Tulsi Gabbard: belief

Transcript context

…As I just stated, we need leaders who have the courage to meet not just with allies, but with adversaries in the pursuit of peace, in the pursuit of increased understanding. If policies are being made through the lenses and the barriers of bureaucrats and the media and others who have or may have their own interests. Our president, a leader, even members of Congress can’t make decisions with the kind of clarity that we the American people need them to make. I think that these kinds of engagements are weaponized and politicized as they were against me by those who have their own interests, whether it be the military industrial complex or in Washington. If you’re not part of the official narrative of the US government, which was intent on a regime change war in Syria, then you’re an outcast. And it was unfortunate because people levied all kinds of accusations and smears against me for going and having the audacity to go and learn more, try to seek the truth, in the hopes of preventing more needless war and in the hopes of preventing yet another quagmire and disastrous war in the Middle East. And simply for going, and yes, meeting with Assad, also meeting with religious leaders in Syria, also meeting and talking with people on the streets of Damascus, talking with college students, talking with people from the opposition party who would like to see Assad replaced, talking with local law, just a whole host of people over the course of a few days, the accusation was like, “Oh, she loves dictators.” It’s a sad state of affairs when some of the most influential voices in our country will label someone a lover or supporter of dictators simply because you’re saying, “Hey, we shouldn’t be going to war. There is another way.” And I’m not alone in this. People who were against the war in Iraq were given similar labels, until it became popular in our politics to have been against the Iraq war. We see the same thing now with people like Tucker, myself and others who are saying, “We should not be waging this proxy war against Russia via Ukraine and using the Ukrainian people’s lives in this war.” Well, now all of a sudden, you’re a Putin lover or a Putin puppet or whatever, the traitor, treason, all of these accusations that are used ultimately by people who are not interested in having a substantive conversation about the truth, about looking at these wars and conflicts with a comprehensive view on exactly all the dynamics that are at play. by people who are not interested in having a substantive conversation about the truth, about looking at these wars and conflicts with a comprehensive view on exactly all the dynamics that are at play. And that’s what I found when I came back. I went to Syria looking forward to coming back and shedding light on different perspectives, experiences and stories that I found that would give people a more broad understanding of what was happening in that country. And what I found was there was zero interest in the mainstream media or in Congress in hearing any other perspective other than their own, which was, “We need to launch this regime change war through the use of arming and equipping known terrorists within Syria to overthrow the regime,” without them stating any realistic idea of who would take control once Assad was overthrown. But the reality actually being that no matter which opposition group they might try to prop up, they would not have the power to withstand the terrorist groups whose stated goal it was to go and take over power from Assad. They had no interest in trying to gain true understanding, and it was very disheartening. It was very disheartening and a big lesson learned about where their interests really were focused. Yeah, it’s a simplistic narrative template that’s fit into every single situation. A lot of stuff is not talked about in the Russia-Ukraine war. One of the things that’s not talked about is, okay, so Putin is overthrown, then who do you think will come into power?…

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