WASHINGTON (Rooters agency) – Congress is considering various proposals to file a protest with the Russian parliament over its approval of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s request to be allowed to bomb Syria.
“It’s outrageous,” said one Congressman, whose views were echoed widely in both the House of Representatives and Senate. “Since when does the Russian parliament have the right to decide who can bomb Syria? If Putin wants to do it, he should apply for permission to us. We won the Cold War, didn’t we?”
In addition to criticizing Russia’s unsporting refusal to recognize its defeat “in a fair and square level playing field contest,” as one Senator put it, members of Congress almost unanimously endorsed a recent New Old Times editorial that dismissed the Russian parliament as a mere “rubber stamp”.
“I don’t think the Russians even have a procedure for weighing such requests,” said one Democratic Senator. “They just vote yes. In our system, if our President wants to bomb or invade someplace, we have committees that hold hearings and make speeches, and then we vote yes. That’s been the rule since at least the Gulf of Tonkin.”
In a rare display of bipartisanship, a Republican Congressman endorsed those remarks, adding only one qualification: “That’s absolutely right and how it should be. Except that of course sometimes it’s an emergency or the President is too busy to ask.
“So then we don’t bother him, because he’s busy with the emergency. We just vote to provide the money for whatever it is. Which obviously means we’re in favor. If it’s necessary, we can always have the hearings and speeches later.”
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