Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) introduced a resolution to the House of Representatives on October 31st titled, “Directing the President pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution to remove United States Armed Forces from hostilities in the Syrian Arab Republic that have not been authorized by Congress.”
The idea of the bill is to remove any troops in Syria that do not have Congressional approval to be there, which is all of them. The resolution says, “Congress has not declared war with respect to, or provided any specific statutory authorization for, United States military participation in any activity related to securing, guarding, possessing, profiting off of, or developing oil fields in northern Syria. All of these actions are unconstitutional.”
The resolution also points out that President Trump’s new plan to stay in Syria to “secure the oil” is a flagrant violation of international law. The resolution says, “Oil, natural resources, and land in Syria belong to the Syrian people, not the United States.”
Although the House was quick to condemn Trump’s withdrawal from northeast Syria to avoid a confrontation with Turkey, his new plan to “secure the oil” has not come under much scrutiny. The language in Gabbard’s bill would make it tough for any member of Congress to argue against it.
Tulsi Gabbard- accused of being “Russian influenced”, yet, is a true patriot compared to the minions of the MIC who would have us embroiled in one undeclared war after another.
The only justification for U.S. troops in Syria is the assertion that Bashar Assad(like Maduro in Venezuela) is not the “legitimate” leader of the country- otherwise the presence of un-invited troops would be an act of war. And the explanation I received from Sen. Cornyn, while never addressing this issue, puts everything in terms of “fighting terrorism”. Ditto denying Assad, or the Syrian people access to their own oil fields- never even mentioned:
“The U.S. is committed to defeating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its associated forces. On October 17, 2014, the Department of Defense established Combined Joint Task Force—Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), which includes a coalition of 81 countries in a common mission to defeat ISIS’ military forces in Iraq and Syria. CJTF-OIR is designed to increase regional stability and deter the spread of ISIS’ radical ideology. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) play a crucial role in CTJF-OIR and have been one of the U.S.’s most important allies in the battle against ISIS. I fully support CJTF-OIR, and I believe that while we must defeat the military power of ISIS, we must also defeat the ideology of ISIS in order to stem the global flow of foreign fighters and radicalized jihadists.”
The U.S. has no justification to be in Syria regardless of the ‘legitmacy’ of the Syrian government.
Unless Syria undertakes an act of war against the U.S., but they haven’t.
Please tell that to Sen. Cornyn, and also Daniel Akaka Hawaii 1990
Lamar Alexander Tennessee 2007
Michael Farrand Bennet Colorado 2009
Jim Webb Virginia 2007
Max Baucus Montana 1978
Dan Coats Indiana 2011
Mike Lee Utah 2011
Chris Coons Delaware 2010
Jeff Bingaman New Mexico 1983
Roy Blunt Missouri 2011
Barbara Boxer California 1993
Davit Vitter Louisiana 2005
Jerry Moran Kansas 2011
Rand Paul Kentucky 2011
Jon Tester Montana 2007
Joe Manchin West Virginia 2010
Mark Udall Colorado 2009
Maria Cantwell Washington 2001
Thomas Carper Delaware 2001
Sheldon Whitehouse Rhode Island 2007
Saxby Chambliss Georgia 2003
Kirsten Gillibrand New York 2009
Thad Cochran Mississippi 1978
Al Franken Minnesota 2009
Susan Collins Maine 1997
John Cornyn Texas 2002
Kent Conrad North Dakota 1992
Bob Menendez New Jersey 2006
James E. Risch Idaho 2009
Mike Crapo Idaho 1999
John Thune South Dakota 2005
Amy Klobuchar Minnesota 2007
Sherrod Brown Ohio 2007
Richard Blumenthal Connecticut 2011
Kay Hagan North Carolina 2009
Tom Udall New Mexico 2009
John Hoeven North Dakota 2011
Richard Durbin Illinois 1997
Richard Burr North Carolina 2005
Dean Heller Nevada 2011
Mike Enzi Wyoming 1997
Ron Johnson Wisconsin 2011
Dianne Feinstein California 1992
Mark Kirk Illinois 2010
Bob Corker Tennessee 2007
Marco Rubio Florida 2011
Lindsey Graham South Carolina 2003
Chuck Grassley Iowa 1981
Jeanne Shaheen New Hampshire 2009
Mike Johanns Nebraska 2009
Tom Harkin Iowa 1985
Orrin Hatch Utah 1977
Jim DeMint South Carolina 2005
Kay Bailey Hutchison Texas 1993
James Inhofe Oklahoma 1994
Daniel Inouye Hawaii 2010
Bernie Sanders Vermont 2007
Tim Johnson South Dakota 1997
Scott Brown Massachusetts 2010
John Kerry Massachusetts 2009
Herb Kohl Wisconsin 1989
Jon Kyl Arizona 1995
