Al Mayadeen English

  • Ar
  • Es
  • x
Al Mayadeen English

Slogan

  • News
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Sports
    • Arts&Culture
    • Health
    • Miscellaneous
    • Technology
    • Environment
  • Articles
    • Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Blog
    • Features
  • Videos
    • NewsFeed
    • Video Features
    • Explainers
    • TV
    • Digital Series
  • Infographs
  • In Pictures
  • • LIVE
News
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Sports
  • Arts&Culture
  • Health
  • Miscellaneous
  • Technology
  • Environment
Articles
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Blog
  • Features
Videos
  • NewsFeed
  • Video Features
  • Explainers
  • TV
  • Digital Series
Infographs
In Pictures
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • MENA
  • Palestine
  • US & Canada
BREAKING
Reuters: Death toll from fuel depot fire in Karabakh leaps to 125.
Israeli media: The IOF tried to locate the paratrooper and failed to determine his landing location, speculating that he headed north.
Israeli media: The IOF spotted a paratrooper flying over their outposts on the border with Lebanon before he disappeared.
Israeli Tourism Minister Haim Katz will be heading a delegation to Riyadh in the first public Israeli visit to Saudi Arabia.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin detailed exchange of views on situation around Nagorno-Karabakh and normalization of Yerevan-Baku ties: Kremlin
Russian Black Sea commander shown working after Ukraine said it killed him
Kremlin says US Abrams tanks will 'burn' in Ukraine
China warns Philippines not to 'stir up trouble' over disputed reef
Lebanon arrests man who fired on US embassy last week: Reuters citing security sources.
Bahrain announces the death of two of its soldiers participating in the coalition forces, including an officer, in an attack near the Saudi-Yemeni border and accuses Ansar Allah of being responsible.

Voices from Congress speak out to end US occupation of Syria

  • By Al Mayadeen English
  • Source: Newsweek
  • 13 Mar 2023 23:43
  • 3 Shares
  • x

Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna confesses that "Syria is a prime example of America's flawed foreign policy status quo, kept alive by warmongers on both the Right and Left."

  • Syrian schoolchildren walk as US troops patrol near Turkish border in Al-Hasakah, November 4, 2018. (REUTERS)
    Syrian schoolchildren walk as US troops patrol near the Turkish border in Al-Hasakah, November 4, 2018. (Reuters)

In an opinion piece for Newsweek, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna -- who serves as the Representative for Florida's Thirteenth Congressional District. Rep. -- lashed out at the foundations of US foreign policy, calling for redirecting “US's foreign policy away from a failed internationalist foreign policy consensus.”

This comes shortly after The Intercept highlighted in a new report that the Obama administration's senate representative, a strong advocate in support of aggressively challenging Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, is now backing a push by Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla. to force the US to leave the country within 180 days.

The Republican's introduction of the resolution, most notably with such a short timetable that would doom it to a lopsided defeat, sparked a flurry of lobbying to turn it into a bipartisan coalition, including progressive groups like Just Foreign Policy and Demand Progress, as well as conservative groups like FreedomWorks, Concerned Veterans for America, and Citizens for Renewing America.

Opposition to US meddling in Syria has been bipartisan since the beginning of the war. In 2013, Daily Kos and HuffPost produced whip counts before an Obama-called vote to authorize the use of force, urging progressives to vote no. Before Obama pulled the legislation from the floor, HuffPost counted 243 members of Congress who planned to vote no or lean toward no.

The Congresswoman openly backs Gaetz's proposal, arguing that the policy of "keeping Americans overseas is necessary for stopping terrorist attacks is absurd."

"Frankly I'm tired of hearing, if we don't fight them there, they'll come here," she said.

Luna acknowledged that "Syria is a prime example of America's flawed foreign policy status quo, kept alive by warmongers on both the Right and Left."

She blamed former US President Barack Obama for what she described as a "naive campaign for regime change in the Middle East which fundamentally misunderstood the region at large and was a futile experiment."

"Obama's half-hearted slogan, "Assad must go," raised false hopes among a certain section of Syrians that only extended the civil war. Worse, it resulted in a civil war which directly resulted in the rise of ISIS."

The Congresswoman also asserted that distant countries pose no existential threat to the United States and can be adequately managed through long-distance capabilities and cautious alliance policies. 

She also criticized the US Congress urging its members to genuinely worry about "terrorists in America."

"We need to focus on the two problems our foreign policy pundits have consistently ignored, misread, and downplayed: our nonexistent southern border and the influx of terrorists coming into our own country, and the rise of a peer rival in China".

