Jill Stein Supported Bombing Aleppo

On October 5, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein removed her previous statement on Syria (“Stein Opposes Obama’s Troops on the Ground in Syria”) and put in its place a very different statement (“Jill Stein on Syria”). Visitors to the previous statement’s URL do not encounter an error notice but are seamlessly redirected to the new statement.

It is as if her first Syria statement never happened.

Unfortunately for Stein, the internet never forgets. Her now-disappeared statement will always be available here.

Syria has become a pressing issue for presidential candidates thanks to the stepped up war crimes spree by the regime of Bashar al-Assad and his ally, Russia. The Syrian and Russian air forces are deliberately and illegally bombing hospitals and even Red Crescent humanitarian aid convoys in the rebel-held part of the country’s second-largest city, Aleppo, in their bid to re-take the area. As a result, there is an emerging bipartisan consensus in the U.S. on the need to set up no-bombing zones in the country so fleeing civilians do not have to become refugees and permanent outcasts in an increasingly xenophobic and alt-right-dominated Europe.

Up until October 5, Stein supported Russia’s and Assad’s war effort. Her now-deleted statement says:

“Stein said the US should be working with Syria, Russia, and Iran to restore all of Syria to control by the government rather than Jihadi rebels. Collaboration could lead to real success against ISIS. And it would stop the flow of refugees that is reaching crisis proportions in Europe.”

Bombing hospitals, obliterating entire neighborhoods to drive out rebels and the population, and starving civilians have been the principle mechanisms used by Assad’s regime to restore government control. Nearly 500,000 Syrians have been killed in the five-year long war and the regime is responsible for roughly 95% of the civilian deaths.

A President Stein would have worked with the forces committing the vast majority of the war crimes that are happening today in Syria.

A President Stein would have echoed Assad’s smear campaign lumping all rebels — who are nothing if not a mixed bag politically — together as jihadists.

Peace candidate Jill Stein supported bombing Aleppo — until people on Twitter started making a fuss about it on October 5. Then her old position disappeared down the memory hole and a new, neutral (albeit vacuous) position appeared in its place.

The only thing worse than Stein’s flip-flopping opportunism and her campaign’s 1984-style approach to its own history is her desire to work with war criminals in Syria achieve their aims.

A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump Assad.