Summary
Concerns over Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination as director of national intelligence (DNI) under Donald Trump stem from her controversial Middle East ties, particularly her 2017 meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Critics, including intelligence officials and bipartisan lawmakers, question her fitness, citing her unorthodox views, conspiracy theories about U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine, and statements minimizing Assad’s atrocities.
Worries include risks to intelligence-sharing with allies and the security of U.S. assets.
Gabbard and her supporters claim her anti-interventionist stance is being misrepresented as a liability. Senate confirmation hearings may address these controversies.
Reading this article and others, I don’t see a valid argument for her being disloyal or a Russian asset. The examples given in the article all sound like justifiable if alternative perspectives.
I don’t agree with her on issues like her uncritical support for Israel or how she talks about humans whose lives and homes have been destroyed by our empire until they become terrorists. Here, she shares the views of the intelligence establishment, and is no worse than other candidates for DNI.
I do like the image of the army medic arguing for talk and negotiation as opposed to a militarized response. I think that Intelligence Community status quo has us set on a course for WWIII. I hope that Tulsi’s anti-interventionism, support for whistleblowers like Snowden and other truth seekers, and focus on communication/negotiation will help us reduce our need for arms so we can better direct those funds.
Or, maybe standing down now is like appeasement before WWII. We’ve already voted, now we get to deal with the consequences while we try to rebuild a better America.
That’s not an alternative explanation, that’s going to bat for a dictator.
It sounds more like her asking questions of the victims to verify the facts she was given.
If she kept pushing that narrative, I’d agree that she was “going to bat”. Just asking a question of people at ground zero seems more like a test/experiment to verify another source of information.
She can verify there was an airstrike without asking young girls if it was conducted by a group with no air force.
It’s not like children are going to take the time to identify the markings on the planes that are actively bombing them.
She can verify an airstrike using US govt tools as a member of the US Army. Under these conditions I think it reasonable to double check with an outside source.
I know that children may not have the sophisticated tools to identify who owns the planes, but they have verbal and community knowledge about the conflict which is a hard perspective for an American to access without asking them directly.
She may have feigned ignorance to get them to open up. She may have asked about ISIS to prompt them to tell her any information about ISIS attacks that they might have heard. Maybe Assad lied to her and told her it was ISIS, and she was verifying that he was lying and that the US Army info was correct by running the question past the people in his line of fire who might know best. I don’t know why Tulsi asked this question, but the situation has enough ambiguity and such little detail that it’s not a good argument for her being a traitor.
I’m interested to see any concrete evidence you may have, including better context on this specific incident.
Let’s not even pretend you want to know the truth about her. She is from a cult that she is still part of and married into. She kicks it with Assad and defended him even as he used chemical weapons on his own people. She is not just a traitor to the US, but of humanity defending a blood thirsty murderer.
She was the only Democrat to not vote to impeach Dumpster thus completing her transformation to a dark money conservative hell bent on ushering in fascism. This is what happens when people cozy up to dictators.
“In a final act before leaving Congress, Gabbard introduced a bill that would have banned trans women and girls from participating in female sports.”
Oh yeah full on conservative piece of shit. So yeah, we get you have a boner for her but I think it is deeper than that. You are a probably a boot licking apologist.
Transphobic? Sure. Absolutely. As an intersex person who grew up in a very conservative part of Florida, no one batted an eye when I played for both boys and girls ice hockey teams during high school back in the Obama administration. Propaganda during the Trump administration suddenly made this an issue. I know for a fact that no one cared before the Republicans decided to divide us on this issue. People like Tulsi pushing it out like assholes is absolutely part of that. My teenage years were very difficult as an intersex person in the town where the “don’t say gay” law came from. Sports, and hockey specifically, was my reprieve from that discrimination. I very much don’t respect her stance on this issue, or any republican who pushes such divisive and dangerous rhetoric.
The “present” vote for impeachment? Well, I remember also being upset with the impeachment process for not prosecuting Trump for his larger and more obvious crimes. I would love to see Biden/Trump/Obama/Bush all tried for their war crimes, crimes in immigrant detention centers, gitmo/torture, Syria/Yemen/Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya/Palestine etc. Trump could have been the precedent setter for holding presidents accountable. The impeachment process instead felt like a political sham. I understand and respect that she believes Trump is “guilty of wrongdoing,” but that she had serious concerns about the process itself, calling it “a partisan process, fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our country.”
I think that calling her americanized/new-age hinduism a cult is racist and uncalled for. I’d trust someone who worships the trimurti over someone who worships yahweh in most situations related to morality. All religions are cults.
When she visited Syria and tried to use words instead of bombs to communicate with the Assad regime, the US had been engaged as a belligerent in the Syrian civil war for five years, and Trump had just been elected and was actively amplifying the conflict.. As a Major in the US Army, a Congressperson, and a strong advocate for peace, her going to the enemy to talk and promote diplomatic solutions over Trump’s bombing campaigns is very much in line with her stated perspective as a peace-seeking combat medic. I watched her statements on this closely at the time, but did not see her defend Assad, just deflect questions about his conduct by pointing out that war is hell and pointing to similar misconduct in the area perpetuated by Trump/Obama/Bush.
I understand that you are a “boot-licking apologist” who has a “boner” for war criminals and hates those who call them out. You should really reassess your blind obedience to power. I think that her discretion and pro-peace positions are a boon to our country’s foreign intelligence operations. I believe that in spite of the joys from my childhood that Gabbard’s transphobia makes her attack.
Although I strongly disagree with this person’s social views, her foreign policy appears to be an imperfect step in the right direction. I hope her actions as DNI will continue in this manner. I recognize that as DNI, she will have access to intelligence on Americans that makes me worry about her social views. I don’t think that concern will go away if Trump nominates literally anyone else from his side. Tulsi has always been more focused on foreign policy than domestic policy, and I hope that trend continues in her new role.
I’m also open to updating my view on her, but I need real evidence of her being a “traitor” before I can do that. All I see are claims backed up by shaky evidence that falls apart when you actually look into the details of the situation. I plan to pay attention to her confirmation hearings. Maybe something damning but classified will come out for the public. I suspect this won’t happen, because if damning evidence existed then I believe that the existing intelligence regime would make sure everyone knows about it in retaliation for her not snapping into line.
To be clear, my view of this person can be summed up as “a bit of an asshole on social issues, but a step away from warmongering attitudes in our foreign policy”. I’m apprehensive about her new position allowing her to implement the former. I’m hopeful that her new position leads to positive outcomes such as scaling back our wasteful war machine as she implements the latter.
What kind of AI nonsense was that.
The tl;dr is that even if she is an asshole, you can’t say “traitor” or “treason” without proof.
Innocent until proven guilty.
Hopefully the senate’s confirmation hearing will bring the real allegations to light (if they exist) and we can begin to understand this situation.
That’s what hearings are for. Fact finding and evidence airing. The public needs to know a person’s crime before they ostracize them. Once you get ostracized, you become prey.