Related News

CENTCOM claims to have captured ISIS official in northern Syria

Arab tribes renew clashes with SDF in eastern Deir Ezzor

In her opinion piece, she also raised the following questions: "Why aren't the billions of dollars spent in the Middle East being invested in guarding our own border? Why are American forces patrolling distant nations yet not our own, which is under threat? Why was the equipment left behind during our botched withdrawal from Afghanistan not sold or shipped to Taiwan?"

Luna further confessed that the US' "nation-building" in the Middle East was not "a prudent policy."

The Congresswoman explained that the US grabbed billions of dollars from taxpayers and diverted them to NGOs, the military, failed governance projects, and foreign assistance waste while leaving many places in shambles.

"All that has resulted from this failed mission is the Middle East emerging as a region of permanent protectorates, with zero upsides and no measurable benefit to the United States. In fact, it has only increased local hostility."

She also warned that China has been benefiting while the US has been meddling in the affairs of countries in the Middle East, most notably Syria.

The Congresswoman stressed that "the era of utopian foreign policy ideas based on faulty theories is over," although Gaetz's resolution to withdraw soldiers from Syria did not pass. Luna further hailed that one in every four of our Congress members backed the proposal from both the Republicans and Democrats.

"Members of Congress don't swear an oath to the people of Syria, Ukraine, or anywhere else. They swear an oath to the people of the United States," she concluded.

Why does the US continue to station troops in Syria?

Since ISIS has been defeated in Syria and Iraq, many analysts argued that the reasons for the US to remain stationed in Syrian territory have been left unclear. 

The US frequently loots oil from Syrian gas fields and transports them to other occupation bases in Iraq via illegal crossings. Syrian news agency SANA reported last Saturday that US occupation troops have looted a new batch of oil from Syria's Al-Jazeera fields. The convoy was on its way to US military bases in Iraq via the illegal Al-Mahmudiya crossing in Al-Yarubiya region.

According to civilian sources, the convoy comprises 23 vehicles and includes covered trucks and tanks filled with stolen oil. The sources further added that an additional convoy made up of 34 trucks exited the illegal Al-Walid crossing in Al-Yarubiya. 

The last time US troops plundered Syrian oil was on February 27. The oil was looted from the same Al-Jazeera fields and was transported to Iraq via illegal crossings. US troops claim to be occupying the area in order to rid the region of terrorists, yet the US has strategically implanted itself there for the purposes of stealing Syria's oil, as well as destabilizing President Bashar Al-Assad's government. 

In December of 2022, Syria's Foreign Ministry said the US occupation forces and their affiliated military groups' systematic lootings of Syrian oil, wheat, and other national resources have amounted to direct losses valued at $25.9 billion and indirect losses valued at over $86 billion.

It further estimated the total value of the Syrian oil sector losses to amount to $111.9 billion.

Read more: Russian-Syrian coordination: The US is looting Syrian oil

  • Syria
  • US occupation forces
  • US occupation of Syria
  • Looting
  • Gaetz's proposal
  • US
  • Anna Paulina Luna
  • US foreign policy

Most Read

Russia destroyed leopard tank in Ukraine with fully-German crew

Russia destroyed leopard tank in Ukraine with fully-German crew

  • Europe
  • 23 Sep 2023
Ukrainian soldiers ride an APC on the front line near Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region, on June 5, 2023 (AP)

US sees Ukrainian army demoralized, no chance to win: Seymour Hersh

  • Europe
  • 21 Sep 2023
Blinken’s ‘Variable Geometry’ for a New Cold War

Blinken’s ‘Variable Geometry’ for a New Cold War

  • Analysis
  • 24 Sep 2023
Zelensky joins Canadian Parliament’s ovation to WWII Nazi soldier

Zelensky joins Canadian Parliament’s ovation to WWII Nazi soldier

  • US & Canada
  • 25 Sep 2023

Coverage

All
Morocco & Libya Disasters

Read Next

All
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, chairs a weekly cabinet meeting, flanked by Tourism Minister Haim Katz, at his office in occupied al-Quds Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023 (Pool Photo via AP)
MENA

Israeli Minister shares optimism after warm reception in Saudi Arabia

The speaker of Canada's House of Commons Anthony Rota delivers a speech following an address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, September 22, 2023. (AP)
US & Canada

Canadian lower House Speaker resigns after hailing former Nazi soldier

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, left, and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan review an honor guard during a welcome ceremony in Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan, Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. (AP)
Europe

Erdogan urges Zangezur corridor completion amid tensions with Yerevan

A paratrooper gliding on the Lebanese-Palestinian border (Israeli media)
MENA

Paratrooper glides on Lebanese-Palestinian border, disappears

Al Mayadeen English

Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.

All Rights Reserved

  • x
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Authors
Android
iOS