Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015
Floor Speech
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Madam Speaker, I rise against this amendment to arm and equip both Syrian rebels and other Syrian groups and individuals.
I want to be clear: we need to take action against the threat posed by ISIL, and I support the President in the use of airstrikes, but our response must also be appropriate to the complexity of the situation on the ground in Syria.
First and foremost, we must make sure that any
response to the threat that we face does not plunge us deeper into a complicated and sectarian civil war. I feel that this amendment may lead to that.
With their barbaric attacks against journalists, women, children, and innocent civilians, ISIL is a terrorist group, pure and simple. While they are not now a threat to our Nation, they do have the potential to be one if left unchecked.
I believe that operating with our allies in the region, like Arab nations and leaders in the newly-formed Iraqi government, we must be part of a broad coalition to address this potential threat, but I do not think this amendment is the right way forward.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a tyrant. He has tortured and massacred his own people for years now. He should stand before the world and be made to pay for his crimes, but, as the very existence of ISIL illustrates, simply arming those who oppose his tyranny will not make America or the region safer.
Syria is a deeply complex situation. It is a nation in the midst of a civil war, splintered between Shi'a and Sunni, authoritarians and al Qaeda, and along countless other points of fractures.
I do not see how we are going to be able to thread the needle whereby we arm those we think are ``good guys'' in this conflict without inadvertently making the ``bad guys'' stronger as well.
We need to take action against ISIL, and I support airstrikes and other coun ter ter ror ism measures, but I believe that the amendment before us today provides much broader authority, and I cannot support it.
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