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When Tulsi Gabbard announced her plans to run in the 2020 presidential election, I predicted that it would disrupt war propaganda narratives and force a much-needed conversation about US interventionism, but I didn't realize that it would happen so quickly, so ubiquitously, and so explosively. Gabbard officially began her campaign for president a mere three days ago, and already she's become the front line upon which the debate about US warmongering is happening. Even if you oppose Gabbard's run for the presidency, this should be self-evident to you by now.
This dynamic became more apparent than ever today in Gabbard's appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe, hosted by spouses Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. It should here be noted since we're talking about war propaganda that in 2009 Scarborough turned down an easy run for the US Senate because he decided that he could have more influence on public policy as the host of Morning Joe than he could as one of 100 US senators, which tells you everything you need to know about why I focus more on US mass media propaganda than I do on US politics. It should also be noted that Brzezinski is the daughter of the late Carter administration cold warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose influential ideas about US world domination, arming extremist factions to advance US interests, and hawkish agendas against Russia continue to infect US foreign policy to this day. Mika is part of a political dynasty, with both brothers being US political insiders as well.
So if you've ever wondered how outlets like MSNBC keep everyone on message and fully in alignment with the US war machine's agendas, there's a good insight into how. Combine that with the way they stock their punditry lineup with US intelligence community insiders and fire any pundit who refuses to toe the military-industrial complex line, and it's not hard to see how they've developed such a tight echo chamber of hostility toward any resistance to US interventionism. Which explains what we're about to discuss next.
Morning Joe's pile-on against Gabbard began when the subject of Syria came up, and panelist Kasie Hunt instantly began losing her sh*t.
"Do you think Assad is our enemy?" Hunt interrupted during Gabbard's response to a question about her meeting with Syria's president in 2017, her voice and face both strained with emotion.
"Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States," Gabbard replied.
"What do you say to Democratic voters who watched you go over there, and what do you say to military members who have been deployed repeatedly in Syria pushing back against Assad?" Hunt replied, somehow believing that US soldiers are in Syria fighting against the Syrian government, which would probably come as a shock to the troops who've been told that they are there to defeat ISIS.
Journalist Rania Khalek summed up this insanity perfectly, tweeting, "The journalist interrogating Tulsi seems to believe that US forces in Syria are fighting Assad. Tulsi corrects her, says those troops were deployed there to fight ISIS. These people don't even know what's happening in the places they want the US to occupy."
"This is such an embarrassing look at the state of corporate American regime media," tweeted journalist Max Blumenthal. "@kasie doesn't know the most basic facts about Syria and along with the smug co-hosts, doesn't care to learn."
And it didn't get any better from there. After Gabbard took some time to explain to a professional cable news reporter the basic fundamentals of the US military's official involvement in Syria, Scarborough interjected to ask if Assad isn't an enemy, would Gabbard at least concede that he is "an adversary of the United States."
Whatever the f*ck that means. What Assad is is the leader of a sovereign nation which has nothing to do with the United States and isn't taking anything from or harming the United States in any way.
Scarborough and Gabbard went back and forth about this stupid, nonsensical question before Brzezinski interjected to ask "So what would you say he is to the United States? If you cannot say that he's an adversary or an enemy, what is Assad to the U.S.? What is the word?"
"You can describe it however you want to describe it," Gabbard responded, explaining that whether a nation is adversarial or not comes down to whether or not they are working against US interests.
"Are Assad's interests aligned with ours?" asked Hunt.
"What are Assad's interests?" Gabbard countered.
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