Mary Landrieu Louisiana 1997
Frank Lautenberg New Jersey 2003
Patrick Leahy Vermont 1975
Carl Levin Michigan 1979
Joseph Lieberman Connecticut 1989
John Boozman Arkansas 2011
Roger Wicker Mississippi 2007
Richard Lugar Indiana 1977
John McCain Arizona 1987
Mitch McConnell Kentucky 1985
Barbara Mikulski Maryland 1987
Johnny Isakson Georgia 2005
Lisa Murkowski Alaska 2002
Patty Murray Washington 1993
Ben Nelson Nebraska 2001
Bill Nelson Florida 2001
Tom Coburn Oklahoma 2005
Mark Pryor Arkansas 2003
Jack Reed Rhode Island 1997
Harry Reid Nevada 1987
Pat Roberts Kansas 1997
Jay Rockefeller West Virginia 2009
Bob Casey, Jr. Pennsylvania 2007
Benjamin Cardin Maryland 2007
Charles Schumer New York 1999
Jeff Sessions Alabama 1997
Richard Shelby Alabama 1987
Jeff Merkley Oregon 2009
Olympia Snowe Maine 1995
Patrick Toomey Pennsylvania 2011
Debbie Stabenow Michigan 2001
Mark Begich Alaska 2009
Kelly Ayotte New Hampshire 2011
Claire McCaskill Missouri 2007
John Barrasso Wyoming 2007
Rob Portman Ohio 2011
Mark Warner Virginia 2009
Ron Wyden
(I’d add the House members but my typewriter ribbon does not have enough ink.)
I suppose I could, but they operate from a different logical ruleset not based on objective morality that then corrupts their material senses.
America’s extralegal wars are a sacred bull, a manifestation of faith in exceptionalist destiny. Getting away with murder become an entitlement, and, not getting away with murder means try harder.
Sunday School went the way of the tooth fairy and Santa Clause.
You’re absolutely right, Brockland. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad invited only Russia, Iran and Hezbollah to help his forces defeat ISIS and other Jihadists who were terrifying the Syrian populace .. US and all other forces who entered Syria did so illegally and must withdraw entirely. NO EXCUSES.
Russia, Iran and Hezbollah did a fantastic job of defeating ISIS and other Jihadists – both from the air and on the ground. It was Obama who deployed a few thousand US troops into Syria – not to defeat ISIS and other Jihadists – but to prevent Russia, Iran and Hezbollah from doing so (he also funded and sent arms to these Jihadists).
After JDT assumed office in January of 2017 that he put a stop to the funding/arming of ISIS and other Jihadists, allowing Assad and his allies to eliminate the vast majority of them. He wanted to withdraw all US troops from Syria, but Pompous Pompeo and Bonkers Bolton – along with Bonkers’ buddy, Israeli PM Bibi Nutty&Yahoo – sabotaged that agenda.
You’re morally right; now how to translate that into binding domestic legal statutes.
Once the U.S. signed onto UN Charter and Geneva Conventions at the Executinve and Legislative levels, they became part of the U.S. Constitution like any other international treaty.
Like other treaties as in trade and commerce, they should be able to serve as guides for domestic statutes. Unlike those other treaties, they are more or less ignored and left to the Executive to interpret.
Syria did not pose a threat to the security of the United States. Assad’s army played a major role in the defeat of ISIS.
Syria posed a threat to U.S. hegemony by being independent of that hegemony. Being independent of Israel as well was even worse.
The ‘security of the United States’ does not mean what most rational people would think those words mean.
Nor does “national interest” It took 20 years slogging in the trenches and steaming jungles (and earning not one but two Medals of Honor in the process) before the great Gen. Smedley Butler concluded that “national interests” meant “corporate interests,” and went on to write War is A Racket (free at Gutenberg dot org.)
It is great that Tulsi introduced this bill.
It is sad that there are no cosponsors – not a one- as of this moment at day’s end, Nov. 3.
If her bill raises some intelligent discussion in the House and produces some clear laws on warmaking, sure, but that’s not likely,
At this point, the Constitution itself needs a tweak.
No, Congress simply(sounds simple, if they were not subject to the effects of Blackmail Island) has to rescind the War Powers Acts that it unconstitutionally fobbed off to Presidents so that the people can remove the warmongers at the ballot box. To me it is amazing that the American housewife, who sees the inflation due to the relentless expansion of the national debt in the supermarket has not turned off The View and picked up the pickets. The Vietnam Veterans Against War used to get front page coverage, along with Father Berrigan, when they chained themselves to the White House gates- now they are relegated to page 12 if at all. This is truly a Lysistrata moment, and Tulsi is one of the few women with Grecian gravitas.
