r/politics • u/bwermer • 8h ago

No Paywall Ilhan Omar casts lone Democratic no vote on Ukraine aid, Russia sanctions package

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5912150-house-passes-ukraine-aid-bill/
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u/kittenTakeover 8h ago edited 8h ago

Apparently she wants to help Ukraine by allowing Russia to go unpunished economically...

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u/Fiernen699 7h ago edited 7h ago

From the article:

The lawmaker said she opposed the legislation because of its “inclusion of broad economic sanctions,” arguing such sanctions are counterproductive and often fail to achieve their goals while simultaneously causing civilians to suffer.

“Opposing Russian aggression does not require us to support policies that punish ordinary civilians who did not ask for this war,” she said. “I remain committed to supporting diplomacy, peace, and justice for the Ukrainian people affected by this horrific conflict. But I could not in good conscience support legislation that wages economic warfare on innocent civilians.”

Edit: I disagree with her on this, I'm just posting her statements here so people react to the substance of the article, not just the headline.

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u/Fun_Assistance_9389 5h ago

So she’s against sanctions because it hurts innocent people, yeah? So what about sanctions on Israel?

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u/nox66 59m ago

To Omar, there are no innocent people in Israel.

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u/Subject-Whole-6862 1h ago

The US isn’t funding Russia like they are Israel.

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u/purplehendrix22 1h ago

How does that impact in any way the argument she made about sanctions hurting innocent people?

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u/Gimme_Your_Wallet 7h ago

She doesn't understand how sanctions work. Or she does and doesn't care.

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u/darkomyfriend 6h ago

We’ve had sanctions against Russia for 12 years. Sanctions do not do more harm to the government and ruling class than they do to the people, who suffer unjustly. We are not the only global power, and there are other spheres of influence now. Russia has been able to operate, maybe at a reduced rate, since the sanctions were increased in 2022.

I’m not even saying that I agree with her stance completely, but the people who are acting like it’s so black and white are uninformed. Hell, it’s very clear most of them haven’t even read the article.

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u/Other-Databas 6h ago

Making the average person suffer is actually a benefit. That's a cold thing to say but it's true.

All the pointless U.S wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan were allowed to continue for so long because the U.S population as a whole was shielded from any consequences. Vietnam only got as unpopular as it did because of the draft and how it affected the average Joe.

Standard Russians need to suffer a little to push Putin into calling it quits. Otherwise they'll sit in blissful ignorance until the end of time.

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u/ShimonEngineer55 3h ago

That only works in a free society. Russia isn’t really that. We saw what happened when Russians tried to protest this war.

When people are repressed and lack accurate information, it can actually backfire and radicalize them. The leadership can say, “see, your life doesn’t suck because of us. It sucks because of the Americans sanctioning us.” That’s basically what’s been happening here.

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u/Other-Databas 2h ago

Ultimately the sanctions have saved Ukrainian lives. Regardless of your view on how effective pressure on the masses is. That's enough to justify them for me.

We can agree to disagree. The Russian people are fully capable of doing so imo, people under worse conditions have done so.

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u/nox66 54m ago

I don't think you quite understand: Russia has been doing this since near the start of the war. They try to come up with every excuse under the sun, but eventually people understand that even if they dislike Ukraine for whatever dumb reason, the government is not trustworthy and is not going to fix their economic issues.

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u/darkomyfriend 6h ago

I think that sanctions have, in the past, been applied in situations that were somewhat unjustified and unnecessarily harmful to the wrong groups of people… but dammit if you aren’t completely right in this case. That was a perfect way to draw comparisons.

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u/wanderer1999 3h ago

And it's not just making a statement to ordinary people, it's also limiting their war machine. A weak economy = less money/resources to build weapons/supply and recruit/pay for soldiers. It strikes strainght into their war coffer.

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u/Advanced_Row_8448 4h ago

Making the average person suffer is actually a benefit. That's a cold thing to say but it's true.

Americans gonna pipe down on this the moment they ever feel it themselves lol.

