Following an interview with the New York Times, Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson is coming under fire for noting a moral equivalence between killing civilians in airstrikes, and killing civilians in airstrikes.
Pressed on the civilian death toll of Syrian airstrikes against populated areas, and whether he saw those as equivalent to US airstrikes against populated areas, Johnson mockingly declared “no of course not – we’re so much better than all that. We’re so much better when in Afghanistan, we bomb the hospital and 60 people are killed in the hospital.”
Johnson is referring to last year’s Kunduz airstrikes, in which a US warplane repeatedly and deliberately bombed a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital near Kunduz, Afghanistan, in what officials later characterized as “a mistake.” The Syrian government has recently been heavily criticized for airstrikes around Aleppo which hit hospitals.
Johnson further went after Hillary Clinton for overly interventionist instincts, noting that a number of civilians have been killed in US airstrikes in Syria as well, and saying that Clinton shares some of the responsibility for those deaths.
While charges of “moral equivalence” against antiwar candidates are a recurring theme in US elections, they have tended in the past to center around at least moderately different methods of killing civilians, like arguing suicide bombings to be “worse” than airstrikes. In this case, however, it’s difficult to avoid equating the two incidents, since they both involve remarkably similar aircraft dropping remarkably similar ordinance on hospitals run by international aid groups.
Johnson also said it would be important to know what sort of “deals” the Obama Administration promised to other nations to join the coalition bombing Syria, though he conceded he was at a disadvantage on that point as, unlike his opponents, he was not given classified briefings on the matter.
Brilliantly written! Thank you so much! We are missing true journalism in today’s media!
Finally Gary, good for you.
A candidate who calls it like it is. Both refreshing and suicidal. What I have found in the rest of the media is that people who once called W the devil incarnate are supporting the person who was in charge of diplomacy for four years and instead used gunboat diplomacy. I find it appalling that the main stream media is actually calling him an isolationist for wanting to stop the bombing of innocent people.
How about for calling the end of support for the mercenaries(“terrorists”) that have caused death and destruction in Syria for FIVE years now? How about calling for the indictment on war crimes against people in the USG who have implemented these genocidal policies? The USA goes out and commits massive war crimes against anyone it pleases and then turns around and accuses other nations of doing the exact same thing when it is a big lie to begin with! Johnson should go a lot further with his criticism towards the forces that actually incubated the Syrian mess! He should put the Obama administration on the spot if he really wants to touch a nerve with the American public!
Funny how the mainstream media and some kook conservatives go hand in hand on foreign interventions: both believe that as God’s right hand anything America does is, by definition, the right thing. Thus equating American slaughter of civilians cannot be the same thing as any other country doing likewise.
Voting for the duopoly, which serves special interests, only perpetuates high drug costs, increasing debt, wars and loss of freedom.
Drop Taxes Not Bombs! #JohnsonWeld2016
study duverger’s law and try again
Study the history of the duopoly and join reality.
derp. duverger’s law explains the futility of railing against duopoly without first reforming our voting laws, so perect self-own
Instant Runoff/Ranked Choice voting seems to be gaining some small footholds (San Francisco and Maine, perhaps others).
Personally, I’d like to see states elect their US Representatives at large (one statewide election, all candidates on one ballot) rather than by district if coupled with ranked choice or approval voting.
yup yup
the new york times has become a rag,
read up on the comment section on anything to do with russia and you’d think you were reading the daily mail.
ya but even with the iraq war, there was some subtly and nuance to the allegations.
if today’s times where sent back in time 15 years the headline would be “Saddam behind zika virus” “iraqs nuclear weapons are ready to launch and targeting you!!!”
Thank you Gary Johnson!
The media will savage you, but you said the correct moral thing,
I pray you make it far in this election & help to bring about a needed civil rights issue of the day: 3rd party rights!!!
#LetGaryDebate
If only an ordinance was what was being dropped….
It’s only murder if Somebody Else kills. Everybody knows that and Nobody opposes it. (except people who are considered Nobody by the elitists)
Seems to be a substantial amount of Nobody. As in troll-speak quotes “Shut up, Nobody wants to listen to your drivel”. /quote
Jill not Hill.
Am in total agreement with condemnation of imperialist war crimes. Was simply pointing out that ordnance was misspelled.
Get a grip.
I didn’t criticize your pun. I thought it quite right. Grandpa was in ordnance for the Army, did engineer grade work for staff sergeant pay. I just usually don’t scroll up to get a “post a message” button, if there’s a “reply” link right there. Old habit from my dial-up days with a 486 and a crappy mouse.
The notion that the military has a definition of terrorism as using fear of violence to suppress legitimate political activities, apparently doesn’t have a reciprocal property. I get the “nobody wants to listen your drivel” crap a lot.
I laugh because the other party has run out of reasons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/us/politics/gary-johnson-campaign.html
NYT is assailing any one who might re-identify NYT being stuck in the same old compromising position that it assumed in Iraq war in Libyan war and in Yemeni war.
The chances of being caught red handed pants down bent forward posing nude for the next interventionist is very high .One needs only a computer with internet connection . It bashes those on the moral equivalence- a vague loaded and and pejorative word which provides American with sense of righteousness and automatic answer that closes the mind to exploration . NYT assails because by bashing it thinks it may silence those who will otherwise see and disclose the existence of profound moral degradation,moral decay,servility ,and dereliction of duties between a free media like NYT and the main news paper published in NK or Zimbabwe
That moral political ethical congruences can be seen between Syria and US. In one clamor of -No Moral Equivalence- NYT wants to redirect the crime from the crime scene to an abstract level.
NYT is quoting officials and most likely it is quoting itself,disclosing own fond dreams -when it talks of Russia getting into quagmire and being subjected to terroristic attacks by the Jihadist on Russian own soil. ( NYT on 10/5/16) But why would the Jihadist attack Russia? Russia has no freedom to hate,nodemocracy to hate,no way of life to hate .
True. And if some citizen of an “enemy state” says anything that sounds remotely like a threat to the security of the Empire he will be immediately branded an official of that country by the Sensationalists. I don’t think I coined a new term there. My autocorrect, which just corrected the word autocorrect or rather doesn’t recognize it, DID recognize Sensationalists. Damn it, I want to make up a word!
I think every time a cleric or postmaster in Iran or N Korea is quoted as being a Highly Placed Political Power-broker in his respective country and credited with “We will destroy the U.S. and its Zionist allies!” I come immediately back to reality because I remember bumper stickers that say “Bomb them back to the stone age” and a tee-shirt they sold at the BX about Strategic Air Command, bombers and missiles when I was in.
They had the SAC emblem and the official motto “Peace is our Profession” and under that “but killing is our hobby” That and Westboro Baptist Church.
But Gary didn’t claim “moral equivalence.” He said the US bombing was so much better!
I give him S(atisfactory) for sarcasm. If Jill weren’t on the ballot here in MN, I’d vote for him despite his support for corporate supremacy via TPP/ISDS. At least for him, Aleppo is a “known unknown,” so he doesn’t think he knows what’s best for whatever Aleppo is.
Foreign policy? Foreign to the Constitution for sure!