Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2015

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PAUL. Madam President, if there is a theme that connects the dots in the Middle East, it is that chaos breeds terrorism. What much of the foreign policy elite fail to grasp, though, is that intervention to topple secular dictators has been the prime source of the chaos. From Hussein to Assad to Qadhafi, it is the same history--intervention to topple the secular dictator. Chaos ensues and radical jihads emerge. The pattern has been repeated time and time again.

Yet what we have here is a failure to understand, a failure to reflect on the outcome of our involvement in Arab civil wars. They say nature abhors a vacuum. Radical jihadists have again and again filled the chaotic vacuum of the Middle East. Secular dictators, despots who, frankly, do terrorize their own people, are replaced by radical jihadists, who seek terror not only at home but abroad.

Intervention, when both choices are bad, is a mistake. Intervention, when both sides are evil, is a mistake. Intervention that destabilizes the Middle East is a mistake. Yet here we are again, wading into a civil war. I warned a year ago that involving us in Syria's civil war was a mistake, that the inescapable irony is that some day the arms we supply would be used against us or Israel. That day is now.

ISIS has grabbed up from the United States, from the Saudis, and from the Qataris weapons by the truckload. We are now forced to fight against our own weapons, and this body wants to throw more weapons into the mix. Even those of us who have been reluctant to get involved in Middle Eastern wars feel, now that American interests are threatened, that our consulate and our embassy are threatened. We feel that if ISIS is left to its own devices maybe they will fulfill what they have boasted of and attack our homeland.

So, yes, we must now defend ourselves from these barbarous jihadists. But let's not compound the problem by arming feckless rebels in Syria who seem to be merely a pit stop for weapons that are really on their way to ISIS. Remember clearly that the President and his Republican allies have been clamoring for over a year for airstrikes against Assad. Assad was our enemy last year. This year he is our friend. Had all of those air strikes, though, occurred last year in Syria, today ISIS might be in Damascus. Realize that the unintended consequences of involving ourselves in these complicated, thousand-year-long civil wars lead to unintended consequences. Had we bombed Assad last year, ISIS would be more of a threat this year. ISIS may well be in Damascus had we bombed Assad last year.

Had the hawks been successful last year, we would be facing a stronger ISIS, likely in charge of all Syria and most of Iraq.

Intervention is not always the answer and often leads to unintended consequences.

But some will argue no, no, it is not intervention that led to this chaos, we didn't have enough intervention. They say if we had only given the rebels more arms, ISIS wouldn't be as strong now. The only problem is the facts argue otherwise.

We did give arms and assistance to the rebels through secret CIA operations, through our allies, through our erstwhile allies. We gave 600 tons--let me repeat that--we gave 600 tons of weapons to the Syrian rebels in 2013 alone. We gave 600 tons of weapons and they cry out and say we haven't done enough?

Perhaps they are giving them to people who don't want to fight. Perhaps the fighters from ISIS are taking the weapons we give to the so-called moderate rebels. It is a mistake to send more arms to the Syrians.

According to the U.N. records, Turkey alone, in the space of a 4-month period, sent 47 tons in addition to the 600 tons of weapons. They sent 29 tons in 1 month. But there are rumors that the Turks are not quite that discriminating, that many of these weapons either went directly or indirectly to the very radical jihadists who are now threatening us.

If you want to know are there any weapons over there, are there enough weapons, is it a lack of weapons that causes the moderate Syrian rebels to be not very good at fighting, well, there are videos online of the Free Syrian Army, the army our government wants to give more arms to. We see them with Mi-8 helicopters, we see them with shoulder-launched missiles, and yet we see them lose battle after battle.

We see American-made TOW anti-tank weapons in the hands of Harakat al-Hazm, a so-called moderate group. The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia has been providing weapons such as this to the rebels. It also detailed millions of dollars in direct U.S. aid to the rebels.

We have not been sitting around doing nothing. Six hundred tons of weapons have already been given to the Syrian rebels. What happened during the period of time we gave 600 tons of weapons to the moderate rebels in Syria? ISIS grew stronger.

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. We gave 600 tons of weapons to the rebels and they got weaker and weaker and ISIS grew stronger.

Perhaps by throwing all of these weapons into the civil war, we actually degraded Assad's ability to counter them. So perhaps Assad might well have taken care of the radical jihadists and he can't because of the weapons. Perhaps we have created a safe haven.

