Posted on 10/10/2019 2:04:53 AM PDT by robowombat
President Trump is barreling toward a showdown with Congress over his decision to pull back U.S. troops in northern Syria despite widespread opposition.
The announcement, which caught leadership and traditional GOP allies flatfooted, sparked a wave of condemnation, with Republicans calling it a “disaster in the making,” a “catastrophic mistake” and a “terrible decision.”
Lawmakers are already weighing how to respond to Trump’s decision, setting the stage for a high-profile clash with Trump as soon as Congress returns from a two-week break on Monday.
“Congress must and will act to limit the catastrophic impact of this decision,” said Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), a member of House GOP leadership, adding that Trump’s decision was having “sickening and predictable consequences.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) warned that unless Turkey changes its behavior “everything is on the table,” including “suspending arms sales, to suspending economic aid to even considering their status in NATO.”
Lawmakers, scattered across the country for a two-week break, are having behind-the-scenes talks about potential legislative action and publicly throwing out a myriad of ideas ranging from a resolution opposing Trump’s actions to sanctions against Turkey to inserting language into a mammoth defense policy bill.
“Multiple committees are looking at possible legislative efforts to put the House on record against the President’s outrageous decision,” a House Democratic leadership aide told The Hill.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) separately predicted that “Congress will take some form of action” given the “broad condemnation” sparked by Trump’s decision.
Lawmakers are under growing pressure to mount a formal response after Turkey began airstrikes and shelling against Kurdish forces in northern Syria and, hours later, moved ground troops into the country after Trump pulled back U.S. troops. Lawmakers have warned for days that Trump’s decision could endanger the Kurds, who were integral to the U.S.-led fight against ISIS.
Trump on Wednesday tried to distance himself from Turkey’s actions, saying the United States “does not endorse this attack and has made it clear to Turkey that this operation is a bad idea.” But he also said the United States should not be part of “endless, senseless wars.”
Trump reiterated that the U.S. stance is that it is now Turkey’s responsibility to ensure ISIS prisoners being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces do not escape and further claimed Ankara has committed to “protecting civilians” and “ ensuring no humanitarian crisis takes place.”
That’s done little to stem the flow of criticism from Capitol Hill.
“I said that President Trump's decision to abandon the Kurds ... was terribly unwise. Today, we are seeing the consequences of that terrible decision. If the reports of Turkish strikes in Syria are accurate, I fear our allies the Kurds could be slaughtered,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) lamented the “tragic loss of life among friends shamefully betrayed.”
One option under discussion would be to slap new sanctions on Turkey for invading Syria.
Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said after Turkey’s actions that they have reached an agreement on sanctions legislation. The bill would target Turkey’s energy sector and military. It also includes visa restrictions for Turkish leadership, including President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and would sanction any assets they have within U.S. jurisdiction.
Wondering how others manage ulcerative colitis? SPONSORED CONTENT Wondering how others manage ulcerative colitis?
BY ABBVIE “I am pleased to have reached a bipartisan agreement with Senator Van Hollen on severe sanctions against Turkey for their invasion of Syria. While the Administration refuses to act against Turkey, I expect strong bipartisan support,” Graham said.
“Most Members of Congress believe it would be wrong to abandon the Kurds who have been strong allies against ISIS,” he added.
Van Hollen said the sanctions bill will be introduced next week and that they want a quick vote.
“Will ask for an immediate vote to send a clear message to Turkey that it must cease and desist its military action, withdraw its fighters from the areas under attack, and stop the tragic loss of life,” he said.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who has aligned herself closely with Trump, said on Wednesday that she will support new financial penalties.
“I condemn in the strongest possible terms any U.S. policy that will result in endangerment of the Kurds who have sacrificed so much blood and treasure alongside American forces. ... Turkey must pay the price for its aggression toward our Kurdish partners,” Blackburn said.
Trump downplayed the potential pushback, saying he thinks “it’s OK” if Congress imposes sanctions on Turkey even as he disagreed with Graham’s desire to stay in Syria and dismissed the Kurds because they “didn't help us in the Second World War.”
“I think Lindsey would like to stay there for the next 200 years and maybe add a couple a hundred of thousand people every place, but I disagree with Lindsey on that,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “But I will tell you that I do agree on sanctions, but I actually think much tougher than sanctions if [Erdogan] doesn’t do it in as humane a way as possible.”
Graham is also crafting a resolution formally opposing Trump’s decision, adding that he expects “it will receive strong bipartisan support.” A spokesman for Graham told The Hill this week that they were in the process of drafting the resolution.
It would mark the second time the Senate has rebuked Trump on Syria after providing veto-proof support for an amendment from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warning the president against withdrawing troops from Syria or Afghanistan earlier this year.
McConnell sent a warning shot on Monday saying that “the conditions that produced that bipartisan vote still exist today.”
Lawmakers could also slip language into a mammoth defense bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). House and Senate lawmakers are negotiating on a final version of the legislation.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) called Turkey’s actions “unacceptable” and warned that Ankara will face “serious economic, diplomatic and security consequences.”
