Foreign Policy and National Security
The United States can and should be a driving force around the world for freedom, human rights, and peace. This does not mean we should turn first to war and violence. Too many times, our first response to a foreign policy problem has been military action. Unilateral military interventions are counterproductive to our strategic goals and prolong violence and suffering. I support working together with the international community to find thoughtful diplomatic solutions for the complex issues facing our world.
I opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and I continue to oppose the broad authorization of military force that has operated as a blank check for military use for 15 years. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, I will push for diplomatic solutions, increased foreign assistance, and the need to conduct robust congressional oversight. I support innovative responses to 21st century national security threats.
Click here to learn more about the bills that I introduced and cosponsored.
Read my op-ed in The New York Times on U.S. involvement in the unconstitutional war in Yemen.
Read my op-ed in The Los Angeles Times on developing a 21st century foreign policy.
More on Foreign Policy and National Security
Dozens of lawmakers sent a letter to President Donald Trump, urging him to reestablish military-to-military contact with North Korea in order to prevent any miscalculations that could evolve into "a great conflict, including nuclear war."
The letter, signed by 32 Democrats and one Republican, said: "We write to request the reestablishment of military-to-military communication between the United States and North Korea. The U.S. should do all in its power to avoid misunderstandings that could escalate to a great conflict, including nuclear war."
The false missile alert in Hawaii on Saturday reminds us that miscalculation and human error are major risks that can escalate to war. Fortunately, recent events offer hope for diplomacy in the Korean Peninsula.
More than 30 lawmakers are calling on President Trump to reestablish military-to-military communications with North Korea.
"The U.S. should do all in its power to avoid misunderstandings that could escalate to a greater conflict, including nuclear war," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Trump on Thursday.
DRIVING THE DAY — CONGRESS HURTLES TOWARD A SHUTDOWN, write POLITICO's Burgess Everett, John Bresnahan and Rachael Bade: "Congress is careening toward the first shutdown in more than four years, with Republicans and Democrats at a seemingly intractable impasse over government funding and the fates of young immigrants facing deportation.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) called on Wednesday for lawmakers to pass a measure barring President Trump from launching a preemptive nuclear strike on North Korea without congressional approval.
Khanna's comments followed Trump's claim on Tuesday that the U.S. has a "much bigger" and "more powerful" nuclear arsenal than that of North Korea, after that country's leader, Kim Jong Un, said that he has a nuclear launch button on the desk in his office.
On the morning of Sept. 10, 2016, aircraft bombed a remote area in western Yemen where workers were drilling a well for a nearby village. After the first strike, villagers came to remove bodies and see the damage. The planes returned and bombed the rescuers. All told, the assault eventually killed more than 20 people, including three children. Two months later, Human Rights Watch investigators visiting the site found two bomb fragments that showed the explosives were made in the United States.
"Resistance" was the watchword for 2017. Resistance not just to Donald Trump, but to a status quo that gave our most powerful bully pulpit to an actual bully. Progressives not only refused to go backward in 2017; they demanded a new conversation that challenged old orthodoxies. The hashtag #MeToo became the bellwether for a national dialogue about sexual abuse, workplace discrimination, and equal rights that is opening the way for societal transformation.
The United States is helping Saudi Arabia commit "war crimes" in Yemen, according to US Congressman Ro Khanna.
In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera's UpFront aired on Friday, Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California, said the US made a mistake in supporting the Saudi-led coalition's bombing campaign of Yemen.
"Today, I believe that we are aiding Saudi Arabia in Saudi Arabia's committing war crimes," Khanna told UpFront host Mehdi Hasan.
At the start of November, more than 20 humanitarian groups issued a warning that Yemen had just six weeks of food aid remaining for the 7 million people in that country facing famine. The desperate alarm was caused by a blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia, preventing medical supplies and food from entering the country.
Now, a month later, that blockade is still in effect, and there's a growing chorus of international voices calling for Saudi Arabia to allow the flow of goods to resume.
The 2016 election will be remembered largely as a crisis at the intersection of social media, private political financing, freedoms of expression, and geopolitics. Depending on who you ask, we are suffering from either too much democracy or too little, from an elite political class that has grown too insular and paternalistic or a populist wave that has laid waste to orderly electoral process.