A congresswoman who has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders for president says she voted against a resolution condemning Syrian government violence against its own people because she fears it has been disguised as a “war bill” that could be used to justify a military effort to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The House passed the resolution on Monday in a 392-3 vote. Only Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and Reps. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and Tom Massie, R-Ky., voted against it.
“Make no mistake, this is a War Bill – a thinly veiled attempt to use the rationale of ‘humanitarianism’ as a justification for overthrowing the Syrian government of Assad. Similar resolutions were used in the past as a justification for regime change wars to overthrow the governments of Iraq and Libya,” Gabbard said in a Monday statement.
“I will have no part of it,” the congresswoman wrote. “I voted NO on H.Con.Res.121. I voted NO against more unnecessary interventionist regime change wars.”
Gabbard resigned in February from the Democratic National Committee, which she’d earlier fought with over it’s apparent favoritism toward Hillary Clinton. At the same time, she endorsed Sanders, who is Clinton’s only challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination.
She explained her opposition to the resolution saying it “urges the administration to create ‘additional mechanisms for the protection of civilians’ which is coded language for the creation of a so-called no-fly/safe zone.”
This would cost “billions of dollars, require tens of thousands of ground troops and a massive U.S. air presence, wrote Gabbard, “and it won’t work.”
It might also put the U.S. at loggerheads with Russia again, she warned.
This story was corrected to clarify that Gabbard voted against a resolution dealing with the Syrian government’s actions against its own people. An earlier version incorrectly said Gabbard voted against a separate resolution calling on the Islamic State’s actions to be deemed as “genocide.”
Gabbard voted for the Islamic State resolution, which passed unanimously, 393-0.