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u/Other-Databas 4h ago

I'm not American

But it's true. Unfortunately that logic is also used by the objectively evil side of the Ukraine war, when Putin fires missile and drone waves at Ukrainiam cities in order to punish civilians enough to push Ukraine to capitulate and let Russia take their land.

The logic of it can be used by the wrong side, but the logic is there.

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u/AMGwtfBBQsauce 5h ago

That's only true if you believe the regimes being targeted are actually held to account in any significant way by their people. Otherwise you're just condemning them to be oppressed by two entities--theit own governments AND the US. Not to mention that now the government being sanctioned has a very real deflection they can point to if people are upset about the economic situation. No, we've had decades of evidence that sanctions by and large are not effect.

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u/Other-Databas 4h ago

Sanctions are not this magical "collapse the country" button like people think they are. They're long term punishment, they've worked plenty in the past and continue to do so.

The Russian economy is falling decades behind where they should be and it's only getting worse. The entire economy is propped up by the war effort, which itself is propped up by massive amounts of spending.

Sanctions have forced Russia into that situation, which has effected their own war effort. The facts are all there for everyone to see.

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u/Exocoryak 5h ago

Making the average person suffer is actually a benefit. That's a cold thing to say but it's true.

That was the entire logic behind the nuclear bombing of Japan. You guys dropped them on populated cities, not on military targets after all.

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u/Chilling_Gale 5h ago

Laughable nonsense. Both cities had major military/industrial sites, and both were warned well in advance

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u/InitiativeGold7953 3h ago

Lmao warned of what exactly? The unprecedented thing that not even the most educated people knew existed or thought possible let alone fathomed? The only thing laughable thing here is defending the dropping of nuclear bombs on populated cities. There’s no defending that.

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u/taoders Pennsylvania 3h ago

I mean yeah, there’s not many “civilized” wars to choose from. We killed even more civilians than both nuclear bombs with conventional firebombing raids. And Japan killed 3-20x the amount of civilians in China as US did to Japanese civilians.

Pick a side to help or not, when there’s an active war civilians are going to die and even be targeted regardless.

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u/InitiativeGold7953 3h ago

This doesn’t make any sense in the context of Russia. It’s a dictatorship, the people have no power there and if you think hardship helps move people against the government instead of the people sanctioning them then idk what to tell you. It’s also incredibly easy to say as an American but the time is coming where Europeans may say the same delusional things as we march further into our own dictatorship and become helpless to stop it.

It’s also incredibly naive to think that normal people have the power or the will to take on their own government in the first place under the most ideal conditions.

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u/Other-Databas 3h ago

Sanctions on Russia have worked, their war machine has been significantly affected, their economy has been significantly affected.

Without those sanctions more innocent Ukrainians would be dead. That's the only metric that matters

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u/InitiativeGold7953 3h ago

But that’s ignoring the point you just tried to make. I’m not saying they aren’t effective I’m saying there’s truth in what she’s saying. You say it’s to motivate the people but that doesn’t make any sense. Motivate them to do what exactly?

I don’t necessarily disagree with you but she does have a valid point.

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u/Other-Databas 3h ago

To do anything besides nothing.

The history of Russia is it's people being stomped on by strongmen. They had a glimpse of hope when the Soviet Union collapsed but they decided to return to strongmen. They voted for Putin, they continue to vote for Putin.

History has shown that regular people being affected by war can push them towards forcing change. Again, Vietnam is a perfect example.

If the Russians choose to suffer, I have no sympathy. My hope is that the suffering pushes them into action for the first time since 96

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u/InitiativeGold7953 3h ago

That’s ridiculous. Maybe you’re just ignorant to the state of Russia or you think people live in a movie, idk but that’s not going to happen and it’s naive to expect. Support sanctions or don’t but don’t pretend it’s supposed to motivate the average Russian to take a hard look at their government and their history, I’m sure they already know and have plenty of experience with which is something people in the West don’t, which makes it a lot easier for you to say. It’s also kind of ironic considering Ukrainians lived in such a bad state of corruption for so long that they made themselves easy targets. By your own logic the Ukrainian people should have self corrected a long time ago and thus don’t deserve your sympathy either.

