there's not really such a thing as an anti-intervention or pacifist left; the left advocates for violent revolution by definition, so an actual leftist is in a situation of determining what kind of struggle it wants to support and what kind of struggle that it doesn't want to support. it follows that you should be exceedingly skeptical of the motives of anybody that chooses isis as an example of a struggle to support, by not intervening - that is not a person that has social values that you want to give a platform to, but somebody that you should do everything you can to keep away from any kind of power; any leftist worth calling themselves such would categorically reject isis in the most violent terms possible, see them as an enemy that needs to be annihilated and be left with a decision over whether they want to fight against isis with or without the aid of imperial forces. that is, it's not a question about whether you want to fight isis or not - this is not debatable - but only a question of if you want to fight them with the empire, or carry on your own campaign against them. seeking dialogue with isis is equivalent to denouncing the left.

people that oppose war on moral grounds, by citing religion or conscientious objection, are not called leftists but are rather called conservatives (or sometimes progressives), and are on the right side of the political spectrum, not the left side of it. a socialist revolution would have absolutely no use for these people at all, whatsoever; they would probably end up in work camps.

so, the question is not whether bernie would support the use of force - of course he would, he calls himself a socialist - but whether you can justify his use of force or not, and i've yet to come up with much of an argument against him.

i never formed a strong opinion around kosovo, which i think is partly due to my age. i cite yugoslavia as my first conscious experience with dishonest government media; it was the first time i seriously questioned whether what these people were telling me is actually true or not. in the end, i had to conclude that because the claims were all around questionable (which is perhaps how my teenage mind interpreted the claim that the issue is very complicated), i didn't have enough evidence to form a meaningful position. i haven't really evolved this, because i haven't really had a good reason to. but, in principle, i would have supported the bombing campaign, if it was really intended to stop a genocide that was actually happening; the thing is that it is not at all clear how much of that is true and how much isn't - unlike in syria, where the atrocities by isis are well documented, and often carried out in public.

do people remember kosovo? well, i'm 38 and it's blurry. it's certainly a larger slice of the electorate than vietnam or nicaragua, but you're nonetheless going to lose at least half of most rooms by even bringing it up. further, my memory is that there was not an anti-war movement attached to the campaign, either. even keeping in mind that it was carried out by a democratic president, i did not encounter a lot of opposition to this war on the left, nor is it a situation that resonates as a mistake with many people today. so, this article appears to largely be shit-disturbing.

but, i think it's a reasonable discussion to have, nonetheless - because i would not vote for or support a pacifist for present, because i'm a leftist, rather than despite it; pacifism is a right-wing thing, not a left-thing one.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/06/23/bernie-sanders-foreign-policy-doctrine-227193