The WPA could probably be rescinded, but the AUMF is the higher priority for rescension as its still in-play, whereas the WPA is just a dead law that gets poked every now and them for appearances.
Remember the biblical story about Lot , Abrahams brother , and Sodom and Gamora . The angels asked lot can you find me one just man ? Tulsi Gabbard can not find one just man in all of congress either . And she is a Hindu with a Christian upbringing
“The language in Gabbard’s bill would make it tough for any member of Congress to argue against it.”
Wrong, assuming it doesn’t die from neglect, this bill will be fought tooth and nail by all parties in Congress.
More importantly, Gabbard may highlight serious deficiencies in Constitutional and statute law most dishonest but thinking elites would much rather keep hidden.
Theft of Syrian oil is directly funding the 2020 re-election campaigns of NeoLibs, GOP and Trump himself. The Russian Defense ministry said the sales go into accounts run by Goldman Sachs, to the islands, to defense industry firms – then, of course, to campaign coffers. Virtually all members of Congress are corrupt to the core. There is no remedy, accept it and realize there is no hope for change. The Constitution has failed. The American experiment has yielded its results. The future is corporate tyranny, with the US government in a subservient role as magistrate between the private banking empire and the masses. War is coming against the few remaining states who resist global hegemony, and the masses are expendable casualties. The private banking/corporate empire has been preparing for this day, building far-flung compounds and underground compounds that will withstand the destruction. Those who are invited to survival are bought and paid for. They have been promised inclusion in the new technological age that will emerge from the ashes of the former civilization. Exploration of space, longer life, and personal freedom of travel is not going to be shared with the masses. They have this power now, and have decided not to keep up appearances anymore. It is coming and we will all be swept into the maelstrom.
You forgot one vital thing, antarcticus, the Lord God Almighty has plans that’ll thwart all the plans of the private banking empire. Do you really believe any of those compounds and underground compounds will withstand the devastation? Not according to God’s plans.
Underground compounds need air-conditioning systems for these psychopaths to survive ,, However, they won’t be running for long. The electricity will go out, and within a few hours, the air within these compounds will be so stifling that the inhabitants will be gasping for breath and dying.
after…. which doesn’t help us.
Ambassador Kuch,
It would be a shame for God almighty ruin a good planet. Maybe have his Annunaki minions back for a “correction” phase.
Very dark, antarcticus. Hope you are wrong.
For one thing, the US is in decline, China is on the rise, and THEY will configure the global future. So if we’re headed for a “Hunger Games” situation, I would predict it to be mostly local.
The US is not in decline according to their terms. It is doing exactly what it is impelled to do, just slow enough, and just fast enough. Plausible deniability must be maintained to the end.
… Thirty million buys all that?
The 9/11 wars will cost 6.7 trillion by 2023.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Crawford_Costs%20of%20War%20Estimates%20Through%20FY2019%20.pdf
Add to that $3.9 trillion in losses to GDP by 2025 as the U.S. will not be spending the $4.6 trillion needed to fix domestic infrastructure.
https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/ASCE-Failure-to-Act-2016-FINAL.pdf
But okay. What a deal.
“deficiencies in Constitutional and statute law”. No one in DC cares.
Worse, neither does anyone else, except the War Party brain trust.
The War Party does has over time identified and exploited seemingly every loophole in the the Constitution and international law adopted into the Constitution, to fine tune extralegal war.
Kind of impressive, that dark use of intellect.
I saw some people already complaining because they say the Syrian people means Assad shouldn’t benefit.
Really strange when a simple common sense solutions that the whole world knows will work can’t possibly be even heard in our government .
Gabbard’s bill is as flawed as Sanders’ Yemen Joint Resolution. There is no direct Constitutional remedy for wars undertaken outside a Declaration of War. The possibility was never fully envisioned.
The early U.S. legislators barely accepted a standing military, let
alone foresaw one that could never be practically defunded. However,
defunding appears to have been the only remedy.
The power to defund the military is too clumsy to direct at particular operations whose costs can be hidden and dispersed throughout the DoD.
Recognizing the AUMF pretty much scuttles Gabbard’s bill, and trying to make the War Powers Act work has been a dead end for decades. If this gets as far as a Trump veto, but this time the veto is overridden, he could ask the Supreme Court to annul the bill. Apart from being a conservative court and likely war partiers, they have little legal reason not to as there are no domestic statues translating internationally defined war crimes into domestically applicable statutes.
Gabbard would need to instead introduce a clarification of the AUMF with regards to Yemen to exclude it entirely from its scope, or better yet rescind the AUMF, not try and wrangle with the convoluted wording of the War Powers Resolution. This has all been danced before, to Obama by the RINOs.
https://www.npr.org/2011/06/16/137222043/why-the-war-powers-act-doesnt-work
Still, the fundamental problem remains; the Founding Fathers never envisioned fighting wars without a declaration of war so made no remedies against such.
