The head of the group that organized and paid for Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s trip to Syria says he personally financed the trip in which the Hawaii Democrat met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, denied he had links to Assad or a controversial Syrian political party, and rejected news reports that said his group was anti-Semitic.
In an interview with
The Atlantic, Bassam Khawam, a former executive director and current board member of the Arab American Community Center for Economic and Social Services (AACCESS-Ohio), said this wasn’t the first trip his Cleveland-based organization has coordinated for U.S. lawmakers to the Middle East. Founded in 1991 to serve the Arab American community in Ohio, AACCESS has organized three trips to the region for Dennis Kucinich, the former Democratic congressman from Ohio, between 2006 and 2011; Khawam said the group did the same for Gabbard, a two-term Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, because of her expressed interest in the region.
“Congresswoman Gabbard had a position on what’s taking place in Syria, and about regime change, and these sort of things,” Khawam, a Lebanese health-care consultant, told me in an interview. “So we thought … that would be most likely very helpful for her to see things on the ground similar to what we did with Congressman Kucinich.”
Gabbard, a veteran of the Iraq war, has long advocated that the U.S. should focus its efforts in Syria on Islamist groups instead of ousting Assad, whom the Obama administration had called on to step down. She had even criticized Obama for not using the term “radical Islam” to describe groups such as ISIS. And she
introduced legislationthat would bar the U.S. government from supporting groups allied with or supporting terrorist organizations, some of which are fighting against the Assad regime. Her views on Syria appear to align more closely with those of President Trump, who says the U.S. should focus its efforts on defeating ISIS.
On January 18, Gabbard caused a stir when she revealed her fact-finding trip to Syria this month included a meeting with Assad. She said she hadn’t planned on meeting with the longtime Syrian leader, but that when given the opportunity she felt “it was important to take it,” adding: “I think we should be ready to meet with anyone if there’s a chance it can bring about an end to this war, which is causing the Syrian people so much suffering.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/514763/
Here's some info on the funding and group that arranged her trip to Syria. I don't have a problem with her going, but to my knowledge she hasn't come out personally and called Assad out for his massacring of civilians.
