(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Senator Bob Menendez’s approach to a foreign policy based on the rule of law: A model to emulate [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-01 The following exchange between Senator Bob Menendez, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken exemplifies Menendez’s uncompromising commitment to human rights and the rule of law: Senator Menendez to Anthony Blinken: “What do you call a country: That violates another country’s airspace and territorial waters without provocation? Drills in another country’s Exclusive Economic Zone? Buys Russian military equipment in violation of U.S. law? That has more lawyers and journalists in jail than almost any other country and jails its main political opponent, right before elections? That seeks by force to block the rights of an E.U. country to explore its energy deposits off its outer continental shelf? Has not only NOT joined EU-led sanctions against Russia but HAS exported roughly $800 million worth of goods to Russia? That continues airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, including against U.S. partners like the Syrian Democratic forces? That stopped the critical enlargement of NATO? That continues to occupy an E.U. country with 40,000 troops and in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions seeks to open up an area that has been frozen by the United Nations? That denies religious freedom to the religious leader of millions citizens of the Greek Orthodox faith? That converts a church into a mosque in violation of its UNESCO commitments? That arrests and jails U.S. Embassy locally employed staff? Blinken: I think I will call that a challenging ally. Menendez: Well, I call the country Turkey. And the reality is that I don’t believe that such a country deserves to have F-16s sold to it.” https://twitter.com/SenatorMenendez to SecBlinken It wasn’t the first time Senator Menendez rebuked Turkey. Three months ago, he delivered one of his most scathing criticisms of the Turkish regime on the Senate floor and uncovered Ankara's offenses at home and abroad. Our State Department shares an enormous responsibility for the way Turkey turned out. Decades of tolerating their aggression, turning a blind eye to their human rights abuses, and appeasing them made the Turkish leaders feel invincible. In a recent article, Michael Rubin, a former pentagon official, traced the U.S.’s appeasement of Turkey and its adverse effects back to 1974 when Henry Kissinger “green-lighted” the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. “No matter what their provocation, Turkish leaders now believe that Washington will defer to their size and throw any smaller country under the bus. Not only does the northern part of Cyprus, therefore, remain Europe’s last occupied territory, but Erdogan now believes force might win him possession of Greece’s Aegean islands,” he wrote. “It will take crippling sanctions on Turkey. . . and further U.S. deployments in the Eastern Mediterranean to right historical wrongs and deter new conflict,” Rubin stressed. “Playing Moscow’s comrade and friend is inconsistent with being a member of NATO ,” wrote Doug Bandow of the CATO Institute. “Turkey is buying Russian weapons, inhibiting allied naval operations in the Black Sea, and resisting allied sanctions against Moscow. Who in the alliance believes Ankara can be relied on if NATO ends up at war with Russia? he continued. Turkey will not use the F-16s for its defense, as American statutes require, or to defend the West against Russia, but to harass Cyprus, Greece, and Armenia and attack our Kurdish friends in Syria. Rubin wrote that to sell Turkey F-16s would be a strategic malpractice . In 2019, Senator Menendez bashed Trump for allowing the Turks to massacre America's Kurdish allies in Syria. The Kurds had helped the United States defeat ISIS and, in the war, lost eleven thousand fighters. The Senator is a fervent defender of human rights and the rule of law not only in the eastern Mediterranean but also across the globe. He is unbiased in his choices and will not accept any inconsistencies or double standards. He vigorously supports Ukraine in its fight against Russia. The war in Ukraine, he lauded, is “about the freedom of the Ukrainian people to decide their own future, but it is also to stand up for the universal declaration that you cannot by force take another country’s territory.” The United States and its democratic allies, he continued, will show to the authoritarian states of the world that: “ The invasion and subjugation of Free People are unacceptable in the modern world. There is a violation of the international rule of law, which is also at stake in Ukraine.” In a recent op-ed, in The New York Times, Senator Menendez declared his unyielding support for Taiwan . He staunchly supports the rule of law and democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean . He is a potent opponent of Cuba’s totalitarian government. Furthermore, he denounced Azerbaijan’s attack on Nagorno-Karabakh, China’s treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority, Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and the genocide of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar. While being a Democrat himself, the Senator has no qualms about criticizing a Democratic administration. During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee inquiry in September 2022, Menendez harshly reprimanded the Biden administration for not moving forward with sanctions on the governments of Ethiopia and Sudan , where countless war crimes and atrocities occurred in the Tigray War. “There is a gnawing question for those of us who are big advocates for human rights and democracy: the lack of our sanctioned policy, when it is so clear and obvious that there are parties here that clearly have blood on their hands,” Menendez told James O’Brien, head of the State Department’s Office of Sanctions Coordination. “I want to have a serious conversation about why we don’t see action in some of these things.” Senator Menendez’s dedication to a foreign policy, guided by human rights and the rule of law, is commendable and should be an example of leadership to follow. It is morally right and in America’s paramount national interest to protect an international order based on the rule of law. It is vital that the United States hold on to this supreme interest and not relinquish it or subvert it for other less critical considerations or short-term strategic objectives. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the most recent frightening example of what can happen when states believe they can defy international law and violate human rights without consequences. The Turkish regime’s aggressiveness and misbehavior, inside and outside Turkey, is another. 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