“Erdoğan’s actions risk undermining our bilateral relationship, destabilizing northeastern Syria, squandering hard-won progress against ISIS, creating a new humanitarian crisis and harming our Kurdish partners,” Inhofe said.
A spokeswoman for Inhofe said because “the NDAA is currently in the conference process” she “couldn’t speculate” on whether it will include a response to the Syria situation.
A House Armed Services Committee spokeswoman told The Hill that lawmakers, led by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), are working on legislation related to the issue separately from the NDAA, but could not immediately provide more detail. A House Foreign Affairs spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
More than 50 House Democrats, led by Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), sent a letter to Trump on Wednesday afternoon demanding he answer 10 questions about his Syria policy, including how the United States will ensure the Kurds’ protection and what Trump considers to be “off limits” for Turkey to do.
“This decision jeopardizes decades of trust in American solidarity and will only serve to undermine current and future alliances,” they wrote.
In the meantime, calls are mounting for the Trump administration to testify about the decision, providing a high-stakes setting where they would likely face a bipartisan grilling.
Romney and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) are urging Senate Foreign Relations Committee leadership to have administration officials testify before the panel and “explain to the American people how betraying an ally and ceding influence to terrorists and adversaries is not disastrous for our national security interests.”
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, also called for Defense Secretary Mark Esper to testify before Congress “as soon as possible.”
“I would hope Secretary of State [Mike] Pompeo and Acting Director of National Intelligence [Joseph] Maguire will be called before the respective oversight committees as well,” Reed said.
“We need a full accounting and there is no time to waste. Congress must send a clear, bipartisan signal to this president that we do not condone his decision,” he added. “And it has to go beyond tweets and statements. We need action.”
Let them “THIN” the herd over there!~!~
What they going to do declare war?
Just amazing how fundamentally incompetent the narcissistic clowns running Congress are. Go ahead bellow and whine pass some meaningless resolutions. In the end it all meaningless bluster from Congress again.
Yep. Perhaps some will think about this because on the face of it, it makes no sense, the Deep State wants them to stay. $8 Trillion or about 1/3 of our national debt. So many kids dead or wishing they were. So much suffering for our wounded warriors and their loved ones.
Meanwhile, electricity is off near San Francisco and south along the coast and thru the mountains. I’m thinking shell game. Their eyes and ire are on the withdrawal. Would be a good time to MAGA. :)
No doubt...
But the odd thing is that Turkey immediately went in as if they were prepared and ready to go...As if there was a plan on both sides...
But had Trump increased troop numbers to protect the Kurds, we'd be hearing the attacks from the same people who are crying now...Trump just removed himself from a no win situation...
What is the vital US Security interest involved in the US giving the Kurd’s a US backed military shield to hide behind while they continue their separatists attacks on the internationally recognized Governments of Iran, Iraq and Turkey?
So were just suppose to endlessly continue the “Emperor of Earth” polices of the last 4 US Presidents? We suppose to write a blank check payable in US blood and treasure to every oppressed group everywhere?
Frankly I prefer Trump’s return to the pre Bush family traditional US policy. Bush the 1st made a massive mistake ending our “Over the Horizon” posture in the ME. By failing to decisively win Desert Storm in 1991 Bush locked us in a full body hug with the Middle East tar-baby ever since.
It is time the USA start figuring out how to pry ourselves off that mess. Like the Border Crisis Congress’s complete lack of any responsible action over Obama/Clinton/Biden/McCain’s misguided adventure in Syria required the President to take action.
Now that we are a energy exporter, for the 1st time since the 1960s, our national security interest in protecting the flow of oil out of the ME is greatly reduced. It is time we start re-thinking all our national polices. However, Congress has shown they will not act unless forced to it by the Executive.
We are working with very partial information on which to base a decision
President Trump has as much information as anyone and, by his own admission, they have been working on this for 3 years.
It seems this dispute is about what to do with captured jihadi who are from Europe and other foreign countries, all of whom are terrorists and most of them are war criminals.
Under Obama, the scam was to classify the bulk of them as refugees and have America classify them as asylum seekers and resettle them to the United States
These are the hardest of the hardcore Jihadi and there are at least 10,000 and perhaps as many as 60,000 ( including families) being held prisoner.
Consider our experience with the small fraction of that number of terrorists we have held in Gitmo at extreme expense and with massive opposition from Democrats trying to get them released and Gitmo closed down.
Virtually every Jihadi we have released from Gitmo has went back to terrorism and many went to Syria and ISIS. Those still in Gitmo are so hard core Jihadi and terrorist not even Obama dared release them
These people do not reform and look at the horrific crimes against humanity they committed in Syria and Iraq
These are the same people who tried to send these captured Jihadi to US as refugees are now trying to force Trump to fight in Syria and send these prisoners to Gitmo ( or, more appropriate, send them here as welfare dependent refugees if they can scam us )
I want to support the Kurds and I suspect Trump does too.
