Speaker 1: Alright guys, so the other day Mehdi Hasan interviewed Jill Stein, and there was a moment where Mehdi goes into classic I'm gonna grill you mode, and he basically says, look, here's your rhetoric on Netanyahu, and you're very clear, you're very unequivocal in your language, you know, he's a war criminal, cut off the weapons, arrest him, etc., all that stuff. But then when you get to Putin, the language is not as strong, it's not as clear-cut, and there's a little bit more equivocation, and so he says, like, is he a war criminal? And she kind of equivocates, and she goes, well, yeah, in so many words, he's a war criminal, but when we deal with adversaries, we want to put our best foot forward, we want to negotiate, etc., we want to get to peace, and so Mehdi did what Mehdi does, which is, I'm gonna grill you, I'm gonna hold your feet to the fire, if I smell any blood in the water or sense of contradiction in your worldview, I'm going in for the kill, right? And so that became a big moment, a lot of people talked about it. Well, Jill Stein, after the fact here, comes out and wants to correct the record, and so she says the following, we condemn all war criminals, including Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and many more. We also recognize the urgent need for diplomacy to prevent World War III. And then here she says, it's a long response, it's like an essay, but I'm gonna give you the first part, and then I'll sum up the rest of it. She says, after a recent interview, which did not provide the opportunity for nuanced and serious discussion of important and controversial topics, we want to take this opportunity to clarify our stance on key issues, particularly any misunderstandings regarding our comments about Putin and Assad. Our campaign condemns both Putin and Assad as war criminals responsible for immense suffering and devastation. Putin's military intervention in Syria, supporting Assad's brutal suppression of the Syrian people's uprising, is a stark example of his disregard for human rights. As advocates of peace and human rights, we condemn all war criminals, including Putin, Assad, Biden, Harris, Trump, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and so many others who are responsible for untold human suffering. We condemn Benjamin Netanyahu in the strongest terms for his ongoing atrocities in Gaza, which amount to genocide and war crimes. His actions, enabled by U.S. support, demand immediate and uncompromising accountability, ongoing U.S. support for genocide in Gaza, and the long list of U.S. wars since World War II, underscore the continuing relevance of Martin Luther King's observation that our country is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. And it basically goes on to say, like, look, I condemn all these war criminals, but also let's be clear, we are more responsible for certain ones than we are for other ones because we arm and fund certain ones. So Netanyahu in particular is our guy, he's our puppet, that's our client state, so we are more directly responsible because we arm them, we fund them, so the blood is also on our hands. So yes, we sort of prioritize, put that first and foremost, because we have the most sway with a country like Israel. We don't have as much sway as we have with a country like Russia. Russia is our enemy, so we don't have as much direct ability using soft power to change their direction. Okay? That's the gist of what she was saying. So it just comes out, corrects the record. I'm not, let me not equivocate, let me say very clearly, yes, Assad's a war criminal, Putin's a war criminal, Netanyahu, etc., etc., etc. Okay. Is there anything wrong with this statement? No. I see nothing wrong with this statement. I mean, I would just add on top of it that, of course, there's a scale of how war criminal-ish each war criminal is, and you have to get into a nuanced discussion about the specific actions of each individual person on this list to have a real serious conversation about how much of a criminal they are, right? I think that's obvious. I think that goes without saying. I think the only criticism you can have of this comment is that there's a little bit of a false equivalence, if you will, where, you know, when you equate people like Barack Obama to Benjamin Netanyahu, by any standard sober analysis, Barack Obama is much less of a war criminal than Netanyahu, although he is still a war criminal, right? It's like, he did some good things, like normalization with Cuba and the nuclear deal with Iran, right? So there's a scale, there's a spectrum, but nonetheless, overall, I really don't have a problem with this comment. I actually think it's correct. I understand why she did it. It makes sense. She wants to clarify. Basically, the whole, the comment here is like, I'm not an idiot. I agree Putin is bad and Assad is bad. That's what she's doing. Okay. Well, the absolute dumbest, most brain poisoned internet freak you've ever seen in your life come out of the woodworks here and they are outraged about Jill Stein's comments. So who do we have? Jackson Hinkle says, fuck you. Only a lying Zionist piece of