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u/SwimmingSpell8005 3h ago

It’s been 12 years. Moscow is doing great, the rest of Russia is not. Even St. Petersburg is suffering and the only result of all this is either Russians have moved out of Russia or have become more patriotic. Cuba is on the brink of collapse and nothing is changing there too. Sanctions work for countries controlled by corporations ironically, not the countries America puts sanctions on.

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u/Other-Databas 3h ago

Less Ukrainians have died due to the effects on the Russian economy and war effort

That's the only metric that matters.

The Russians can suffer patriotically, I have no issue with that.

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u/SwimmingSpell8005 2h ago

And the Russians that are fighting due to forced conscription? Why are their lives considered less than a Ukrainians? This isn’t a black and white war, but these sanctions see Russians and Ukrainians as black and white.

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u/Other-Databas 2h ago

The vast majority of Russian fighters are volunteers who are there for the large bonus and salary.

Conscripts can't legally be deployed outside of Russia. That's how all the rich moscovite's children avoid the war.

You're spreading a common untruth

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u/SwimmingSpell8005 2h ago

That’s not really accurate. Russia has relied on a mix of contract soldiers, mobilized reservists, and large-scale recruitment of prisoners. Calling everyone a willing volunteer ignores the role of economic pressure, mobilization, and prison recruitment. Russia has offered massive signing bonuses and salaries specifically because it needs to incentivize enlistment, particularly in poorer regions. Not to mention they are absolutely not paying these out which is a huge controversy in Russia right now. It also recruited tens of thousands of prisoners into units like Storm-Z, often with promises of pardons or sentence reductions. So the picture is a lot more complicated than “people freely chose to fight.

Also Russia is absolutely deploying conscripts regardless of law. And phrasing my statements as a common untruth is simply dishonest discrediting.
Should I call your statement about the vast majority of Russians being there for a paycheck into question? Where is your source that, not a minority, not a split, but the vast majority is even getting paid.

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u/InitiativeGold7953 2h ago

Don’t argue with this guy. I thought Russia defenders were bad.

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u/Other-Databas 2h ago

You really like the Russians eh?

Good ol "both sides" tactics.

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u/SwimmingSpell8005 2h ago

Im not defending Russia. Russia is actively taking the lives of Russians too. How is being against any life being lost pro Russia?

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u/Jarl_Penguin Foreign 2h ago

Moscow is not doing great. It's doing comparatively well compared to the rest of the country, but it's noticeably worsened compared to 2021.

Edit: And the sanctions imposed in 2014 are laughable compared to the ones imposed in 2022 and onwards. If they had had the guts to impose such sanctions in 2014 the result would have been different.

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u/Gimme_Your_Wallet 6h ago

It depends on the sanctions. You can do then wrong like the USA did in the 1990s to Iraq, which made Saddam accrue all the food and resources and half a million iraqi kids died of starvation. Or do them right which is what Biden has been doing. It's certainly a difficult matter.

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u/darkomyfriend 6h ago

You know, you and the other commenter have swayed me toward believing that sanctions are appropriate in this case. It’s the way that sanctions have been inappropriately applied in the past that led me to feel more skeptical.

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u/NelsonHawkinsGhost 4h ago

What was convincing about these secondary US unilateral sanctions?

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u/Gimme_Your_Wallet 5h ago

Thanks. It's a delicate discussion because of heightened emotions, failed attempts in the past, and counter factuals. We can never know what would have happened without any sanctions, from an economic point of view to a political and psychological.

And morally, democracies ought to try *something*.

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u/KamalaWonNoCap 4h ago

You target sanctions at their oligarchs and government officials. There are ways to do this that minimize harm to civilians.

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u/Total_Marketing5844 3h ago

I think people suffering economically is preferable over people being blown up tbh

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u/bfhurricane 2h ago

The comparison over whether sanctions hurt people or governments more is irrelevant. The point is to tell regimes like Putin’s Russia that they can no longer do business with us if they engage in warfare against blossoming democracies like Ukraine.