There were constant hostilities with American Indians, but their nations weren’t considered worthy of civil recognition. Therein lies the genesis of modern America’s forever wars; the rest of the world is ‘Injun country.
In fact, a formal declaration of war has only been issued 11 times in U.S. history, all against pedigreed, peer nation states, taking advantage of international law and populist morality in anticipation of victory.
http://outsidethewire.armytimes.com/2014/06/17/how-many-times-has-the-u-s-declared-war-see-all-11-declarations/
This despite the United States being at war throughout most of its history.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/america-has-been-at-war-93-of-the-time-222-out-of-239-years-since-1776/5565946
A declaration of war has legal consequences (sort of); ironically this disincentivizes the aggressor and victim from declaring war. The aggressor commits a formal crime, but the loser commits to legal defeat and dispossession.
Again, with the constitution, it can be fixed, the way it was broken. As much as the war on terror authorization was a bogus law, it was accepted as such by so many, it became reality. If this bill reaches trumps desk, what are his possible dangers in signing and getting out ? Impeachment ? Again, lol.
The danger is, the fundamental problem won’t be solved but made worse.
We’re not at war with Russia not because they can nuke us back, but because we have a President who would oppose risking one and can anticipate red line traps.
This Congress cannot be given the ability to direct Executive interpretation of war legislation and guide warmaking. The precedent to order specific withdrawals, can also be used to demand specific interventions. The Continuity of Government (COG) shadow government may be trying to institute workarounds to losing a Presidency.
The war problem in the Constitution is not a break; its something between an omission and a feature.
Your casual treatment of fundamental law – “fix it like it was broken” (!?) – suggests there’s a reason why the rest of the Constitution was broken over a Democratic-dominated 20th century and Democrats like Obama enshrined the AUMF RINOs like Bush II should never have signed into law.
By and large, the current potus is no different from the others who proceeded him. The problem is thinking the sun rises and sets in America’s arse. Time to join the human race, such as it is.
The drug of exceptionalism is a tough habit to break.
The U.S. may never accept being just another nation-state, backed by the power of geographically matching the definition of being a Mackinderan world heartland.
Trump perfectly reflects the U.S. so well, half the country can’t stand the unvarnished truth while the other half embraces Trump unapologetically.
Gawd, “dem wars” again…I’ve posted AUMF congressional votes here enough times that Thomas may start marking it as spam. Seems like you can read Brock, check all AUMFs back to rockets and enlighten yourself.
Rhinos, that’s a hoot, like “neocons”….in three biggies in the ME, Iraq 1, Terror, and Iraq 2, you can fit all the gop nay voters in a non-handicapped port a pottie.
At some point noble failure becomes ignoble. The Dems remarkably can’t win against the war machine even with a star such as Barrack Obama. There was nothing the Republicans could do to actually stop Obama. Withdrawing from the 9/11 wars or at least closing Gitmo would have been far easier than passing Obamacare.
Democratic sabotage of Trump’s peace initiatives is today’s farce to the tragedy of Nixon’s sabotage of Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam peace efforts. The Vietnam war had to end; Nixon stole that prize at the cost of the thousands of lives delaying peace.
Except, of course, there’s to real guarantee that a future Dem regime would end the 9/11 wars as Nixon did Vietnam. Watergate was a real crime, and Nixon paid an appropriate price, but one can’t help but feel ending Vietnam was his real crime to the political elites. Ukrainegate isn’t even a real crime today.
Trump was elected in large part to end the wars. Losing the popular vote by such a slender margin does not change that since ostensibly most progressives who voted Democrat, also want to end the 9/11 wars.
Sorry, the trump I heard, was “win the wars, so much winning” the only time I ever heard him criticize wars was when Bush3 was onstage, or later when some neocon criticized him. I guess you hear what you choose to hear.
And still, no new wars.
—–
There is no direct Constitutional remedy for wars undertaken outside a Declaration of War. The possibility was never fully envisioned.
The early U.S. legislators barely accepted a standing military, let
alone foresaw one that could never be practically defunded.
—–
The founders and early legislators seem to have been fine with a standing navy, just not a standing army — and that standing navy got to work on undeclared wars almost immediately (e.g. the “Quasi-War” of 1798-1800 with France and the first and second Barbary Wars).
Waging declared wars was not the only task of the US Navy. Keeping trading lanes safe and open was important and a permanent need hence a Navy consisting of State Navy “Militia’s” to be activated as needed made no sense. The Navy was needed all of the time.
All empires need a navy, of course.
