Bernie Sanders’ strength and weakness

Transcript of Bernie Sanders’ speech in Burlington, Vermont, on Thursday, June 16, 2016.

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Bernie Sanders, in (sort of) conceding the primary election campaign to Hillary Clinton, gave an excellent speech Thursday night about what Americans need from their government.

And the decision to give priority to defeating Donald Trump is an honorable decision.

The problem with this speech is that he said nothing whatsoever about military intervention, the threat of nuclear war or the quest for peace.

I think that Sanders might be more hesitant than Clinton or Trump to go to war.  But he said nothing, and nothing during his campaign, about the war system.

He criticized Clinton for voting to authorize President Bush to use military force against Iraq—which, by the way, was also supported by Al Gore and John Kerry.   But Sanders has been much less critical of military interventions conducted under Democratic administrations.

I don’t oppose Clinton because of her vote on Iraq intervention, but that she has not learned anything from that mistake.  She replicated the mistakes of Iraq in Libya, she supported radical jihadists trying to overthrow Assad in Syria, she supported the coup in Honduras, and she brought the United States into confrontation with Russia in Ukraine.

The main innovation of the Obama administration is to carry on the Bush administration policies without large scale use of American troops, by means of special operations teams, flying killer robots and subsidies to foreign fighters.

The killing of harmless people in foreign countries continues.   Brown lives matter.  All lives matter, not just American lives.

I don’t mean to deny Sanders credit for his courageous campaign, for rallying support for important domestic reforms and for enabling all sorts of disparate reform groups to join in a common cause.  I am proud that I voted for Sanders in the New York primary.  I recommend listening to the full speech, or reading it, because it sets forth the domestic agenda that Americans need.

But unless there is peace, it is hard to push domestic reform.  If there is war with Russia, domestic issues will not matter.

Tags: Bernie Sanders, Election 2016, HIllary Clinton, Presidential Campaigns