"As a member of the US congress, Tulsi Gabbard is responsible for decisions on whether to declare war against another nation."

She has a single vote in Congress, but she ain't the whole thing. The final decision and ultimate decision is by the POTUS. She is not a gun slinger, she is a representative, and so therefore...

" [...]first US congressperson to embark on a first-hand fact finding mission [...]

She was not on a "Fact Finding Mission", she was specifically told not to have a meeting with Bashar al Assad, by the leader of the House. By both parties. She heard that, and then defied all that, and went ahead and set up her own meeting. People get hurt that way, innocent people; facts get skewed, she is not qualified to be alone on this occasion, there are military people who have been in region a long time who were upset by this galling woman. She was condemned by both the republicans and the democrats for breaking rank..

That one incident lost her trust in her peers, her party, who are more learned and experienced than she is...Tulsi Gabbard is a loose cannon. a hot dog. She is new to politics and has no war experience except working in field hospital for a year in Iraq. She is not a warrior or a diplomat. Bashar al Assad is a educated and experience cold warrior.

"I mean you might as well just walk over to the CIA HQ and get your opinion from them."

You think all spooks are bad huh...lol. What you don't know would kill your life, it would steal your whole reason to be... about what goes on, in the real world? I'm not talking about this fake reality you play in, I am talking about the real thing. And you are protected silently, and with courage and valour, and anonimity. By those asking no reward, but the honour they serve, because that person believes in your rights to be free, believes in the democracy of this country, to speak freely and live freely and to be happy.

The active measures by the KGB, have been going on for decades.

But you talk in distain because you hear a few stories cherry picked by rabble rousers, or hear from some low level agent who decides to write a fucking book, or pipe off on YouTube or RT, and expoloit his position, or knowledge, who misuses his power, to taint what quietly is a thin blue line between us and fucking hell. Don't believe me? get yourself a plane ticket and check out downtown Damascus or Moscow, Sanaa, Kiev, Lebanon or Bangui or Caracas at present.

"He's still the elected leader of a sovereign nation [...]"

He is not the elected leader! Syria is not a sovereign nation, it is the property of a cast. He inherited the office from his father Hafez al Assad, an Alawite who governed a "Cult of personality" in Syria till his death, were pictutes of himself were placed next to holy men, he had a halo, or looked like god, songs were sang about him by school children of his made up greatness, the bastard invented the suicide bomeber; tribe and minorities were persecuted and discrimnated against for their beliefs. Syria has been a regime since 1971. A Socialist Islamic shit storm commited to the Soviets, funded and armed by the communists until the collapse of the Soviet Union. And now under the Russian Federation with Putin.

Ask Bashar about the Yzadis, or the Kurds, Christians, those who worship the peacock angel. Who have been genocided in Iraq and Syria.

Bashar al Assad is not the intended heir to the office of dictator, his older brother Bassel was the intended, but died in an automobile accident, he was driving to the airport drunk and crashed his ferarri into an bridge.

Bashar a opthamologist was iniated into power by his father Hafez. There was no one else...

The Assads have be a regime in Syria since 1971, so this nonsense about free elections is bullshit, it all fixed. The Assads have run the countries since -- Nixon was in his second year as president of the United States. Were you born yet?

"We probably shouldn't even be talking to ourselves considering how many war crimes the leaders of this country have committed over the last two decades"

What you see as war crimes, democracy sees as the full protection and fighting a quiet war against an enemy that is both ruthless and steadfast, that applies active measure at a relentless pace. The subversion and manipulation like a chess game must be countered, but freedom allows tou to know this...shall I tell the sins of the Russians, or Chinese.

Our problem is freedom, the free to move around and talk and travel and living and loving and enterprising a civilization that we are. It allows for others that do not want that freedom to exploit it in the war of attrition. Freedom is lost in small ways, and most young people take it for granted, because they were born into it...

I support freedom fully, but I also underrstand that it has a cost and that cost was paid by my Uncles by friends and the generations before that fought those who would see us all in chains.

Assad is just a piece of a large jig saw puzzle that is even difficult for those that are informed to understand. and it keeps getting more complex. God if only could be to allow freedom to reign supreme. Some people just want to burn it down, I don't know why.

Think of this very deeply for while and get back to me...

What would happen if we brought down the the Canadian and the Mexican American borders, today, completely and did not stand in the way of the refugee flow and flow of terrorists and influx of you name it. What would happen to North America in a year; two years; ten years?