IV 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1270 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that no taxpayer dollars 
will be used to enact sanctions that inflict suffering on civilian populations. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
DECEMBER 18, 2020 
Ms. GABBARD submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
no taxpayer dollars will be used to enact sanctions that 
inflict suffering on civilian populations. 
Whereas sanctions are an instrument of modern-day eco-
nomic warfare, designed to inflict punishment on foreign 
populations by impeding the ability of those populations 
to access the basic necessities required for a decent life, 
such as food, medicine, hygiene and sanitary supplies, 
and fuel; 
Whereas the aim of sanctions is often to forcibly engineer re-
gime change in foreign nations by inflicting maximum 
suffering on civilian populations in the hopes they will 
turn against their own government; 
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•HRES 1270 IH 
Whereas the true victims of sanctions are innocent civilians 
subjected to collective punishment for the sins, real or 
perceived, of their governments; 
Whereas sanctions have accelerated migrant crises around the 
world, undermining stability everywhere from Europe, to 
the Middle East, to South America, by exacerbating the 
harsh conditions which give civilians no choice but to flee 
their homelands; 
Whereas the policy of punishing innocent civilians with cruel 
and counter-productive sanctions in the midst of a global 
pandemic has impeded the ability of civilian populations 
to obtain the medical, nutritional, hygienic resources 
needed to curtail the spread of COVID-19, which, given 
the transmissibility of the virus across national borders, 
ultimately harms the United States; 
Whereas the human toll in the countries targeted by the most 
draconian sanctions policies have caused immense suf-
fering on vulnerable populations, including women, chil-
dren, and the elderly; 
Whereas Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright once 
opined that ‘‘the price was worth it’’ to impose dev-
astating sanctions on Iraq, even as she acknowledged 
that the ‘‘price’’ was the deaths of hundreds of thousands 
of Iraqi children, and a further worsening of diplomatic 
relations that culminated in the disastrous U.S. invasion 
and occupation just a few years later; and 
Whereas public discussion of ‘‘sanctions’’ is too often imper-
sonal and abstract, obscuring the devastating impact of 
this policy, and neglecting that the end-result is vulner-
able populations like women and children freezing and 
starving to death: Now, therefore, be it 
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•HRES 1270 IH 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the United States 
House of Representatives that no taxpayer dollars, govern-
ment personnel or equipment shall be used to enact sanc-
tions that inflict suffering on civilian populations by inter-
fering with their ability to access food, electricity, power, 
clothing, medicine, medical care, transportation, financial 
transactions, supplies, or other basic human needs re-
quired for day-to-day survival. 
Æ 
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