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
The ongoing civil war in Yemen was instigated by the region's major powers, with Iran on one side and a Saudi Arabia-led coalition of Persian Gulf states on the other. The fighting — especially airstrikes by Saudi and United Arab Emirates pilots — has devastated Yemen, one of the Arab world's poorest nations. It has created what three U.N. agencies call "the world's largest humanitarian crisis": Sixty percent of the Yemeni population is "food insecure"; 700,000 have been infected with cholera, a deadly disease spread by a lack of clean water and sanitation.
The lawmakers behind a major bipartisan effort to end U.S. assistance for a devastating Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen are getting help from big names in multiple arenas as they try to whip votes.
Since March 2015, millions of people inside the country of Yemen have languished on the edge of social collapse due to brutal and inhumane conflict that has resulted in at least 10,000 deaths — many of them civilians.
On top of the violence of the conflict itself, Yemenis face desolation in their everyday lives, economic decay and the fastest spreading cholera epidemic ever recorded. The nation, and its people, lie at a tipping point between mere emergent crisis and something far worse.
Yemen continues to suffer in silence as the world turns away from its ongoing misery. Despite two and a half years of brutal war, the average American remains oblivious to the inconvenient truth that the United States has been helping Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates destroy a sovereign country that posed a threat to no one.
What does it take to get Congress to act on vital questions of war and peace? The catastrophe in Yemen may test whether Congress is finally prepared to exercise its constitutional responsibility. Four legislators — two House Democrats and two Republicans — have introduced a resolution under the War Powers Act demanding a vote in 15 days to end U.S. involvement in Saudi Arabia's devastation of Yemen.
Washington, DC -- Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Mark Pocan (D-WI), and Walter Jones (R-NC) have introduced a bipartisan resolution that seeks to stop U.S. military participation in Saudi Arabia's war against the Houthis in Yemen. This is an entirely separate war from the fight against Al Qaeda, yet Congress has never authorized it. By invoking the War Powers resolution, these members want a congressional vote to officially withdraw U.S. forces from this unauthorized conflict.
For more than two years, the United States has been providing support for a Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen that has cost the lives of over 10,000 civilians and plunged much of the country into a humanitarian crisis.
The U.S. government is providing weapons and targeting intelligence, as well as flying refueling missions for the Saudi-led coalition. But U.S. Congress has never voted on whether the United States should be supporting our Saudi allies. It is essentially the president's choice — first Obama's, now Trump's — with little accountability beyond that.
Four lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill that would halt U.S. military assistance to the Saudi-led campaign in Yemen on grounds that Congress has never approved the American role in the war.
Two House Republicans and two Democrats submitted the bill on Wednesday evening, but other lawmakers have already conveyed their support for the measure, congressional aides told Foreign Policy.
Silicon Valley Congressman, Rep. Ro Khanna, said he's glad Facebook is turning over some 3,000 ads-linked to the Russian government-- to congressional investigators because it shows transparency. He says the country needs more cooperation between intelligence agencies and tech leaders. He calls the situation, "A new problem for our democracy."
Washington, DC – Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17) is among the 64 members of the House of Representatives, who sent a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson renouncing President Trump's irresponsible approach with North Korea. The letter is a follow-up to one sent to President Trump in May.
"Now is the not the time to encourage North Korea to make additional threats," said Rep. Khanna. "More than 60 members of the House recognize that we need assured leadership in regards to the situation with North Korea and urge the State Department to choose diplomacy over a show of force."