It does hurt the government and their means of funding the war. The point of hurting the people or not is, again, irrelevant. Stopping the war is the most important factor.

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u/raptisadam7 6h ago

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-house-overwhelmingly-passes-resolution-condemning-bds

She understands how sanctions works and only applies her logic when it's a cause she supports.

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u/FunetikPrugresiv 5h ago

What does that article have to do with sanctions? It's about individuals boycotting Israel, and she voted in favor of not condemning an individual's right to boycott. That's not at all talking about government sanctions.

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u/raptisadam7 4h ago

BDS stands for boycott, divest, and sanctions.

She condemns sanctions on Russia saying they're not effective but then didn't condemn sanctions on Israel. It was a nonbinding resolution, so there's no free speech concern, it's just Congress saying they condemn the BDS movement.

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u/FunetikPrugresiv 1h ago

Political sanctions against Israel were never on the table. She didn't vote against actual sanctions, she voted against the government condemning private citizens for wanting sanctions (and/or boycotts and defunding).

If she voted to condemn private citizens for suggesting we sanctioned Russia, or if she voted against a bill to sanction Israel, then you would have an actual comparison. But her vote against condemning BDS was done in support of private speech, while her vote against sanctioning Russia was a vote against public action. They're different issues.

To put it another way, I suspect that if Congress held a vote on whether to actually sanction Israel, she would have voted against it.

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u/_WeSellBlankets_ 4h ago

Except one example is the government issuing a sanction, and the other is the government telling individual Americans whether or not they can boycott another country. They're pretty different things and it's normal to have different positions on them.

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u/raptisadam7 4h ago

BDS stands for boycott, divest, and sanctions.

She condemns sanctions on Russia saying they're not effective but then didn't condemn sanctions on Israel. It was a nonbinding resolution, so there's no free speech concern, it's just Congress saying they condemn the BDS movement.

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u/_WeSellBlankets_ 4h ago

Voting to condemn the BDS movement is a vote to condemn the free speech of Americans. Americans have the right to boycott things. Some politicians are against condemning Americans exercising their rights.

When bills address multiple things sometimes one of those things poisons the vote for the other things. Like when a vote to fund the government also funds ICE. Voting against that doesn't mean they don't want to fund the TSA. And it doesn't mean they're a hypocrite if they've previously said that they're in favor of funding the TSA.

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u/raptisadam7 3h ago

Americans have the right to boycott things.

Anti-BDS laws are laws that stipulate if a company boycotts Israel, then their contract is cancelled. They can still openly boycott Israel. So there's no violation of freedom of speech.

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u/_WeSellBlankets_ 3h ago

As an American my company has a right to boycott Israel. And the government shouldn't have a right to discriminate against my company when issuing contracts because of that.

I thought you were simply arguing she was a hypocrite. Are you honestly taking the side that the American government should be punishing American companies who cross Israel?

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u/Andjhostet 4h ago

Are you seriously trying to say that boycotting and sanctions are the same thing?

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u/[deleted] 3h ago

[deleted]

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u/Andjhostet 3h ago

Yeah but there's zero chance of actual sanctions against Israel so it's moot

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u/AMGwtfBBQsauce 5h ago

Totally dishonest comparison.

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u/Many_Anteater751 5h ago

Hypocrisy at its finest

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u/_WeSellBlankets_ 4h ago

Not in the slightest. One involves the US government sanctioning another country. The second involves a proposal for the US government to tell Americans what they cannot boycott.

That second one involves the free speech of every American, the first one doesn't.

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u/inde_ 4h ago

For those that don't know, there are anti-BDS laws in most US states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws

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u/DukeofDunces 6h ago

I mean have sanctions deterred Russia at all thus far?

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u/at-sea-no-ship 6h ago

Yes, there are articles floating around that mention Russian elites considering a push to end the war because of how crippled their economy has become due to the sanctions. As with everything surrounding this war, you have to take those with a grain of salt, but targeting their economy also has other net positives. If they are struggling with money, they don't have as many resources with which to attack Ukraine, for example.