You don’t need to be imperial-minded to want an effective Navy. The War of 1812 had a lot to do with England’s practice of impressing U.S. seamen into service with the British Navy, and right up to 1917 the British were seizing U.S. merchant vessels they, as neutrals, had every right to be sending in trade of agricultural, not military goods (Britain took the illegal attitude that anything that might help Germany was “contraband”) and would not listen to anything but force.
True. The Dutch and British Navies also regularly “showed the flag” just to advise potential enemies “we are around here, don’t make troubles.” The Dutch also used their Navy to capture a Spanish “silverfleet.”
The young USA had plenty of superb wood for shipbuilding [1]. Do you know where the ingredients for the cannon came from? Especially tin.
We probably already had sufficient designers and shipbuilders. If not they could always be imported from the Netherlands.
[1] Many years ago when I walked through a wood in Pennsylvania I noticed a tree into whose trunk a crown was engraved (or painted, I forgot). That tree (I believe that it was a white oak) had been reserved as a superb mast for the British Navy. You could be executed if you cut it for your private use. It survived many wars.
Or, in other words, early US legislators were just fine with a standing military — of one particular type.
The first US war was undeclared. It was the Quasi-War with France, 1798, fought by our second President, John Adams, with a Navy he raised for the purpose.
Immediately following was another series of undeclared wars, the Barbary Wars, 1801-1805.
We declared our first war, of 1812, after all those wars, and the Navy for that war was leftovers from the undeclared wars.
The Founding Fathers were famously divided against a standing military of any kind, only formally accepted a standing Army (1791, Legion of the United States) and Navy (1794), almost a decade after independence.
The Continental versions were largely disbanded after the Treaty of Paris (1783) ended the Revolutionary war. Only a rump Regular Army remained while the Navy fleet disappeared entirely. The only military organizations were the state militias.
Repeated defeats of the militias during the Indian Wars led to the establishment of a permanent standing army, while the Barbary Pirates presented the opportunity to float a professional Navy again.
Even so, the Navy in particular remained a little paranoid.
When President Thomas Jefferson founded the United States Survey of the Coast, essentially a science fleet tasked with marine and coastal mapmaking, the Navy and their supporters regarded it as serious competition for legitimacy and stonewalled its development for years.
” There is no direct Constitutional remedy for wars undertaken outside a Declaration of War. ” The remedy is 1. Rescind the War Powers Act. 2.Exercise the regular Constitutional decision as to whether or not to declare war. 3. If, as in the present situation a President commits troops to one undeclared war after another, refuse to fund it. By this time a few people are wise to the argument “but then their deaths will have been in vain.”
With regards to the specific wording of Gabbard’s bill, the only way it works, is to be reworded so as to additionally, specifically recognize exclusive Executive authority to prosecute war, then urgently ‘recommend’ withdrawal, NOT ‘direct’ or otherwise demand such, and finally, clarify that the AUMF does not justify U.S. military or covert action in Syria.
With these small but critical changes, Congress has its say without assuming Executive powers. Trump can sign the bill and act affirmatively or not, accepting the bill as Congress’ express and legal recommendation on Syria, not a dangerous infringement on Presidential powers.
Congress and the Presidency could both then, take responsibility (and credit) for ending the Syrian war, or, Trump could reveal his true colours and reject a Constitutionally valid recommendation from Congress to end a war he himself is on record as warned against entering in the first place.
This would still leave the problem of the indirect attacks on Trump’s anti war plans via impeachment proceedings, but that’s separate. As is,
1. Gabbard’s bill doesn’t rescind the WPA, but enforces the AUMF. In any case, the WPA is more or less dead. Rescinding the AUMF or neuteringin in this specific case, would be far more effective, removing a convenient fig-leaf, but not an absolute war-stopper.
2. America’s wars are extralegal; they circumvent the need for a declaration of war. The Guardian online gives a good summary on the history of illegal war. Essentially, the U.S. has worked on perfecting ‘third way war’; the legal gymnastics of abusing the right of defensive war indistinguishably into wars of aggression. The anti war movement has to be just as legally sophisticated in opposing war.
“Making war illegal changed the world. But it’s becoming too easy to break the law” – Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro, The Guardian, Sept. 14, 2017, Last modified on Mon 27 Nov 2017 17.03 GMT.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/14/making-war-illegal-changed-the-world-but-its-becoming-too-easy-to-break-the-law
3. Its nearly impossible to defund specific campaigns in a war as costs are integrated across the DoD. In theory, Congress could ask for DoD accounting to be more transparent, but can’t even get the Pentagon to do a real audit.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pentagon-audit-idUSKCN1NK2MC
Not that there hasn’t been work in trying to audit war; Brown University’s Watson Institute has a program focused on the Costs of War. However, its easier to track costs that have already happened than prevent them before they happen.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers
Gabbard isn’t proposing to cut Overseas Contingencies funding or any funding at all. Its basically Sanders Yemen stunt redux except in Syria. However, like Sander’s bill, a little clever rewording could save it as a legit piece of anti war legislation and not another anti war kabuki.
