The Congressman from Florida has certainly made waves in the recent days around his H. Con. Res 21, voted down in the House yesterday by a vote of 321-103, with almost an even split between Republicans and Democrats. Gaetz had challenged anti-war Democrats in the past week to remember their previous anti-war stances, which have been virtually nonexistent for years. Yet yesterday’s vote garnered the support of 47 House Democrats, including many in the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Despite it’s defeat, Gaetz said of his resolution: “I am encouraged that the kerfuffle my Syria legislation has brought to the Republican conference may lead us to a broader discussion about the 2001 AUMF [Authorization for the Use of Military Force], the 2002 AUMF, and it’s obviously well past time for us to reconsider those authorizations in light of the world we live in, in 2023,” said Gaetz.
Ro Khanna (D-CA), who also supported the resolution, gave an optimistic view of the development: “There is a new generation of thinking on two central issues: a concern about wars and entanglements over the last 20 years that have not made us safer and a concern over the offshoring of our domestic production over bad trade deals that have left the working class and middle class poorer,” Khanna said. “I believe that this new generation of political leaders can help fix those two mistakes that the country has made and that there is an emerging consensus that we should not have our troops fighting overseas without congressional authorization.”
Rep. Gaetz’s concluding remarks during the House debate, however, evinced a strong determination to end the “forever wars,” and a willingness to admit that the American presence has actually worsened the situation on the ground throughout Southwest Asia.
The Congressman said that, despite claims to the contrary, having our troops in Syria “is a recruiting tool for ISIS.” “We have to also acknowledge, Syria and Iraq are the two countries on the planet Earth where we have done the most to fund ISIS. We give weapons to these so-called moderate rebels—which I actually thought was an oxymoron—and it turns out they’re not that moderate. Sometimes the rebels we fund to go fight Assad turn around and raise the ISIS flag. And so it’s quite silly to be saying we have to withdraw to stop ISIS when it is our very presence in Syria in some cases that has been the best gift to ISIS,” he said.
He mentioned Al-Nusra, and the numerous other groups within Syria. “There’s no real clear delineation as to what the ‘enduring defeat of ISIS’ means,” he said. This is not our role, and our vision of democracy has not worked: “We have tried this time and again, to build a democracy out of sand and blood and Arab militias, and time and again, the work we do does not reduce chaos. Oftentimes, it causes chaos – the very chaos that then subsequently leads to terrorism.”
Gaetz also hit at the narrative that we are upholding the “balance of power” in the region, promulgated by a bunch of what he called “Georgetown School of Foreign Service” acolytes: “You go tell that to the parents of the Americans who have to sleep tonight in Syria, who have to guard oil fields with Iranian drones coming at them – that they’re necessary to preserve the balance of power.”
Further, Gaetz gave an interesting comment given to The Intercept regarding his future plans. “Syria is my leadoff hitter. We’re going to take a trip around the globe. We may go to Yemen. We may have stops in Niger. We may have stops in Sudan. Maybe ultimately, we’ll end in Ukraine,” Gaetz said.