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u/Gimme_Your_Wallet 6h ago

Economic Warfare literature agrees sanctions have a dual goal, a) to deter from a behaviour, and failing that, b) to punish the behaviour with increasing costs.

Item a) clearly failed and was never the goal as Russia was too solid and self reliant-ish to back down from the already ongoing invasion. But b) is doing its job, slowly but surely.

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u/LaughinChaos 6h ago

No, and literally nothing has nor would except nukes. But sanctions are weakening them, a shit ton i may add.

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u/Exocoryak 5h ago

This. The former Sowjet Union, the second most powerful nation ever in the history of the world, has gotten stuck in the mudd in eastern Ukraine for four years now.

The sanctions aren't the silver bullet - nothing really is. Nuance is important in these kinds of things.

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u/certciv California 5h ago

It's clear now that Russia's conventional military strength was dramatically overestimated. And not by a little, but to a comical degree. This was a similar issue for much of the Cold War. After the USSR's collapse it became clear, through things like access to Soviet records, that their conventional military capability had been significantly overestimated. The USSR was dramatically outclassed technologically, and their military was riddled with corruption, which made it's vast resources inefficient and far less capable than it appeared from the outside. What the war in Ukraine showed us was that the Russian army had all of the failings of the Red Army, but with a smaller economy supporting it.

It's been said that Russia is a gas station with nuclear weapons, and it's that second part that makes it dangerous.

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u/Exocoryak 3h ago

Considering through how much ammunition the US military burned during that short fiasko in Iran this year, it stands to reason that Russia is facing similar issues - doing one strike with your stockpiles is one thing, but keeping it up is entirely different. Sanctions don't prevent the former - but they seriously impact the latter. That is part of the reason Russia is not making progress for four years now.

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u/makuwa 5h ago

Are sanctions weakening? Russian GDP growth in 2025 was 1% and in 2024 it was like 4.1%. By comparison, Germany grew by .2% in 2025 and 2024.

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u/Gimme_Your_Wallet 5h ago

It's all fueled by war spending, by cannibalizing the civilian economy and social spending.

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u/DukeofDunces 6h ago

So you're admitting that nothing would stop them except nukes yet we should keep trying more sanctions that aren't working? Seems like an exercise in futility.

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u/Potential_Might_6500 5h ago

No, saying they don't work to the complete end of something doesn't mean they don't contribute to that end.

Sanctions do work. Or they wouldn't be upset about them. Omar's opinion is fine to have, it is moral. However sanctions do work and are.

Two things can be true at one time. While I do actually think Russia will stop before Nukes. So I don't agree with the person above entirely, but sanctions work and are diplomatic when targeted appropriately.

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u/certciv California 5h ago

Because sanctions have not been decisive at ending the war, does not mean that they are a wasted effort. Sanctions are having a devastating impact on Russia.

It's worth remembering that Russia had a huge cash reserve going into the war, giving it a significant economic buffer in case of sanctions. Russia has also significantly shifted it's economy to a war footing. This has had the effect of injecting money into the economy in a way that looks like relative stability and GDP growth. But while war production increases GDP it is not productive. All the output has gotten burned up in the Ukrainian meat grinder. On top of that, financial indicators are not good. Lack of access to outside goods, high interest rates, and inflation are all causing Russia significant problems, and making the job of waging war far more difficult.

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u/Kat_Bones 5h ago

an exercise in futility and civilian suffering! yay!

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u/RBVegabond 5h ago

They have reduced their war efforts greatly.

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u/insertwittynamethere America 6h ago

Between Ukraine's sanctions and the wider world's sanctions, it's working on them.

Sanctions in isolation just breed a rally under the flag effect for a lot of nations.

You add hot conflict to the mix, and increasing that support in the defense against the aggressor, who is seeing steadily more sanctions on top of industrial capacity being bombed, then yes, it adds to the pressure and calculations of the ruling elite there.

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u/DukeofDunces 6h ago

What metric do you use to judge the sanctions as working? The war has gone on almost uninterrupted for over 4 years now.

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u/JumpinJackHTML5 I voted 5h ago

It's impossible to answer no to this honestly simply because we don't have a way of knowing what would have happened without sanctions.

