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

[Thekaspervote]

It should be obvious this week that the United States needs a president who has the foreign policy chops to speak clearly about the United States’ role in the world and has a real plan to keep our country safe. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) ascendance to pseudo-front-runner status compels us to examine if she is meeting that test — and based on her recent performance, she is failing.


Warren said: “So, look, I think that we ought to get out of the Middle East. I don’t think we should have troops in the Middle East. But we have to do it the right way, the smart way,” Warren said at Tuesday’s Democratic debate. “We need to get out

More at the link

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/16/elizabeth-warren-is-failing-commander-chief-test/#click=https://t.co/5s9hGxoAdP

[guillaumeb]

1. So is the ideal plan that the US have tropps in evry country in the world

under the concept that every country is critical to keeping this country safe?

And does this concept apply to every country, or just the US?

[Thekaspervote]

2. The person best capable of answering that question is Joe Biden.

He has already stated his surprise that she would say the US needs to pull out of the Middle East

[guillaumeb]

6. I was asking for your opinion.

The US literally cannot police the world.

[Thekaspervote]

7. I gave my opinion, which is let's ask the expert.

[guillaumeb]

9. There are many opinions.

But endless wars in endless areas cannot be the answer.

[Thekaspervote]

13. I respect that you have an opinion about it as well.

[Voltaire2]

24. based on his support for the criminal invasion of Iraq?

the disaster in Libya?
our misguided Syrian adventure?
what exactly makes Biden the foreign policy expert?

[qazplm135]

3. the answer is, both complicated and in the middle

we've spent WAY too much blood, sweat, and money in the middle east.

All for the idea of protecting the oil supply, and of course historically to protect Israel.

But the latter is not an issue anymore. Israel is strong enough to take on every one of its neighbors with room to spare.
And they need to sell the oil as much as we need to use it.

Now, saying move ALL troops out? Syria is an area where we see a utility for limited troops. Because it was stopping something much worse than having a few thousand troops deployed.

As for Iraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia? Yeah, stop that now and pull out our troops.

[Snackshack]

4. She is right.

Unfortunately as long as fossil fuels are our primary energy source that national/domestic security depend on we can’t get out of the ME.

[SterlingPound]

29. So just think of the bloodbath that will happen when their oil is no longer needed by us

and since we are a net exporter of oil products...

[mr_lebowski]

47. We're still a net importer of petroleum, and these shale plays burn out much quicker

than traditional oil fields. We're in a mini-bonanza that's not going to last that long.

There's also a ton of global economics and physics involved ... where the oil can be refined, transit issues, who's willing to pay what, and who OWNS the oil, very little of which is owned by the US government ...

The WORLD will keep needing the ME petroleum, and the US is part of that world.

We'd have to nationalize our petroleum industry for the US to no longer need ME oil to at least be in circulation, even if we didn't directly import any of it.

[highplainsdem]

5. More:

It’s not as if Warren is unthoughtful or inexperienced on foreign policy. She’s a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. She has traveled to the war zones. Last November, she gave a foreign policy speech that sought to define her worldview. It called for a new foreign policy based on progressive trade and economic policies, cutting the defense budget and ending “reckless, endless wars in the Middle East.”

But now that President Trump is ending the United States’ military involvement in one of those wars, the “endless war” crowd seems incapable of saying exactly how they would have done it different. They are the dog that caught the car. Warren can’t connect the foreign policy she envisions on paper with the events that are unfolding before our eyes.

Pete Buttigieg put his finger on the larger problem with Warren’s stance Tuesday night. He was responding to Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who, like Warren, want to end the “endless wars,” but without a practical plan for how to combat the ongoing threats.

“When we abandon the international stage, when we think our only choices are between endless war or total isolation, the consequence is the disappearance of U.S. leadership,” he said.

Rogin's final words there, after a paragraph about the catastrophic, tragic mess Trump has created:

The next president will have to clean up that mess, and they might require troops to do it. If Warren can’t explain how her “end the endless wars” concept can credibly address the emergency that’s raging right now, she’s not ready to be in charge of U.S. national security.

[Thekaspervote]

11. I myself found it stunning that she would say that.

[blm]

39. I was stunned when Kerry and Obama said it.

Weren’t you?

[Cha]

19. Thank you for this, highplainsdem!

The next president will have to clean up that mess, and they might require troops to do it. If Warren can’t explain how her “end the endless wars” concept can credibly address the emergency that’s raging right now, she’s not ready to be in charge of U.S. national security.

[Kahuna7]

10. I posited that proposition on twitter last night. She practically shrugged

her shoulders about what's happening, like, meh. I find that Warren, like Bernie has a very narrow focus.

[Thekaspervote]

12. She should have a better grasp of the situation, esp. since she served on armed forces committees

[Kahuna7]

16. She didn't address it with the gravity of what the current situation with

the Kurds and ISIS demands.

[Thekaspervote]

32. No she didn't.. one more of her non answers

[INdemo]

14. So we have one OP in the WP

Decided that Elizabeth Warren is not Commander n Chief material or is failing at having a Foreign Policy. Let me remind all those that have read this that President Obama made the same similar statement back in 2008 when he talked about his foreign policy.
Let me also say that Candidate John Kerry said this back in 2004.

[blm]

36. Kerry and Obama said it reSyria in 2013. Perhaps Biden forgot.

End of Syrian conflict must be political not military: Secretary of State John Kerry

"Let me be clear, the US, President Obama, myself, others are in full agreement that the end of the conflict in Syria requires a political solution."

