1. How do you plan to cut US military spending by 50%? What specific programs would you cut to account for this reduction? (AHTribune interview)
Two places she named that she would start with (there would have to be much more) are foreign bases (she’d close them) and the U.S. nuclear weapons program.
2. What will you do about ISIS? (AHTribune interview)
So, what would President Jill Stein do about ISIS? She answered that question with no hesitation: “Number 1: we don’t stop ISIS by doing more of what created ISIS. This is like the elephant in the room that none of the other presidential candidates are willing to acknowledge, even Rand Paul, I might say, surprisingly. So we don’t bomb ISIS and try to shoot ISIS out. We’ve got to stop ISIS in its tracks by ending the funding of ISIS and by ending the arming of ISIS. How do we do that? We do that with a weapons embargo. And so the U.S. can unilaterally move forward on that, but we need to sit down and talk with the Russians as well, and Putin tried to do this.
“You know, Putin, our arch enemy Putin, was actually trying to create a peace process in Syria.We need to begin talking with Russia and with other countries. We need to build on our relative détente with Iran to engage them, and we need to bring our allies into the process. Right now, the peace process, as I understand it, is held up by, guess who — Saudi Arabia, who wants to bring in known terrorist groups as the representatives of the opposition. The Saudis should not be defining the way forward here … Our ally Turkey needs to understand that their membership in NATO or their position with the U.S. and other allies around the world should not be taken for granted, and that they cannot be in the business either of funding ISIS and related groups through the purchase of their oil [or of] shipping weapons. They also need to close down their border to the movement of the militias.”
3. What will you do about Syria? (RealClearPolitics interview)
The situation in Syria is complicated and disastrous, with an all-out civil war in Syria, and a proxy war among many powers seeking influence in the region. U.S. pursuit of regime change in Libya and Iraq created the chaos that promotes power grabs by extremist militias. Many of the weapons we are sending into Syria to arm anti-government militias end up in the hands of ISIS. In Syria it’s extremely difficult to sort out this complicated web of resistance fighters, religious extremists, and warlords with backing from regional and world powers.
The one thing that is clear is that U.S. meddling in the Middle East is throwing fuel on the fire.
I call for principled collaboration in bringing a weapons embargo to the region, freezing the bank accounts of countries that continue to fund terrorist groups, promoting a cease-fire, and supporting inclusive peace talks. The region is extremely complicated.
The best thing we can do for Syria, the Middle East, and the world is to de-escalate this conflict, and involve as many of the players as we can in that de-escalation.
RealClearWorld: The civil war in Syria has displaced millions. How would the Stein administration handle the Syrian refugee crisis?
Jill Stein: We would stop creating more Syrian refugees by ending the airstrikes and working intensively to establish and maintain a cease-fire. We would send humanitarian aid to Syria, and welcome Syrian families fleeing the civil war as refugees. This is the ethical and moral thing to do, and would signal a paradigm shift in our engagement with the Arab world.
4. Israel?
US policy regarding Israel and Palestine must be revised to prioritize international law, peace and human rights for all people, no matter their religion or nationality. End US policies that have supported the worst tendencies of the Israeli government in its treatment of the people of Palestine.
Read our official statement on Israel and Palestine here.
5. Saudi Arabia? (RealClearPolitics interview)
We would freeze the bank accounts of the Saudi government until they freeze the funding for terrorist groups that is coming from their country.
I would sign the bill to allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia. It would be a positive step forward not only for the families of 9/11 victims, but also for international law to allow victims of criminal violence to hold the perpetrators accountable regardless of international borders.
6. How would you handle enforcement of the Iran nuclear agreement? Would you seek better ties with the Iranian government, or work to further isolate the government in Tehran? (RealClearPolitics interview)
We support the Iran nuclear agreement as a step toward nuclear disarmament. We would seek better ties with the Iranian government, and take advantage of the moderate Rouhani administration’s openness to greater diplomatic engagement. By engaging the Rouhani administration, we seek to reduce the influence of Iran’s right-wing hardliners, and improve the prospects for human rights in Iran. We have no desire to “obliterate” Iran (as called for by Secretary Clinton), nor would we engage in belligerent rhetoric toward Iran, as Mr. Trump has done
7. Russia? (Vox interview)
How would we feel if Russia had its troops on our borders? And its missiles and its nuclear weapons? This is not the kind of world we need. It was actually the United States under Bill Clinton that withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty — that is the major framework for nuclear weapons disarmament. And Barack Obama created a whole new nuclear weapons arms race by investing a trillion dollars over the next couple of decades in a whole new generation of nuclear weapons and their modes of delivery.
Read our official statement on Russia here.
8. Ukraine? (Vox interview)
Well, Russian aggression meaning what, exactly? (References Crimea and Ukraine.) These are highly questionable situations. Why are we — Russia used to own Ukraine. Ukraine was historically a part of Russia for quite some period of time, and we all know there was this conversation with Victoria Nuland about planning the coup and who was going to take over.
Not that the other guy was some model of democracy. But the one they put in — with the support of the US and the CIA in this coup in Ukraine — that has not been a solution. Regime change is something we need to be very careful about. And this is a highly inflammatory regime change with a nuclear armed power next door.
9. NATO? (Vox interview)
In terms of NATO, I think NATO has become an end-run around a democratic process for deciding when we engage in foreign wars and when we don’t. We’re using NATO as an excuse — not only to duck congressional responsibility for approving a war budget, but also NATO is used to duck the UN process and international law that says we cannot go to war unless a nation is specifically threatened and directly threatened.
So for the United States to jump into other people’s wars, which are highly questionable — and where we are not at risk ourselves — I don’t think Americans want to be doing that. I think we need to be clear about NATO’s role, especially in creating a more dangerous world right now. Where NATO has been surrounding Russia with missiles, nuclear weapons, and troops.