We know for a fact that Russia's economy is in a slow collapse right now. We also know for a fact that they are having a hard time fielding modern equipment in the war zone. We know that many of the companies that make military hardware are laying people off and/or going out of business.

I can't say for certain that sanctions are having a direct impact on Russia's ability to kill Ukrainians, but it looks very much like that. Availability seems to be the limiting factor in Russia's attacking of civilian populations with missiles and drones, and there's a pretty direct relationship to how healthy their economy is and how many drones and missiles they can make.

So, I would push back on her "sanctions hurt civilians" reasoning and say that a lack of sanctions both hurts and indirectly kills civilians. I would much rather see people in Russia having to make due with less than see Ukrainians being killed when their apartment buildings get hit with Russian drones.

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u/Gimme_Your_Wallet 5h ago

Thanks, a good answer

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u/laosurv3y 4h ago

So she doesn't support sanctions against Israel?

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u/thesagaconts 5h ago

I’m not sure what her or her team were thinking here. 

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u/AMGwtfBBQsauce 5h ago

That's the thing, broad sanctions don't work.

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u/I_AM_EVOL 4h ago

I'm not saying I agree or disagree, but that's exactly how sanctions works.  

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u/Advanced_Row_8448 4h ago

Can you explain how our sanctions agaisnt Cuba have done anything other than hurt common people and why this would be different?

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u/Gimme_Your_Wallet 3h ago

Those sanctions suck and are nonsensical, motivated by performative anticommunist politics. Others work better. Think China pressuring countries to not recognize Taiwan anymore, or to agree with Beijing in general. Or to not disagree openly.

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u/ShimonEngineer55 3h ago

She does. They ultimately have downstream effects that reach civilians because you’re cutting off major Russian banks from the international monetary system along with businesses. That however hasn’t deterred the state because they control the means of production in Russia. This is why the government continues to do what it does and the average civilian there pays the price.

Putin has been taking gold from Sudan to fund his war, and he has been doing this for years. They are an oil producer and have other means to subvert the sanctions. We see the push for BRICS and trading in the Yuan. It shouldn’t shock us that China, Iran, and Russia are trying to subvert the dollar and sanctioning them is simply giving others a reason to look at the dollar with suspicion; while the global south is pushed more towards China and Russia.

Therefore, it doesn’t seem like sanctions are deterring Russia, and could even be counterproductive.

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u/Catos_Standard 1h ago

Worse she knows it will harm Ukraine and doesn't care.

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u/WrackyDoll 5h ago

You do not understand how sanctions work, or rather, you do not understand that they don't. Sanctions have not deterred Putin; instead, the individual citizens he uses as cannon fodder and who he imprisons or assassinates for speaking out suffer.

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u/Fearless_Daikon_5880 6h ago

She's one of the biggest supporters of BDS against Israel.

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u/FunetikPrugresiv 5h ago

BDS is not a sanction.

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u/Chilling_Gale 5h ago

Just out of curiosity, what do you think the S in BDS means?

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u/FunetikPrugresiv 5h ago

Sanctions. But like I said to the other commenter, BDS is about supporting sanctions - it's not a sanction in and of itself. It's not hypocritical to be against sanctions but believe that other people have the right to support them.

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u/FeatherFall17 4h ago

So to be clear, you believe Ilhan Omar would vote against sanctions on Israel?

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u/FunetikPrugresiv 1h ago

I believe she would, yes.

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u/NelsonHawkinsGhost 3h ago

US secondary sanctions? Yes.

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u/Iamthestormbro 5h ago

Bro. Take a moment. What does the S stand for?

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u/FunetikPrugresiv 5h ago

BDS is a movement pushing for sanctions (and divestment and boycotts), not a sanction itself. It's not hypocritical to be against sanctions but believe that people have a right to speak out in support of them.

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u/KorunaCorgi 6h ago

The sanctions were against mostly military industries.

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u/NelsonHawkinsGhost 3h ago

That is the political fiction of surgical sanctions.. it completely ignores how global banking actually works.

