In a 403-16 vote with overwhelming support in both parties, the House of Representatives Tuesday voted in the Protect Against Conflict by Turkey Act, a bill calling for the punishment of NATO member nation Turkey for invading northeast Syria.
The bill is a culmination of weeks of anger over Turkey’s invasion of northeastern Syrian territory, and the expulsion of Kurdish forces, and would impose sanctions on Turkey until they withdraw from Syrian Kurdish territory. Interestingly enough, it does not appear that Turkey’s other invasion of Syria, in the northwest, is intended to be impacted.
Each party’s near-unanimity on the bill comes with a different spin, with Democrats presenting this as a continuation of the rebuke of Trump’s redeployment of troops away from the Turkish border, and Republicans saying it means supporting Trump in moving against Turkey if he wants, while allowing him to offer Turkey a waiver if he wants to argue Turkey’s invasion is in US interests.
Whether this bill ultimately means anything remains to be seen, as while some in the Senate are introducing companion resolutions, there is as yet no sign that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) intends to bring any of them up for a vote.
It would have been nice if they had passed a bill that punishes Turkey for violating Syria’s sovereignty.
Well, yeah, except that we of course violate everyone’s sovereignty regularly, so the hypocrisy may have been too much?
Now, how is it any of our US Congress’s business what our NATO ally chooses to do to enhance its own security on its actual border? Do we just officially rule the world now?
Plenty of mendacity to go around here….
1) apparently obama intervention in Libya civil war bad….trump intervention in Syrian civil war ok
2) the sensible part of this bill, condemning a Turkish invasion, is drowned out by the overwhelming hypocrisy…..
3) seems trump redeployment debacle critics seem to think trump ceded Kurdish land to Turkey. Hmmph, seems to be Syrian state land prior to the civil war….
4) some geniuses somewhere, somehow seem to think US war or sanctions against Turkey will somehow help the situation…
5) this bill reminds me of congressional votes in the Korean, and Bosnian war, where a faction of the gop made an apparent antiwar vote, but only because the POTUS was not willing to go in whole hog….
6) this bill also reminds me of the Iraq war 2 authorization which gave multi-interpretations ready for congress critter stump speaches
Can anyone remind me if Congress is currently working on anything that is NOT foreign policy related? Something important for our country’s future?
I just hear about them meddling in foreign policy. To the point of thinking that Congress is responsible for running day to day foreign policy.