shit would put presidents Putin and Assad in the same sentence as Netanyahu. Wow. So by the way, Jill Stein, like the main thrust of her campaign now has become around Gaza, around the genocide. And everything she's saying is indicating this is what needs to stop now. We need to cut off the money. We need to cut off the weapons. We need to arrest Netanyahu. We got to uphold international law and humanitarian law. This is what she's saying. He says she's a lying Zionist piece of shit. And why does he say that? Because in Jackson Hinkle's mind, bro, Putin and Assad are not, they're not even war criminals, bro. They're not even, they're the good guys. Look, I told you guys this the other day. Let me reiterate it because it's super important. When it comes to foreign policy, you have the neocons, right? America and our allies good and the enemies, our enemies bad. And that's as deep as it goes, right? Everything else is window dressing. That's their actual belief. US and our allies good, our official enemies bad. But you have this weird thing that happens with some on the far left, and I call it their inverted neocons. What they do is it's the mirror image of what I just told you. So for them, it's US enemies are good, full stop, and US allies and us, we are bad, full stop. You're just the mirror image of the neocon. You're an inverted neocon. Obviously, the correct position is, as a general rule, any government with a lot of power is going to be bad, and they're going to abuse their power, especially when it comes to foreign policy stuff. And you have to evaluate everything objectively and empirically and say, okay, what actions have been done here that are good or bad? And of course, you can find actions by every government, whether they're US linked or not. They have the same sort of human nature and corruption and power struggles and incentive structures, etc. And they deny that and act like all US enemies are heavenly, and US and our allies are all bad. You're just an inverted neocon. All right, George Gallup, you didn't have to do this. It is a mistake. If you don't run, they can't chase you. Yeah, but she's coming out to say something that's accurate. Like, yeah, okay, I equivocated, but the fact of the matter is Putin is a war criminal, and so is Assad. That's correct. That's correct. They are war criminals. Imagine denying that. Look, let's be clear. You don't need to be in favor of war against those countries, right? You don't need to be in favor of intervention against those countries to call a spade a spade and say, I'm not in favor of war with Russia. I wasn't in favor of war with Syria. I wasn't even in favor of Obama's soft power arming the rebels because a lot of them turned out to be jihadists. You can have that position and also point out the fact that Assad is still a war criminal, that Putin is still a war criminal. NATO didn't invade Russia, but Russia did invade Ukraine. Okay? Let's use our common sense here. Let's use our reason here. When it comes to Assad, you go look at the numbers, guys. There's a wide range in terms of what they say the results were of the Syrian civil war, but it's over 300,000 people who were killed. Over 300,000, over 100,000 innocent civilians killed. And I'm using very conservative numbers here. And according to basically every serious estimate I've seen, most of the civilian deaths were done by Assad, by the Assad regime. They're the ones who killed most civilians. It's totally true that some of the rebels were extremists and they were jihadists and they were bad people. But it's also true that the Assad government killed massive numbers of civilians, including with torture in prisons. When did it become controversial to just state basic facts about the war, learn the basic facts, and then repeat them to people? Yes, a lot of the rebels were jihadists and al-Nusra Front, and that's bad, and we shouldn't arm them, we shouldn't support them, etc. Agreed. But also, Assad is no fucking angel, and he also massacred a lot of civilians in the process of the war, which means he's a war criminal. Right? I think that these people feel like if you acknowledge reality and say, yes, Assad's a war criminal, they feel like that then serves, that the next step that logically follows is, it is correct for us to do war against them, or at least fund people who are against them. It's just a rational and moral thing to do. But that doesn't follow. You know, there is a position of just non-interventionist. Let's mind our business. Let's stay out of it. That is a position. You can actually take that position while objectively describing what's happening on the ground. Alright, more. Anya Parampil says, this is an awful statement. Awful. It's awful. Vladimir Putin, a war criminal, with the restraints that he has had, with all the U.S.