On April 26, the Committee for the Republic convoked a “salon,” in Washington, D.C., and online, to clarify the U.S. Congress’s war power responsibilities with regard to the conflict in Ukraine. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky was the featured speaker, and he focused his remarks on why he has voted no on all four significant bills and resolutions passed by Congress on Ukraine since the conflict began on Feb. 24, including sanctions. His primary reason for voting no: to prevent nuclear war.
Massie explained: When asked back home in Kentucky for a quick answer as to why he has voted against the resolutions and sanctions against Russia, he tells people:
“If there’s a 5% chance that this turns into a nuclear conflagration, if Ukraine metastasizes into a global war which involves nuclear weapons … and I can vote to reduce that to 2%, that’s the vote I am going to take. That’s the vote I owe 750,000 people in Kentucky,” who sent him to Congress.
Rep. Massie denounced the current U.S. policy of arming “‘peaceful, moderate’ Nazis” in Ukraine, just like the United States armed “‘peaceful, moderate’ terrorists” in Syria. He called NATO a relic of the Cold War, which, when it was not dissolved, the U.S. should have left, and whose expansion to Russia’s borders created the conditions for this conflict. He suggested that Ukraine would be safer as a buffer state instead of the subject of “a custody battle.” He warned against treating Putin as a “war criminal,” and thus “backing Putin into a corner.” We did that to Qaddafi and Saddam Hussein, but they did not have nuclear weapons. Russia has ICBMs!
In introducing Massie, Committee for the Republic chairman John Henry reminded listeners that the committee was founded in 2003 in opposition to George W. Bush’s launching of an unprovoked war upon Iraq, without a Congressional declaration of war. The Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 “establishes neutrality as the default policy of the U.S.,” until such time as Congress formally declares a state of war. Yet, he pointed out, by providing arms and intelligence to Ukraine, we have made ourselves a co-belligerent in that conflict, and Russia has the right, under international law, to attack us—a point which Committee Vice Chair Bruce Fein, also present, has been making loudly.