I’d like to track the opposition to that bill. I expect it will be widespread, but kept behind closed doors. Some of it might leak, if we try to report it.
Tulsi Gabbard is one of the few honorable members of the United States parliament. Therefore, she is hated by the leaders of the two imperialist war parties!
That should pissoff AIPAC.
As written, nope. Congress owns AIPAC; being able to tell a sitting President where to go from the cheap seats would be extra insurance.
Gabbard is probably the best of the candidates and might get more attention if she were to show a little more emotion when she is on, just a little more energy a little more personality. We know she can use good logic and control herself now we have to fall in love with her.
It’s not emotion, energy or personality that she needs more of to get ahead. It’s money.
She supports Trump’s impeachment. Abstained on the vote to condemn Trump’s Syria pullout. And won’t name Israel, just Saudi Arabia, when it comes to nefarious ME actors. Her problem isn’t demeanor but congruency.
I think Gabbad is impressive because she is cool, calm, and collected and not a screaming meemie waving her arms around and acting like a nut job. She sticks to the facts and knocked out Kamala Harris in a single blow.
“Although the House was quick to condemn Trump’s withdrawal from northeast Syria to avoid a confrontation with Turkey, his new plan to “secure the oil” has not come under much scrutiny.”
The key to understanding why Congress will never put up much of a fuss about Syria is that they will never go against the wishes of their AIPAC paymasters. The “Greater Israel” project (Oded Yinon Plan), from the Nile to the Euphrates, is the tarbaby that every member of Congress is stuck to, or they wouldn’t be there in the first place. They can wring their hands about the Constitution and how Trump is overstepping his bounds all they want, but in the end they have to march in lockstep to their Zionist masters, or else. Tulsi certainly knows this and that her resolution is politically dead in the water. She only introduced it to distinguish herself from the other Democratic presidential contenders.
If one doesn’t acknowledge the puppet-master, all else is just empty talk.
That’s why we have so much “empty talk” from the MSM on this subject as well. It takes a thriving alternative media to present the truth…
https://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east/5324815
Given the pro-AIPAC domination of Congress, what is most needed is a President who goes into office making it clear, after quickly withdrawing from places like Syria, that he/she will not intervene in or invade countries without a declaration of war from Congress. Tulsi could be that President, or the Secretary of State for such a President.
Tulsi will never be the president or a secretary of state. The Dems will inevitably put another neo-liberal sell-out up against Trump. He/she will lose. It’s almost as if they’ve planned for that to happen. Either way, the Zionists win.
And… Hillary Clinton is still slithering around…
Once a snake always a snake…
Whomever wins the Democratic nomination, might well be compelled to accept Hilary as VP running mate.
“Oh shut up, silly woman, ” said the reptile with a grin
“You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in”
Let’s pretend, for sake discussion, this bill passes and is on the president’s desk. If he signed it, then ordered all US operations to end in Syria. As usual, a big hullabaloo from US militancy occurs, but so what ? What can they actually do to prevent the pullout ?
They would impeach him, saying this proves he’s a Russian Agent.
Impeachment ? So what. The grounds on a Syria pullout are not there. The awful, and illegal portion of the war on terror AUMF is the “presidential determination” clause. The president, alone, determines who is a terrorist threat. That goes both ways, he also determines who is not a threat.
Trump is already under impeachment query, so nothing changes, except the troops come out, heck, all but 300 weren’t even there when he took office.
What they’re doing now — hem and haw and make all kinds of excuses and accusation. Even Gabbard did not support Trump’s Syria pullout.
Repeat, it was never a pullout….
What do you mean it wasn’t a pullout? What was it that Trump was pushing for and the rest of Washington opposed if it wasn’t a pullout from Syria?
ceding the northern area to Turkey. The criticism( the rational part of it) was trumps failure to negotiate for the area, while he was holding the ground. If trump was for pullout,
1) why doesn’t he ?
2) why did put the thousands of troops there in the first place..(dont…there were only 300 in the whole country when he came in to office)
3) you break it, you own it
I see what you’re doing. You’re spinning Dem’s condemnation of Trump’s pullout as a condemnation of other things.
The criticisms about Turkey, Kurds, etc. are a pretext to avoid pulling out of Syria.
Why doesn’t Trump just pull out? Because EVERYONE IS AGAINST IT for one cockamamie reason or another.
I don’t agree. Whenever a president makes an important move, his opposition will criticize his policy….always, with every president. No, my point is, trump stays because he put them there, and obviously wants to keep them there.
You can’t find anything bad that would happen to him if he did. It’s not illegal, he flat out don’t want to.
