Dems missing chance to be anti war party

The US has waged perpetual war for over 18 years, since the October, 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. This policy is maintained through bi-partisan support from both parties; debating perpetual war rarely figures in ongoing policy discussion or presidential elections. A rare chance to debate US war policy occurred when the President withdrew US forces from Syria. As crudely as Trump handled the pullout, catching the political elites flatfooted, it should have been used to debate America's forever wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Niger, and others on the horizon such as Iran and Venezuela. Instead, nearly all Democrats joined many Republicans in attacking Trump from the right, claiming he was abandoning crucially needed US presence in the region and empowering our imagined enemies Russia, Syria and Iran. Instead of pointing out Trump's ratcheting up US bombing in Afghanistan, continued support the ghastly Saudi slaughter in Yemen and adding more troops to Iraq and Saudi Arabia, they're focused on being even more interventionist than Trump.

That is a huge mistake. The American people are fed up with America's perpetual wars. More importantly, withdrawing militarily from the region will remove the nation most responsible for hundreds of thousands of needless deaths and millions of refugees, destabilizing the entire region. But Dems are foolishly promoting US exceptionalism to oust Trump instead of doing the right thing of demanding US military withdrawal from the region to focus on cooperative diplomacy. Tulsi Gabbard, the most anti war of 19 Democratic presidential contenders, is being trashed by her rivals as an isolationist and another Putin, Assad tool for simply expressing the sensible approach of abandoning perpetual war. Mainstream media goes along with this charade by denying airtime to virtually any anti war spokesperson.

Trump's foreign policy may be an utter mess, but his biggest sin to the interventionist wing making up the vast majority of our political elite, is calling for an end to endless wars. Rather than attacking that position, Democrats must call out his hypocrisy, contradictions and refusal to make truly meaningful disengagement in the Middle East and Africa. Besides being a winning strategy to regain the White House, it will be doing the right thing for humanity.