[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1270 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 1270

 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that no taxpayer 
   dollars will be used to enact sanctions that inflict suffering on 
                         civilian populations.


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                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           December 18, 2020

 Ms. Gabbard submitted the following resolution; which was referred to 
                    the Committee on Foreign Affairs

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                               RESOLUTION


 
 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that no taxpayer 
   dollars will be used to enact sanctions that inflict suffering on 
                         civilian populations.

Whereas sanctions are an instrument of modern-day economic warfare, designed to 
        inflict punishment on foreign populations by impeding the ability of 
        those populations to access the basic necessities required for a decent 
        life, such as food, medicine, hygiene and sanitary supplies, and fuel;
Whereas the aim of sanctions is often to forcibly engineer regime change in 
        foreign nations by inflicting maximum suffering on civilian populations 
        in the hopes they will turn against their own government;
Whereas the true victims of sanctions are innocent civilians subjected to 
        collective punishment for the sins, real or perceived, of their 
        governments;
Whereas sanctions have accelerated migrant crises around the world, undermining 
        stability everywhere from Europe, to the Middle East, to South America, 
        by exacerbating the harsh conditions which give civilians no choice but 
        to flee their homelands;
Whereas the policy of punishing innocent civilians with cruel and counter-
        productive sanctions in the midst of a global pandemic has impeded the 
        ability of civilian populations to obtain the medical, nutritional, 
        hygienic resources needed to curtail the spread of COVID-19, which, 
        given the transmissibility of the virus across national borders, 
        ultimately harms the United States;
Whereas the human toll in the countries targeted by the most draconian sanctions 
        policies have caused immense suffering on vulnerable populations, 
        including women, children, and the elderly;
Whereas Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once opined that ``the 
        price was worth it'' to impose devastating sanctions on Iraq, even as 
        she acknowledged that the ``price'' was the deaths of hundreds of 
        thousands of Iraqi children, and a further worsening of diplomatic 
        relations that culminated in the disastrous U.S. invasion and occupation 
        just a few years later; and
Whereas public discussion of ``sanctions'' is too often impersonal and abstract, 
        obscuring the devastating impact of this policy, and neglecting that the 
        end-result is vulnerable populations like women and children freezing 
        and starving to death: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That it is the sense of the United States House of 
Representatives that no taxpayer dollars, government personnel or 
equipment shall be used to enact sanctions that inflict suffering on 
civilian populations by interfering with their ability to access food, 
electricity, power, clothing, medicine, medical care, transportation, 
financial transactions, supplies, or other basic human needs required 
for day-to-day survival.
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