounds like these are talking points that Kamala Harris and her campaign are feeding you because she’s refusing to address the questions that were posed to her,” Gabbard told Vossoughian on MSNBC’s “Live with Ali Velshi.” 

Gabbard ripped Harris’s record on criminal prosecutions at Wednesday night’s 2020 Democratic presidential debate. Gabbard was the most-searched for candidate for the second time after the debate, according to The Hill, and she is running on a platform of foreign policy.Vossoughian asked about Gabbard saying that President Donald Trump supports al-Qaeda, and that line of questioning turned to Gabbard’s past meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“One is this president has chosen to double down and triple down on an alliance with Saudi Arabia, a country that is the number one propagator of the radical Wahabi … ideology that fuels terrorist groups like [the Islamic State] and al-Qaeda,” Gabbard said.

“And secondly, this president has doubled down on support for al-Qaeda in continuing this regime change war in Syria, even threatening to use our own military to respond to anyone who tries to attack al-Qaeda in the city … in Syria where they are in control of and have this stronghold,” she continued.

The MSNBC anchor asked if “the same could be said” for Gabbard’s meeting with Assad, which prompted Gabbard’s allegation that Harris fed the anchor questionsGabbard said “she would never apologize” for that meeting and noted that as president she would “do what is necessary,” even if that means meeting with a dictator.

“So if that means meeting with a dictator, meeting with an adversary in order to accomplish that mission of keeping the American people safe, making sure our troops are not continuing to be sent on these wasteful wars putting their lives at risk and making sure we’ve got the resources for the American people, I will do what is necessary,” Gabbard said.

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