PTI|Updated: Sep 09, 2013, 09.59 PM IST


Read more at:
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/22441765.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

[emmaverybo]

15. An article Politico ran, in which the author made a case for Biden's FP cred as some world leaders

remarked on before he ran, also comments on Warren’s respective knowledge:

When Warren rolled out an economics-heavy foreign policy vision in a speech and long essay last year, some critics dismissed it as “not as much about foreign policy as it is about reorienting domestic policy.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/20/biden-2020-foreign-policy-national-security-1228345

Her wheel house is crowded with anti-corruption and domestic economic policy issues. She can’t be an expert in all things, but
we should be evaluating our candidates’ FP experience and knowledge more seriously than ever given Trump’s mess and how close India and Pakistan have come to nuclear war, our broken agreement with Iran, Russia’s efforts here and abroad, the NK dangers, and the fact that more countries than before in our history have nuclear weapons,

[Thekaspervote]

18. Yes, we do do have allies there. The Kurds for one and it is shameful that we have left them to die

Putin is doing the happy dance over it. He’s moving in and claiming more countries for mother Russia

[emmaverybo]

22. We can not encourage him intentionally or through ignorance.

[Cha]

17. KR! Thank you for this, Kasper! One of the main

reasons I like Biden for the job is his excellent experience in Foreign Policy!

From your link..

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.”

[Thekaspervote]

20. Welcome Cha!

She really should be better versed then let’s just get out of the Middle East and then leave it her campaign mgrs to clean it up.

[Cha]

23. yeah, certainly worthy of writing about it..

Thank you for your OP, Kasper!

[BeckyDem]

21. Rogin is a dumb ass hawk who blamed Obama with absurd accusations. Fuck this shit.

Link to tweet

[Voltaire2]

25. that's different

because reasons

[BeckyDem]

26. Yes, I have noticed that too.

[blm]

34. Yes, Obama and Kerry said the same as Warren.

End of Syrian conflict must be political not military: Secretary of State John Kerry

"Let me be clear, the US, President Obama, myself, others are in full agreement that the end of the conflict in Syria requires a political solution."

PTI|Updated: Sep 09, 2013, 09.59 PM IST


Read more at:
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/22441765.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

[BeckyDem]

44. The hawks never like that kind of talk, they FEEL less safe. lol

[peggysue2]

27. Last night when I heard this reply and watched Warren's reaction, I knew . . .

she was surprised and unprepared. She paused and then quickly said we ought to get out of the ME.

Saying we should do it 'the right way, the smart way' without any detail is a non answer to an important, even critical issue as we watch the Syria disaster unfold day-to-day. As is the case with Bernie Sanders, foreign policy is not in Elizabeth Warren's wheelhouse. Unfortunately, foreign policy is an important function of being POTUS. The damage that Donald Trump has wreaked on our standing in the world will need an informed and seasoned hand to heal and repair. This is an area where Joe Biden wins hands down though Buttigieg gave a strong, solid answer in terms of what happens when the US takes an isolationist stance.

Foreign policy is domestic policy and domestic policy is foreign policy.

I expect to hear that line again in the future because it's at the heart of Biden's vision, the interconnectedness of living our values both at home and abroad.

Another revealing moment for our candidates.

[Thekaspervote]

30. +1000

[Turin_C3PO]

31. Warren needs to educate herself better on foreign policy.

I love EW and I’ll happily vote for her (maybe even in the primary if the polls show her ahead of Biden in head to head Trump matchups) but her forte is domestic issues and anti-corruption. She doesn’t really have the foreign policy chops that will be necessary when cleaning up Donald Trump’s mess. She can gain the knowledge of course. We can’t be isolationist.

[blm]

35. Were you against it when Obama and Kerry said it?

[peggysue2]

45. We have a very specific disaster going on right now, in the moment

Trump has said he wanted to get out of the area and the chaos and slaughter is happening . . .now. So yes, I would expect Warren and other candidates to have an answer at the ready. Bringing up Obama and Kerry on this particular context? Totally irrelevant.

[blm]

46. She doesn't advocate for Trump's way. Saying in the brief time she had that

she’d work to find a right way to end US military combat in that region by relying on the hard work it takes to get to political solutions. Ala Kerry and Obama who were also dealing with a hot situation in Syria at the time. It’s far worse now because Trump is a psychopath.

[SterlingPound]

28. I agree with her 100%

[blm]

33. Obama and Kerry said the same. They failed the commander in chief test.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/end-of-syrian-conflict-must-be-political-not-military-secretary-of-state-john-kerry/articleshow/22441765.cms


End of Syrian conflict must be political not military: Secretary of State John Kerry

"Let me be clear, the US, President Obama, myself, others are in full agreement that the end of the conflict in Syria requires a political solution."

PTI|Updated: Sep 09, 2013, 09.59 PM IST

[emmaverybo]

37. That was then. This is now. Warren was asked in the context of severely at-risk allies, the Kurds,

and the ISIS situation.

[blm]

41. Which is why she said it has to be done the right way ....

The right way usually entails completing the mission and withdrawing in stages.

[emmaverybo]

42. She didn't say what that meant. Her answer was generic.

[blm]

43. Her answers at a debate with 12 people were time-limited. I'd like

Last edited Wed Oct 16, 2019, 10:40 PM - Edit history (1)

to give candidates more time to answer such serious questions. These aren’t even real debates yet. Which is why I don’t hop into every thread to take potshots at other Dem candidates, even when I know I can be brutal. But.....I don’t do that because any one of them can be the nominee, and I’m not gonna play the fake game that I’m criticizing so much only because....gosh darn....I’m just so concerned.

And they all know who they are.

[Turin_C3PO]

40. Bullshit.

Biden has a much better foreign policy plan than Warren but in no way does she share Trump‘s beliefs.

[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.”

[TidalWave46]

49. For me she passes the test for two reasons.

She is a coalition builder.

She will appoint and surround herself with the best, will listen closely to them, and will question them.