Where was the opposition to sanction and embargo Venezuela? Where was the opposition to firing missiles on Syria? Where was the opposition to sanctioning Russia? Where was the opposition to isolate Cuba again? Sure, Trump got some opposition for throwing out the Iran deal, but that was a whimper. The GOP was massively for it; Dems were neutral.
The bottom line is that Washington goes hysterical when Trump seeks peace and detente (eg, NKorea, Syria pullout, Russian detente). When it’s the pursuit of war, Washington is passive to very supportive.
Nothing changes; Gabbard’s bill still upholds the AUMF, which will then excuse a continued Syrian presence or re-entry.
Trump gets impeached under another pretext then war, as is happening right now for even trying to pull out on his own. Trump isn’t likely to sign a bill giving the Congress executive power to direct the military, even under threat of impeachment, though.
The Democrats are pretty much following the same playbook Nixon did against Lyndon Johnson’s to win the Presidency back in the late 60’s.
Nixon sabotaged Johnson’s peace talks with Vietnam; was then able to take the Presidency because Vietnam had tarred Hohnson’s administration, and then ended the Vietnam War himself when he found it really was unwinnable.
Except, the Dems aren’t likely to come to an end-war conclusion if they take the Presidency in 2020. Such didn’t happen under Obama. Nor is it likely wars will be allowed to end earlier under Pence, should impeachment succeed.
If Trump did sign this flawed bill, remember that giving Congress the power to order withdrawals, also grants the power to stop withdrawals and otherwise micro-manage Executive warmaking powers..
Signing Gabbard’s bill sets the precedent whereby the President and Congress can take turns washing each other’s hands in blood instead of the President taking all the direct responsibility.
Again, nothing will change, because the AUMF is still in play and further action in Syria can always be justified by a loose AUMF claim.
This Bill will never be brought to the floor for a vote, or even in a committee.
Hmmm. As written, directing tactical action in a specific conflict and enshrining the AUMF in Syria, the bill hazes Trump the way Sander’s bill did, adds to the illusion of Dem opposition to war, while not doing anything to really impede the war machine in Syria or elsewhere.
In the most successful incarnation, beating Presidential veto and Presidential challenge in the Supreme Court, Gabbard’s bill, like Sanders could have, could set the precedent of extending to Congress, Presidential powers to conduct war.
If Congress can order withdrawals, they can also stop withdrawals and direct interventions.
Is this some kind of joke? Tulsi abstained when the House voted to condemn Trump’s Syria pullout. She abstained because she didn’t want to support him.
It never was a “Syria pullout”. The house vote condemned trumps method of redeployment without a diplomatic attempt at securing “Kurdish areas”, whatever that means. Yes, it was a bs bill, but it wasn’t about ending the whatever mission in Syria.
“Method of redeployment”? Redeploy troops where?
Condemnation in regards to “Kurdish areas” is a pretext to condemn the pullout. If there were no “Kurdish areas”, warmongers would invent another pretext to criticize the pullout.
“Redeploy where ? ” within Syria, check the news….
Facing impeachment by the Democrats, Trump needed to shore up RINO support which means doing the dance for the War Party.
Some 500 mechanized army troops were sent into Deir Ezzor from Iraq, on Syria’s western border with Iraq. It lies between Al Hasekeh in northern Syria and the Euprates River and is where most of Syria’s small oil claims lies.
A roughly 200-man U.S. contingent in al Tanf in southern Syria also remains, unaffected by the north Syria and Deir Ezzor drama.
Sullivan is correct in stating there was no total Syrian pullout, but the act of ceding volatile borderlands in north Syria to Turkey (and Russia/Syria) is not an insignificant accomplishment.
So-called Kurdish areas still include a large swathe of Syria east and north of the Euphrates river held by the Kurdish-led SDF.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Syrian_Civil_War_detailed_map
However, actual Kurdish space in Syria is quite small; originally a bit of the northwest and northeast corners.They can only hold onto western Syria with Arab support, hence the Syrian Defence Forces fig leaf. But the Syrian Arabs don’t want Kurds claiming Arab land, hence the U.S. has stepped in. Of course, many Syrian Arabs don’t much like the U.S. either.
https://brilliantmaps.com/kurds/
There was a partial Syria pullout; the northern border hornet’s nest was ceded to Turkey, Russia and Syria to work out, largely on their own.
I promise I will “partially pullout” honey…..
If Trump made that joke, it would condemn him for his misogyny.
Since its you making it, I’m assuming you’re claiming male hipster exceptionalism and entitlement to hypocrisy.
Well, I certainly hope my crass quip didn’t drown out the sound of US bombs ripping women and children to pieces…..
The bombs the War Party’s mostly Democratic scripted noble fails to stop war permitted?