-NATO encroaching upon the Russian- oh my god- with the restraints that he has had, with the U.S. creating disaster in Ukraine, putting the Slavic brothers against each other, with the- okay, this guy genuinely believes poor Vladimir Putin is just waging a defensive war. Vladimir Putin gave a speech when he announced the invasion, and in the speech he said, look, we're not in favor of the Soviet Union, but yeah, we think Ukraine is a fake state, and we would like to reestablish a Russian empire. That is a naked imperialist ambition. Yes, he also does the tap dance where he gives his long list of excuses and says, oh, bro, this is totally, like, defensive and stuff, and we're just- we feel threatened by NATO. Why is it that when the U.S. gives bullshit justifications for an offensive invasion they do, all these people can call it out, but when Russia gives a list of bullshit justifications and rationalizations for their war, all of a sudden they shut their brain off and they believe everything the Russian government says at face value? That makes no fucking sense. That makes no sense. If you're willing to see through the propaganda of the U.S. and our allies, why are you not willing to see through the propaganda of Assad or Putin? Of course you should be able to do that. But no, they take what they say at face value, but they're against everything we say at face value. This would be as stupid as saying, we were fighting Saddam Hussein because he was linked to 9-11, and he had weapons of mass destruction, and he was gonna attack us. It's like believing that lie about the U.S. going to war in Iraq, that's what it's- all the stuff this guy's repeating back, it's like he's believing that, but vis-a-vis Russia. Every bullshit- we are denazifying Ukraine. Imagine thinking Vladimir Putin is seriously trying to denazify Ukraine, like that's why he invaded Ukraine. It has a lot more to do with believing Ukraine is a fake state, and also wanting to take their natural gas, right, was it oil or natural gas? I think natural gas. It has a lot more to do with that, right? But no, when Russia says it's defensive, they go, oh, it's defensive, I agree. This person says, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, did you ever swing and miss on that one? Is this you taking the safe way out? Oh my god. They are still going to call you a Russian puppet even if you repeat their lies about Putin, Jill. Lies about Putin. So it's a lie to say Putin's a war criminal? It's a lie to say Putin's a war criminal. Even though he has bombed civilian areas, he has killed women and children in innocent meds? He has? He did wage an offensive invasion against Ukraine? By the way, let's repeat this again for the people in the back. Did Ukraine invade Russia before Russia invaded Ukraine? Did Ukraine invade Russia? That's right, they didn't. Did NATO invade Russia? That's right, they didn't. They did build up on the border, that's true. But do these people really believe, yeah, in a week NATO was going to, you know, fly fighter jets into Moscow and try to take it over? No fucking serious person believes that. No serious person believes that. So in other words, Russia does the offensive and aggressive thing and they all shut their minds off. No, it is defensive because he says it's defensive and I believe everything that comes from the Russian government at face value. No, use the same skepticism you use when the US government says something, use it for Russia. Use it for Syria. Use it for all governments that are doing some form of an aggressive action. All right, more. I think you lost a good part of your base on this one, on forced air. Well, good for Jill then. Because these people are the problem. This is one of many reasons why the left is not viewed as serious. This is one of many, many reasons why that's the case. Because you really are, at this point, these people are just inverted neocons. That's it. They're just inverted neocons. If the neocons believe US and our allies good, our enemies bad, they believe US and our allies bad and our enemies good. That is so fucking stupid. You're just as dumb as Bill Kristol. You're just as dumb as David Frum. You've just mirror imaged their worldview. You're just an inverted neocon. So from now on, everybody needs to call these people inverted neocons. And you got to give credit to Jill Stein. She probably knew when she was going to say this, it was going to piss off a lot of the absolute brain worm online freaks that support her. But she said it and she was right to say it. She was right to say it. Because most people know, yeah, the US and our allies, we commit a lot of crimes. We do a lot of horrible shit and we should call that out every step of the way. But that doesn't mean we give a pass to other countries that also commit crimes and do horrible things and use their power for negative things in the world. I mean, Jesus Christ, man. Unbelievable. So there you have it. Who would have thought that saying something as simple as like, yes, Assad and Putin are war criminals, who would have thought that that could lead to a meltdown among the absolute dumbest people on the planet? And again, to be clear, if you say that, that doesn't then mean you are justifying US militarism against them. No, you're not. No, you're not. I'm not in favor of US militarism against those countries. Neither is Jill Stein. But we're also willing to call a spade a spade. And clearly, clearly, these people aren't.