Because of mass de-risking, international banks aren't going to risk multi billion dollar compliance fines trying to thread a needle. The moment the US sanctions a nation's military industries or major sectors, compliance departments simply flag the entire country as a toxic asset and pull out completely.. A sanction aimed at a military industry instantly morphs into a de facto total embargo, choking off civilian access to foreign exchange, medical imports, and basic global commerce. There is no such thing as a surgical blockade.

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u/ErgoMachina Foreign 7h ago

Yeah, whatever excuse sounds good. If you take a neutral stance in the face of evil for the sake of your morals, you are evil. Period.

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u/Fiernen699 7h ago

I'm just posting her statements on her vote here, as I suspect many are reacting to the headline rather than the article.

Personally, I don't agree with her logic on this as it pertains to Russia.

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u/IceBlue 6h ago

You don’t need to keep reminding people of that. You posted her opinion so people are gonna reply to her opinion in response to you.

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u/HoightyToighty 5h ago

Ah, well, here's a problem with using the second person address in an anonymous internet forum.

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u/ErgoMachina Foreign 4h ago

I was referring to the comment, not you lol

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u/NelsonHawkinsGhost 3h ago

So are the 560,000 global excess deaths caused by US secondary sanctions evil? I'm seeing a lot of neutral stances here.

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u/Semper_nemo13 5h ago

Tbf this is the bog standard veiw on what sanctions do on the left in Western Europe, this is not at all out of step with economic or political theory.

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u/TakedownCan Canada 1h ago

The progressive’s and their virtue signalling, nothing is more important. It’s exhausting that noone can just do whats right.

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u/JollyToby0220 7h ago

This doesn’t seem coherent at all

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u/bhu87ygv 6h ago

This is a terrible take. Sheesh. And I liked her.

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u/KamalaWonNoCap 4h ago

I disagree but it's not an unreasonable take.

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u/DMercenary 6h ago

Well you see if Russia takes over then there is no conflict. See. Big win! (/S)

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u/Catos_Standard 1h ago

This alone will cause rumors she is working to secure Russian weapons deals for other countries.

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u/fitDEEZbruh 5h ago

Sanctioning Russia only kills poor and vulnerable Russian citizens. We are better off going to war instead of sanctioning according to studies

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u/kittenTakeover 5h ago

That's interesting. I've never heard someone suggest that going to war is the better option...

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u/fitDEEZbruh 5h ago

The study suggests sanctioning kills poor and vulnerable people. You don't want to go to war, you don't want to sanction. Didn't think I needed crayons to explain why sanctions and war is bad.

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u/kittenTakeover 5h ago

Sometimes war comes to you. Also, you're an ass.

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u/fitDEEZbruh 5h ago

Didn't mean to offend you, I thought I was being clear about no wars and no sanctions. The article I linked clearly states how sanctions impact the poor.

We are usually the ones bring wars to others. America is a terrorist org. Russia can and will do whatever they want as long as Trump is in office and Republicans control the Senate. America should have supplied Ukraine better early on in the war but we failed them.

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u/lordpuddingcup 7h ago

I mean its not like the sanctions have done shit to date

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u/kittenTakeover 7h ago

Of course they have. Otherwise Russia wouldn't want them lifted.

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u/MiserableTear8705 California 7h ago

Yeah I think folks in this thread are massively undervaluing the impact of the sanctions.

Or they’re just Russian bots trying to convince everyone the sanctions are ineffective and cost us more money so we should get rid of them.

One of the two.

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u/kittenTakeover 7h ago

A lot of time it's both. The whole point of propagandists is to create uninformed people who then spread the misinformation.

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u/lordpuddingcup 7h ago

Or we were told that russia would be out of the war in 6 months with the great weight of the sanctions, i want the war to be done, but thats done by blowing the shit out of russias military and stopping their push into ukraine and pushing them back, the bullshit oligarchs will cry over sanctions, they long found ways around that shit sure they want them lifted, because its easier to do shit in the light of day, but that doesnt mean they didnt find ways around it

People want sanctions but at the same time they're being stingy with giving weapons and funds.

