Especially
appealing, in a presidential election cycle where foreign policy is likely to
be a major issue, is his purported opposition to our foreign policy of global
intervention: his votes against both Gulf wars stand out in stark contrast to
Hillary’s record.
Yet his real foreign policy record is closer to Hillary’s than he likes to
admit. Yes, he opposed the Iraq war – and then proceeded to routinely vote to
fund that war: ditto Afghanistan. In 2003, at the height of the Iraq war hysteria,
then Congressman Sanders voted
for a congressional resolution hailing Bush:
“Congress expresses the unequivocal support and appreciation of the nation
to the President as Commander-in-Chief for his firm leadership and decisive
action in the conduct of military operations in Iraq as part of the ongoing
Global War on Terrorism.”
As the drumbeat for war with Iran got louder, Rep. Sanders voted for the
Iran Freedom Support Act, which codified sanctions imposed since the fall of
the Shah and handed out millions to “pro-freedom” groups seeking the overthrow
of the Tehran regime. The Bush administration, you’ll recall, was running a
regime change operation at that point which gave covert support to Jundullah,
a terrorist group responsible for murdering scores of Iranian civilians. Bush
was also canoodling with the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a weirdo cult group
once designated as a terrorist organization (a label lifted by Hillary Clinton’s
State Department after a well-oiled public relations campaign).
Sanders fulsomely supported the Kosovo war: when shocked
antiwar activists visited his Senate office in Burlington, Vermont, he called
the cops on them. At a Montpelier public meeting featuring a debate on the war,
Bernie argued
passionately in favor of Bill Clinton’s “humanitarian” intervention, and pointedly
told hecklers to leave if they didn’t like what he had to say.
As a Senator, his votes on civil liberties issues
show a distinct pattern. While he voted against the Patriot Act, in 2006 he
voted in favor of making fourteen provisions of the Act permanent, including
those that codified the FBI’s authority to seize business records and carry
out roving wiretaps. Sanders voted no on the legislation establishing the Department
of Homeland Security, but by the time he was in the Senate he was regularly
voting for that agency’s ever-expanding budget.
-- Justin Raimondo, "Bernie Sanders: The Ron Paul of the Left?" (Antiwar.com).