Bernie Sanders right in opposing military-industrial complex

Award-winning investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed has observed:

"The truth staring us in the face is that the Paris attacks offer incontrovertible proof that all our efforts at ruthlessly flushing out terror through mass surveillance, drone strikes, air strikes, ground troops, torture, rendition, the Prevent agenda, and so on and so forth have produced the opposite result. ...

"We have spent well over $5 trillion on waging the 'war on terror,' not just in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, but across the Middle East. Over that period U.S. State Department data shows that terror attacks have skyrocketed by 6,500 percent, while the number of casualties from terror attacks has increased by 4,500 percent." ("ISIS wants to destroy the 'Grey Zone,' Here's How We Defend it").

It is not surprising that journalist A. Atwan has observed:

It was the "American invasion of the Middle East -- Iraq, in particular -- that created the best environment for the Islamic State and for al-Qaida to continue their savagery, their terrorism, their brutalism against the people of the region." (Democracy Now interview, Nov. 17)

Bernie Sanders, far more than any other presidential candidate, has recognized this reality. In the recent Democratic Party presidential debate, Bernie Sanders profoundly observed: "I would argue that the disastrous invasion of Iraq, something that I strongly opposed, has unravelled the region completely and led to the rise of Al-Qaida and to ISIS."

Bernie Sanders is unalterably opposed to the military industrial complex that profits from war. A key part of the solution in the Middle East is the elimination of U.S. indirect funding of ISIS through our "allies" such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, who funnel massive amounts of money to ISIS and receive massive amounts of U.S. financial aid. Go Bernie.

Robert Phillipoff

Bradenton

This story was originally published November 25, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Bernie Sanders right in opposing military-industrial complex ."