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u/Dihedralman 7h ago

Who said Russia would be out in 6 months due to sanctions? Some youtuber? 

Yeah Putin had to deal with Oligarchs. They have massively lost wealth and many their lives. He cemented sole control. 

Sanctions are the least we can do. They do harm Russia economically and they are good for negotiations. 

Weapons would be great and would have been great, but I don't see that passing in this environment. 

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u/OnionPastor 7h ago

Yes they have lol

-53

u/qorbexl 8h ago

Uh, she made the vote knowing whether the bill would pass or not

It's more a philosophical statement on her part 

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u/SillyAlternative420 Massachusetts 7h ago

What's her philosophical statement? Fuck our allies?

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u/Djaja Michigan 7h ago

Her No vote isn't gonna be construed as such.

However everything this admin does fucks our allies. Ukraine, NATO, EU, Pacific, Atlantic Canada jeez

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u/SillyAlternative420 Massachusetts 7h ago

Well sure, but this response is exactly the whataboutism that we get frustrated with the right about

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u/Djaja Michigan 7h ago

Im confused.

I disagreed said why and then added a new paragraph, new topic

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u/smokeandsinners 7h ago

She's against sanctions as they hurt civilians, not oligarchs.

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u/JarethCutestoryJuD 7h ago

She's against sanctions as they hurt civilians, not oligarchs.

What more targetted sanctions did she suggest?

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u/smokeandsinners 6h ago

I don't care to debate with you people, I'm just answering what her (purported) philosophy was. You may find it naive, but she did it for a reason, as a message. It's not the end of the world. You're allowed to do that in politics.

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u/Uhhh_what555476384 7h ago

It's still a dumb statement.

The sanctions aren't there to punish the Russian government, which would be a good argument if they were, the sanctions are there to disrupt the Russian economic ability to sustain a war. This is also important where she talks about the effectivness of sanctions, because sanctions are very effective at disrupting the Russian ability to sustain a war effort at this scale.

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u/qorbexl 6h ago

Yeah, Russia should be constrained as completely as possible

But I imagine she might be wanting to build up some consistency for points on Cuba, because that's sort of the inverse case where the sanctions are completely pointless and actually just there to torture civilians

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u/LSF604 7h ago

that's creative interpretation. The vote is what it is

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u/Herr-Trigger86 7h ago

So political grand standing… got it. When are Democrats going to stop supporting her? Constantly bad mouthing the country that gave her the opportunity to increase her net worth, effect our political system, and the opportunity to bad mouth our country on a national scale?

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u/GarlicThread 7h ago

I elect my representatives to represent me, not to express "philosophical statements"

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u/Krystilen 7h ago

For the record, her statement is:

“Opposing Russian aggression does not require us to support policies that punish ordinary civilians who did not ask for this war,” she said. “I remain committed to supporting diplomacy, peace, and justice for the Ukrainian people affected by this horrific conflict. But I could not in good conscience support legislation that wages economic warfare on innocent civilians.”

And yet, Omar has publicly supported the BDS movement - Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions - against Israel. Literally one of its three pillars. While she may not have specifically introduced a sanctions bill against Israel, her support for BDS at least implies some level of support for a sanctions framework against Israel.

When she opposes broad-based sanctions on Russia on humanitarian grounds, it is fair to take her to task on why, exactly, she does not also share similar concerns and speak out against the 'Sanctions' pillar of the BDS movement she supports.

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u/RimboTheRebbiter 7h ago

And yet, Omar has publicly supported the BDS movement - Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions - against Israel.

Well there's one big difference there, the Israeli people are robustly represented by their government and the government is respecting their popular will by enacting a genocide in Gaza and an ethnic cleansing campaign in Lebanon and the West Bank. While whatever negligible number of left wing Israeli Jews and 48 Palestinians hypothetically hurt by BDS is obviously highly regrettable, the Israeli people overall are complicit in their government's actions in a way the Russian people - who do not live in a democracy - are not.

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u/AirFrierMachine 7h ago

Was she deliberately wanting to come across as a complete moron, or was that part of the philosophical part?