Sometimes solving a festering problem that has developed into status quo requires destroying the status quo, which President Trump has obviously accomplished . Unfortunately, this is not a pleasant or happy thing to do
Now that Trump has destroyed the status quo and opened up a hornets nest full of very angry hornets, it will be interesting to see how he shapes the resolution to this complex and seemingly insoluble problem
I’m trusting the President on this one at least for now
BTW, it was news to me there were up to 60,000 or even 10,000 captured ISIS Jihadi in Syria. Heck, we have been told the media that there were never more than about 30,000 ISIS Jihadi in total and now we are suddenly informed that we are having to deal with 10-60000 SURVIVOR Jihadi when most fought to the death and many escaped back to their home countries
These numbers of Jihadi do not add up anything near what we have been told except to prove we have been lied to on a massive scale about what has been going on in the region and with ISIS in general.
The number of Kurd casualties really drives this home - 10000 KIA and 30000 wounded is huge and the Kurds were not the major combatants in the conflict
The ISIS problem in the region was and still is much larger than we have been led ( and actively misled) to believe bothbduring the conflict and now that it’s seemingly over,
President Trump may just be in the reprices of exposing that fact and showing us the true magnitude of a conflict that has killed somewhere in the region of one million people
Let’s give him Trump benefit of the doubt because the current revelations, when put in context, are stunning and paint a much different and more serious picture than the one we have been shown and led to believe so far
A lot of war mongers in our legislative halls. The eternal deadly conflicts between centuries old enemies will always exist. And there are plenty to choose from. The question is does it merit a U.S. response and involvement and the deaths of US troops? Hint: There has to be a resolution in sight besides “But people are dying!”.
“the fact that it is on the eve of impeachment”
You seem to be worried about impeachment, I think the President has just pulled off another major distraction from impeachment. We will see how it shakes out next week.
You are correct about Turkey’s rationale. And, it may be true. But, I don’t know and I don’t think you know about what Turkey is actually doing. President Trump has not exonerated Turkey and you shouldn’t either. If Trump has communicated a deal to Ergodan that he can go after the terrorists among the Kurds, as long as he leaves our allies among the Kurds alone (assuming there’s a difference), Trump is (again) being brilliant. I have been very impressed with Trump (and Pompeo).
Not a good move to defend George W. Bush by saying it was Tony Blair’s fault. This defense effectively admits that Bush, the President of the United States, was a dimwit. And, that Bush should have known it was stupid to Americanize Afghanistan.
Maybe while they are at it we can bomb China for its treatment of their muzzies as well.
“no one can seriously dispute that the process was appallingly mishandled by this administration.”
I am a staunch Trump supporter, but what he did — and how he did it — was inexplicable. I have no problem with pulling out our troops; but it should have been tactically orchestrated with the Kurds, so as to give them the chance to set up their own strategy and implement it.
What Trump did was “cut-and-run” in the most basic sense. As I said, inexplicable.
I concur with most of what you posted.
I continue to believe that the final outcome will be a new nation of Kurds and Suni moslems to the north and east of the river. It will not include the agressive Turkish Kurds. It will include territory that was once IraQ and Syria
We need to stay in control of conditions. If we don’t, Russia and Iran will. It is the nature of Trump to be in control. There must be something else going on with Trump that is hidden.
For fun a couple years ago I watched all the YT vids on combat in Afghanistan, most of which were by the BBC. I remember distinctly them mentioning how Blair convinced Bush to go for nation building as if it were a good thing, at the time.
I think this is misguided viewpoint. Not saying Erdogan is an angel, but in regard to the Kurds, I think we should grant he has a legitimate reason to defend his country. The Kurds organized their Kurdistan Workers Party under a Maoist leader in the 70’s and 80’s. Their stated goal has not only been the creation of a Kurdish state, but also the establishment of a MAOIST COMMUNIST state in part of Turkey. Up until the Iraq war with Saddam, they were not generally viewed by the US government as a positive group. The CIA was reportedly involved in the capture of the Kurdish leader who was hiding out in Kenya. Since his imprisonment, he has supposedly “softened” his political opinions; however, who can tell if this is not a strategy to hold continued US support? To add to the mix, there is not just one unified Kurdish party either, but a mixture of all sorts of groups of various political ideologies. I think to get tangled in this morass would be extremely detrimental for the USA.
“Nonsense! The president ran on getting the US the hell out of asinine foreign wars.”
I am unaware that those handful of troops were in any independent combat role whatsoever. They were, if anything, acting in an advisory role. Fine. But their withdrawal (with which I agree) should have been handled a hell of a lot better than what it was. As I said in a previous post, the manner in which Trump handled this is inexplicable.
Well done!!!
“We should have taken in white Rhodesians.”
No kidding.
Erdogan is a tyrant but my suspicion is that the only people in Turkey who would benefit from fair and free elections and democracy in general are the Muslim fundamentalists. Whenever given the chance, that is who Muslim voters choose (Egypt being the prime example). So yeah he stinks but we should tread carefully in pushing for alternatives.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.