Tennessee and Hamilton County residents were forced to stand by and watch some of our leaders make shameful votes on our behalf on Wednesday.
The first abhorrent vote came from 60 Republican members of the House of Representatives, and the other occurred with five Republicans sitting on the Hamilton County Commission dais.
In Congress, two-thirds of House Republicans – and all of the GOP’s House leaders – joined every House Democrat in a vote to hand President Donald Trump a 354-60 stinging rebuke for his recent decision to withdraw American forces just inside Syria’s border and green-light Turkey to invade. Trump took this knee-jerk action after a phone call with Turkey’s president even though our defense and foreign affairs experts had accurately told him several times in recent months that the consequences would be dire. The fallout, he was warned, could well include the slaughter of thousands of Kurds who helped America fight the Islamic State, as well as the release of hundreds of jailed Islamic terrorists. It also would open the door for more control by Russia.
As the magnitude of Trump’s mistake became clear and those terrorists did, in fact, begin to be released and thousands of Kurds did, in fact, die, and the only winner emerged to be Russia, the House voted to oppose Trump’s acquiescence to the Turkish assault.
And who do you suppose voted with the 60 supporting the president’s foolish action?