STEIN: If you watched the debate the other night, you would have heard Trump saying that he's looking for collaboration with Putin. But I consider the threat of nuclear war not trivial at all, and this is one of the most clear and present dangers to our surroundings.
Q: Why is it more likely under Clinton, though? This is about Trump's hair-trigger temper generally, not just with Putin.
STEIN: Put it this way: The most likely nuclear threat right now is with Russia. And when you have Hillary Clinton then beating the war drums against Russia, and essentially saying that if she's elected that we will declare war on Russia--because that's what a no-fly zone over Syria amounts to. Shooting down Russian warplanes.
Q: Not if the Russians adhere.
STEIN: But our no-fly zone does not adhere to international law. Syria--for better or for worse--invited Russia there.
STEIN: Well, we already are taking a side in Yemen.
Q: But should we be?
STEIN: Yeah, we certainly should not be taking a side in Yemen. We are party to the war crimes that are being committed by Saudi Arabia, who's using cluster bombs made by us. And we've supplied $100 billion worth of weapons to the Saudis, who have been massively committing human rights abuses. It's against our own laws. The Leahy bill requires that we not sell weapons to human rights abusers. So just in accord with our own policies, we should not have anything to do with Yemen.
Q: What happens if the Houthis take over Yemen? If the U.S. disengages in Yemen, how does ISIS respond?
STEIN: Well, the point is, ISIS needs to be deprived of its nutrition and its life-blood. That's why we need to start an arms embargo, that's why we need to cut off the funding that flows through our allies, in particular.
STEIN: That certainly needs to be revisited, yes it does.[We should] work with Europe to transfer NATO to being a European defense organization that doesn't involve us. We're not funding it, we're not using it to do an end-run around the need for Congress to approve our foreign policy. We shouldn't be making foreign policy through NATO.
Q: You don't think that NATO gives us leverage in Europe, particularly in regards to Russia?
STEIN: We promised Gorbachev that we would not be moving one step to the east. Remember, the Warsaw Pact was the counterweight to NATO. The Warsaw Pact went away, and what did NATO do? NATO expanded and went east. We said we wouldn't move one inch to the east; we have.
Q: Countries were under Soviet control, though.
STEIN: That was the reason for NATO, right? That reason went away, yet NATO only got bigger. So it's really important not to think like the only show in town here.
STEIN: U.S. foreign policy based on regime-change and military intervention has been an utter disaster. It is exhausting our budget; it takes up 54 percent of our discretionary budget for a defense department, which is truly an offense department, and it takes almost half of your income taxes. And what do we have to show for it?
Q: How are you going to pull the troops back in a way that, for instance, won't allow Iraq to collapse? Obama promised to pull the troops back, tried to do it, got sucked in again.
STEIN: Well, right. Shouldn't have been in there in the first place. We are bombing seven countries right now. Yesterday we fired missiles at Yemen. I mean, there is no end to U.S. incursions. We have this terrific power of militarism, and we're doing it all over the place. So here's the solution: We need a weapons embargo in the Middle East, and we need to freeze the bank accounts of those countries who insist on funding terrorist extremism.
Jill Stein: We need Supreme Court justices who are ready to stand up for everyday people. That means to end the stranglehold that big money has on our political system. That means not only overturning Citizens United, but supporting that money is not speech and that corporations are not people. We need strong support for our rights as voters. The Supreme Court needs to be strongly in support of women's rights, the rights of immigrants, workers' rights and LGBTQ rights.
Hillary Clinton: It was a master class watching President Lincoln get the Congress to approve the 13th Amendment. President Lincoln was trying to convince some people, he used some arguments; convincing other people, he used other arguments.
Jill Stein: Hillary's public statement is that she is the friend to women and children, but, in fact, her actual track record is to dismantle Aid to Families with Dependent Children, to have supported NAFTA and the offshoring of our jobs, to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Hillary Clinton: I will not let anyone into our country that I think poses a risk to us. But there are a lot of refugees who are women and children.
Jill Stein: There is a refugee crisis created in large part by US military interventions. We need to do our part by taking in refugees.
Jill Stein: The Clintons' support for NAFTA destroyed millions of jobs, including in Mexico where many farmers became economic refugees.
Donald Trump: ObamaCare will never work. It's too expensive, and not only expensive for the person that has it, unbelievably expensive for our country. We have to repeal it. We have to get rid of the lines around the state, where we stop insurance companies from competing. We want competition. She wants to go to a single-payer plan, which would be a disaster.
Jill Stein: We need a Medicare-for-all system. 25 percent of healthcare costs are spent on wasteful paper pushing, on CEO salaries, on advertising, on exorbitant pharmaceutical costs like paying $400 for an EpiPen, which contains $1 worth of medication. Under an improved Medicare, that 25 percent overhead is reduced to 1 percent. It enables us to put our healthcare dollars truly into healthcare, so that you are covered, head to toe, cradle to grave.
Jill Stein: A no-fly zone means we'll be shooting down Russian planes.
Donald Trump: She talks tough against Russia. But our nuclear program has fallen way behind, and they've gone wild with their nuclear program. We're exhausted in terms of nuclear. A very bad thing.
Jill Stein: I don't know which is scarier, Hillary who wants to start an air war in Syria or Trump talking about more nuclear weapons.
Hillary Clinton: I intend to defeat ISIS to do so in a coalition with majority Muslim nations.
Jill Stein: If we want peace at home we need peace abroad. It's despicable for Trump to bash Muslims and Hillary to bomb them overseas.
|
The above quotations are from Second Presidential Debate, Oct. 9, 2016, moderated by ABC News' Martha Raddatz and CNN's Anderson Cooper.
Click here for main summary page. Click here for a profile of Jill Stein. Click here for Jill Stein on all issues.
Jill Stein on other issues: |
Abortion
|
Budget/Economy Civil Rights Corporations Crime Drugs Education Energy/Oil Environment Families Foreign Policy Free Trade
Govt. Reform
| Gun Control Health Care Homeland Security Immigration Jobs Principles/Values Social Security Tax Reform Technology/Infrastructure War/Iraq/Mideast Welfare/Poverty
Please consider a donation to OnTheIssues.org!
| Click for details -- or send donations to: 1770 Mass Ave. #630, Cambridge MA 02140 E-mail: submit@OnTheIssues.org (We rely on your support!) | |||||||