Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman for his leadership on this amendment even though I cannot support it. All I can say is, here we go again, committing our resources--both troops and money--to a conflict that can easily become a war without end.

ISIS is more an immediate threat to the Middle East than to our Nation. Where is the greater Middle East commitment to combat this threat? Why are they not providing the greater commitment of resources to defend their own countries? Is it not ridiculous that the United States borrows money to buy friendship, to buy arms, and to train those who could today be our friends but tomorrow be our enemies?

A former commandant of the Marine Corps recently asked me this question, and I now ask the House of Representatives: Are we simply arming and training another Taliban? That is from a former commandant of the Marine Corps.

We all agree this is a difficult and challenging issue, but a strategy with no end state is a failed strategy, and I am concerned that the commitment we make today will become an ongoing commitment for which we truly do not grasp its consequences until it is too late. That is what my concern is and the concern of the American people.

I think about the $1.7 trillion we spent in Afghanistan and Iraq. I think about the 4,000 Americans who gave their lives, the 30,000 wounded, the 100,000 Iraqis who were killed--and here we go again. I don't care if the President is a Democrat or a Republican. This is a failed policy, and it will be proven to be a failed policy.

I close with this, Mr. Speaker. I listened to Mr. Rangel very carefully. This is a quote from Pat Buchanan: Is it not an act of senility to borrow from the world to defend the world?

It is absolute senility.

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