KAILUA-KONA — Rep. Tulsi Gabbard held true to her unpopular doubts and criticisms surrounding war crimes in Syria and President Donald Trump’s military response at a town hall meeting at Kealakehe Intermediate School Tuesday night.
Constituents greeted Gabbard with a warmth and support utterly absent nationally in recent days, during which critics from both parties lambasted the Congresswoman for expressing skepticism that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was behind a chemical attack on April 4 that claimed the lives of more than 70 civilians, many of them children.
Gabbard reiterated her skepticism Tuesday, saying after the meeting she has seen no evidence pointing either toward or away from Assad as the culprit since an interview she gave Friday with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. That interview, coupled with Twitter posts made the day of the attack, prompted calls from within her own party imploring voters in Hawaii’s 2nd District to oust their elected representative at the first opportunity.
“I have not seen what I was supporting and am supporting, which is the UN expert-led, independent investigation,” Gabbard said. “The fact that this strike was launched unilaterally while this language was being drafted, while this resolution was on the precipice of being passed, was very unfortunate because that’s what is necessary to prosecute people as war criminals before the ICC, and that’s what’s necessary to get facts.
“People are asking, ‘Oh, what do you think happened?’ It doesn’t matter what anybody thinks. What matters are the facts.”
The Congresswoman explained her reluctance to blindly condemn Assad isn’t a spur of the moment decision but rather a course she’s chosen based on previous faulty justifications for engaging in what she’s repeatedly characterized as counterproductive wars of regime change — specifically in Iraq, Libya and now in Syria.
Gabbard received heavy criticism earlier this year after revealing she travelled to Syria to meet with Assad without first notifying House leadership.
The Pentagon has said radar tracking and heat signatures confirm Syrian aircraft dropped chemical weapons in northwestern Syria.
Gabbard countered that no such evidence has yet been presented to Congress, referencing the aftermath of death, destruction and debt following the war with Iraq, which came about after “hard evidence” justifying military action in that country turned out to be false.
“As a veteran, I have a responsibility to do my due diligence, to ask those tough questions and to make sure the truth is known,” Gabbard said. “I would focus on where we are now, which is the fact that the president has launched this reckless, illegal military strike and is leading us farther down this road of interventionism and being the world’s police.”
She added any action serving the objective of a regime change in Syria will strengthen and extend the reach of terrorist groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda, which are looking to assume power in the country once Assad is ousted.
She also reiterated her concerns that tensions between the U.S. and Russia will escalate, noting that country’s recent statement that further American military action would be answered in kind.
“The danger of this and the counterproductive nature of this doesn’t take much explanation,” she said to the crowd.
While many of Gabbard’s comments were met with resounding applause Tuesday, not everyone in attendance agreed with her line of thinking.
“If she was on some kind of a security council and has classified information, then maybe she knows what she’s talking about, but I don’t think she does,” said Dave Buehler, who attended the meeting. “I think that the president and his team have a lot more facts to deal with than some members of Congress.”
The Congresswoman continued to assert her ultimate goal of peace in Syria, which she said would save lives, stem suffering and keep crucial dollars at home where they’re more needed.
She added it’s not the place of the United States or any other government to determine the political future of Syria, but that it’s instead solely the purview of the Syrian people.
As to whether peace or a freely-elected government could be achieved in Syria with Assad still in power, Gabbard replied simply, “That’s what we have to work for.”