No need to worry at all. Ears that care to hear are ringing and dripping with boom and splatter.
Why not let them work out protecting the oil field too . After all the oil is in Syria .
To answer that is kind of like writing a book, not a post.
Turkey probably doesn’t want to go that deeply into Syria; securing their southern border is their priority, not a Syrian Vietnam. Russia and Syria don’t want Turkey there either. The resource denial strategy is all the U.S. has left in Syria, so they “can’t” leave the oilfields to the Eurasians, geopolitically speaking.
Pepe Escobar has written about Syria as the key to Pipelineistan since 2011, which is linked to Syria’s own Four Seas Strategy (apparently now five) Assad had pursued since 2004. That entails Syria becoming an energy hub linking the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf/Arabian Sea and Red Sea.
China has been keen to extend their New Silk Roads initiatives into Iraq through to Syria and Lebanon. They have been in negotiations with Iraq and Syria over “oil for infrastructure” agreements since 2017. Detailed memorandums of understanding have apparently been signed and just waiting for the wars to wind down. Since 2018, the U.S. has been building bases in Deir Ezzor.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/08/syria-ultimate-pipelineistan-war/
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201805151064459990-syria-deir-ez-zor-us-military-base/
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/01/middle-easts-new-post-regime-change-future/
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/10/iraq-china-india-oil-construction.html
Under the present state of affairs, the U.S. is essentially shut out of Syria, deservedly so by its own actions. Trump’s declaration that he was taking the oil was a layered statement essentially demanding to be let back in, but he can’t stop his own Deep State from exploiting that to wreck things from within the Eurasians.
Trump swam with the sharks back in his Atlantic City casino days; he’s not as out of touch with how real-world geopolitics has worked, as some would think. Classic colonialism stole land; modern colonialism ‘secures’ business rights Tony Soprano style.
For example, the main holdup (excuse the pun) on a U.S.-China trade deal is China opening up its financial markets to the U.S./West. As in, nice business you have dere… shame if something were to happen to it – partner. China stealing trade secrets and midwestern farmers needing to sell stuff is secondary to the needs of the U.S./Western financial aristocracy to expand or die under the crony-capitalist imperative.
That said, for Syria or China to allow the U.S./West to buy into their businesses, would be to end up like Tony Soprano’s victims. The overt U.S. goal is to thwart Eurasia coming together and Russophobia, Sinophobia, and Islamophobia have done a poor job of hiding that at all.
So, the U.S. military will squat the oil for as long as possible alongside the Kurdish SDF, denying the resource to Syria and her allies. Trump will probably angle for a deal cutting the U.S. back into Syria. The Deep State will continue trying to sabotage both Trump and Eurasia no matter what and push for war and/or coup as a solution.
Obviously, agreeing with the orange blob, who is pimping America to the global oligarchs, agreeing with him about anything makes us feel dirty and used. One must do it sometimes, but I can totally sympathize with her about wanting to abstain instead whenever possible.
Congress does not want to get involved in AUTHORIZING money for wars. They do not WANT us to know how much money they are authorizing, so we cannot compare the dollars to other funding or lack there off.
Just the opposite is true — Congress is running foreign policy of increasingly desperate interventionist zeal, while leaving it up to the president to complain about cost? Of course he cannot do it — it is not his role as a Commander in Chief to question the value of military missions. He has done already much more then any president in my memory — questioning wars. But it is tricky questioning deployments with soldiers on the ground risking their lives — for what?
The problem is — level of public awareness. There are no civic associations focussing on spending money on foreign interventions — all of, not just military. All spending on NGOs , foreign politicians, foreign media, foreign academia, lawyers’ association, students’ associations, professional protest organizers, training, public relations, propaganda, etc. etc. PER COUNTRY. We simply do not have any powerful citizen initiative in protection of our public interest.
Actually, it is the President’s role to question the value of military missions.
If Congress declared war on Russia tomorrow in a U.S. first strike, the President should appropriately question that mission.
If I was Assad I would take back my Kurds with willing Arms . I think Assad has already done this .Than I would try to get the Iranians and Russian to help influence Turkey to remember where the border really is . As for the United States government taking control of of the Syrian oil field that is now guarded by the American troops that Trump now says he may take the oil . Assad should get his Syrian Kurds to lead a attack against the Americans that are dreaming of turning into common thieves . The American soldiers and the American people will not want to fight the Syrian Kurds in order to steal their oil . The American soldiers and the American people love the Kurds and feel the Kurds have gotten a bad enough deal all along . The Kurds love the Americans too but being in such poor financial position the Kurds can’t possibly let the United States take their oil . The Syrian Kurds can take the United States to court , A UN court , A Syrian court , or even a American court . And the Syrian Kurds will win .