Politics

It's a sad state of affairs when some of the most influential voices in our country will label someone a lover or supporter of dictators simply because you're saying, "Hey, we shouldn't be going to war. There is another way." The following is a conversation with Tulsi Gabbard, who was a longtime Democrat, including being the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. She endorsed Bernie in 2016 and Biden in 2020. She has been both loved and heavily criticized for her independent thinking and bold political stances, especially on topics of war and the military industrial complex. She served in the US military for many years, achieving the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. And now she's the author of a new book called For Love of Country.

You've served in the US military for many years, achieving rank of Lieutenant Colonel. You were deployed in Iraq in 2004 and '05, Kuwait in '08 and '09. What lessons about life and about country have you learned from that experience of war? So many. Central to those lessons learned was having my eyes open to the very real cost of war.

What can you say about what the soldiers had to go through physically and psychologically when they get injured? The physical; some injuries appeared to be minor upfront. At that time, traumatic brain injury was not something that was talked about much, if at all. Many had visible wounds. Others are now what we know appeared like, "All right, cool, you checked out," but had invisible wounds. Those who were injured in a way that did not allow them to get back to work, found it emotionally very difficult to be put on a plane and evacuated out of there. Feeling guilty that they were leaving their friends behind, and not thinking about themselves or not feeling bad for themselves, but instead feeling bad for being forced to be in a position to leave.

You have been both a war hawk and a war dove at times. So what is your philosophy on when war is justified and when it is not? War is justified when it is in the best interest of our national security, and when it is the last resort, when all diplomatic efforts have been completed and exhausted and war is the last possible route that must be taken to ensure the safety, security, and freedom of the American people.

If we look at the perspective of Israel and the Israel-Gaza war going on now, what do you do with the fact that the death of a civilian serves as a catalyst, gives birth to hate, potentially generational hate? So in Israel's stated goal of destroying Hamas, they are creating immeasurable hate. What do you do with that? From a perspective of Israel, what is the correct action to take in response to October 7th? It's a complex question with a complex answer. I think Israel's approach has to be in recognizing that delineation as far as possible. And I know it's tough when you have a terrorist group like Hamas that is so interwoven within the community of people in Gaza. But to recognize that there should be, and there is a shared purpose there for the Palestinian people to be able to live free and in peace and not under the oppression of this terrorist group, just as the people of Israel would like to live in peace and free from the threat of attack from a terrorist group that wants to exterminate them.

What's the role of the US president perhaps to bring everybody to the table? Do you think that the US president should sit down with Zelenskyy and Putin together? Yes. Yes. In an ideal world, yes. This should have happened long ago. The question of whether or not President Biden is the right person to do that at this time when all of the statements and comments that they have made, the Biden-Harris administration has made from the beginning of this war essentially point to their objective being to basically destroy Russia, and that's one of the reasons why they have supported both the continuation of this war for as long as it's lasted, as well as why they have thwarted efforts towards peace.

You've met, and you've been criticized for this, you've met with Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and as part of the campaign when running for president, got criticized for not calling him a war criminal. What's the right way to meet and communicate with these kinds of leaders? As I just stated, we need leaders who have the courage to meet not just with allies, but with adversaries in the pursuit of peace, in the pursuit of increased understanding. If policies are being made through the lenses and the barriers of bureaucrats and the media and others who have or may have their own interests. Our president, a leader, even members of Congress can't make decisions with the kind of clarity that we the American people need them to make.

Well, let me ask you about the criticism you've mentioned. It's probably the most common criticism of you, that you love Putin. So just to linger on it, what do you think is the foundation of this criticism? Well, I'll tell you when it began. My first day in Congress was January 3rd, 2013. I believe it was the third, fourth, fifth, somewhere around there, and my last day was January 3rd, 2021. I had been given my experience of serving as a soldier in the Middle East, and the motivation that really drove me to run for Congress in the first place. I served on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Armed Services Committee for almost eight years, the eight years that I was there, with my drive and motivation to actually be in a position to challenge the influence of the military industrial complex, to try to prevent us from needlessly going to war.

I just talked to Annie Jacobsen. She wrote a book on nuclear war, a scenario of how a nuclear war will happen, second by second, minute by minute. I apologize. If it happens, how it would happen. It is terrifying. Yeah.

Can you actually explain that bill? Yes. I guess the bottom line upfront is this is another piece of legislation being expedited through Congress with strong bipartisan support in the name of national security interests that is essentially a power grab and an assault on freedom and liberty. And I'll just say this in, I think, probably the top three things that they're not actually telling us that's in the bill. Freedom of speech, it's our ability to be able to express ourselves, whether it be in person, on a podcast, on a social media platform, in a newspaper, whatever the platform may be. This legislation gives the executive the power to decide which platforms are acceptable for us to be able to use TikTok itself.

You were a long-time Democrat. You were the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, until you resigned in 2016 to endorse Bernie. I should say I love Bernie. I loved him before he was cool, all right? Anyway, can you go through what happened in that situation, and with the Democratic National Committee and with Bernie, and why you resigned? As a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, one of the things that the rules of the DNC required was that officers of the DNC, of which we were, as I think there were five or six of us who were vice chairs at the time, you have to remain neutral in a Democratic primary. So you're not as a party supposed to be tipping the scales in any direction for any candidate during a primary election. And so I had no plans to get involved for any candidate or against any candidate during that primary, and just the hopes of like, "All right, we got to make sure that this is a fair and balanced primary so that voters have the best opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choosing." I saw a couple of things pretty quickly. Number one is that the chair of the DNC at the time was a woman named Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a congresswoman out of Florida, and she made very serious decisions unilaterally that many times, we found out about via tweet or press release that showed she was tilting the scales in the favor of Hillary Clinton in that 2016 primary.

So to withstand the attacks is tough, and something about his psychology allows for that. I mean, I guess a question for you also in your own psychology, you've been attacked quite a bit. We've mentioned some of that sort of misrepresentations, and how do you deal with that by yourself? How do you not become cynical or overcompensate the other direction, that kind of stuff? It really stems from having a clear sense of purpose. I never saw... I've served in state government, I've served on our city council in Honolulu and served in Congress, but at no time have I seen this as a, quote, unquote, political career. I don't have that ladder-climbing ambition that a lot of politicians have. My sense of purpose is deeply rooted in my dedication and my desire in my life to be pleasing to God and to live a life of service. And what better way to be pleasing to God than to try to do my best to work for the well-being of God's children?

So you've spoken about the value of religious faith in your life, of your Hindu faith, and seeing the Bhagavad Gita as a spiritual guide. So what role does faith in God play in your life? It's everything. It is central to who I am, what inspires me, what motivates me, where I find strength, where I find peace, where I find shelter, and where I find happiness. And this has been a constant throughout times of challenge, times of darkness, times of heartbreak, times of happiness, in always feeling very secure in knowing that God's unconditional love is ever present, and no matter what else is happening in my life, that God is my best friend. And remaining centered and grounded in always remembering that and meditating upon that truth is it's everything to me.