Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this amendment. We all agonized as to what we should do, but I want to correct the record. At 2:25 this afternoon, through the chair, when we started to pontificate on this floor about Islamists against Islamists, what we do is perpetuate the agony. What we do is stir up the pot when we stereotype who is with us and who is not with us.

Not every Muslim is the same, not every Christian is the same, as we found out in the Balkan wars in 1998 and 1999. In fact, in that war, we assisted Kosovo because it was being totally overcome with Serbs. One was Muslim; the other was Christian.

I think it is not good that the Congress go on record as pitting one group against the other. I don't think it works. I don't think it is healthy, Madam Speaker.

Let's be clear about what this vote is about. This is not an authorization for open-ended war. This is not October 2002 which was an authorization. No one knows that better than the chair and the ranking member who have done a spectacular job, I believe, in keeping this a fair debate and a fair discussion, and I want to compliment both of them.

I believe that ISIL is a threat to our national security, and I support the President's mission to end that threat. While America must lead, we cannot do this alone. We must see a real commitment from our coalition partners in the region, and we must provide the kind of support that is necessary if we are going to be successful.

In 3 months, when we get to December and we have to vote for a CR again and we have to vote whether we are going to continue to go down this path, we better have tangible evidence that those countries who signed sheets of paper that they are going to support us have tangible support out there for us and are not just sending cupcakes for the troops.

We can do our part. We can arm all the properly vetted opposition forces in Syria that we can find and provide air support and training for those on the ground, but we won't be successful in destroying ISIL unless our partners in the region help us cut off their funding, better police their borders, provide combat troops on the ground, and end the political bickering that causes the chaos and mistrust that groups like ISIL thrive under.

I am pleased that the President has chosen to come to Congress to get our support for his plan. I believe that the provisions of this amendment will allow us to perform the oversight that is constitutionally responsible.

However, as I said before, this is not a blank check. Today, we are voting for a limited mission and ensuring that we properly vet those we are arming.

I am pleased that we will revisit this issue later this year in the intervening months.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

If our coalition partners don't step up to the plate, I don't see how we could be successful in destroying ISIL and why we should continue.

The lesson we learned from the war in Iraq is that American military might alone is not enough to defeat enemies. No matter how murderous and vicious a terrorist organization like ISIL may be, sometimes the American military intervention cannot be the silver bullet that solves all of our problems. And we say this about the greatest air and sea and land troops in the world. It is going to take a broad regional coalition acting as one, both militarily and politically.

Madam Speaker, I close by simply saying this: We need support, not only in the short term, but in the long term to have a government in Syria. We pray to God that they will have a government that can sustain itself.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source