The other night the President said in his speech that it will be a policy of his administration to leave no safe haven for anyone who threatens America. It sounds good, except for the past 3 years we have been creating a safe haven for ISIS. ISIS has grown stronger because we have been arming the resistance that ISIS is part of.

A New York Times article reports that Qatar has used a shadowy arms network to move shoulder-fired missiles to the rebels. According to Gulf News, Saudi Arabia has also partnered with Pakistan to provide a Pakistan version of a Chinese shoulder-launched missile. It doesn't sound like a dearth of weapons, it sounds like an abundance of weapons.

Iraqi officials have accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of also funding and arming ISIS at the same time.

Kuwaitis--a Sunni majority country bordering Iraq--have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to a wide range of opposition forces throughout Iraq and Syria, according to the Brookings Institute.

According to the New York Times, over 1 year ago the CIA began training Syrian rebels in nearby Jordan, thousands of them, delivering arms and ammunition. Over this period of time, what has happened? ISIS has grown stronger. Perhaps sending more weapons into the Syrian civil war is not working.

The New York Times also reports huge arms and financial transfers from Qatar to the Syrian rebels beginning as early as 3 years ago. No one really knows where this is all going to end, where are these arms going to wind up.

Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center noted that the transfer of Qatari weapons to targeted troops has the same practical effect of transferring the weapons to al-Nusra, a violent jihadist group.

Let me repeat. Jane's defense analysts say that if you give the weapons to moderate--the so-called moderate rebels--it is the same as giving it to al-Nusra.

The New York Times further detailed that even Sudan has been sending anti-tank missiles and other arms to Syria. It is hard to argue there are not enough weapons floating around over there.

So the idea that these rebels haven't been armed is ludicrous. It is also ludicrous to believe that we know where all the money and all the arms and all the ammunition will wind up or who will benefit from these arms.

Why? Because we don't even know who these groups are, even if we think we do. The loyalty shifts on a daily basis. The groups have become amorphous with alleged moderates lining up side-by-side with jihadists, not to mention that, guess what, some of these people don't tell the truth.

Finally, moderates have been now found to sell their weapons. In fact, there are accusations by the family of Steve Sotloff--who was recently killed by the barbarians--that he was sold by the moderate rebels to the jihadists.

The Carnegie Endowment says there are no neat, clean, secular rebel groups. They don't exist. They reiterate that this is a very dirty war with no clear good guys on either side.

The German Ambassador to the United States has acknowledged this. The Germans are arming the Kurds. They are not sending anything into Syria. It is a mess, and they are concerned that the weapons they send into Syria will wind up in the wrong hands.

Many former officials are very forthright with their criticism. According to the former ambassador to Iraq and Syria, our ambassador says: We need to do everything we can to figure out who the non-ISIS opposition is because, frankly, we don't have a clue.

Think about this. We are voting or obscuring a vote in a spending bill to send $500 million worth of arms to Syria, to people who we say are the vetted moderate Syrian rebels. Guess what. One of the men with the most knowledge on the ground, who has been our ambassador to Syria, says we don't have a clue who the moderates are and who the jihadists are. And even if they tell you they are the moderates, they say: Oh, we love Thomas Jefferson. Give us a shoulder-fired missile. We love Thomas Jefferson.

Can you trust these people?

The rebels are all over the map. There are said to be 1,500 groups. It is chaos over there. We will be sending arms into chaos.

The largest coalition is the Free Syrian Army. I say largest coalition--really, all the Islamic fronts, al-Nusra, ISIS, Al Qaeda are all much bigger than the Free Syrian Army--but the biggest group that we give to is the Free Syrian Army, which currently has three different people who claim to lead the Free Syrian Army. We don't even know who is in charge of the Free Syrian Army. They voted out one guy, in another guy, and he didn't even know they were voting.

There are estimates that half of the Free Syrian Army has defected, many to al-Nusra, Al Qaeda, and to ISIS. These are the people your representatives are going to vote to send arms to. Half of them have defected. Half of them are now fighting with the jihadists. We have proven time and again that we don't know how to vet these leaders.

Two groups that were initially provided U.S. aid and help last year are good examples. A top official of Ahrar al-Sham, one of the largest rebel groups at the time, announced publicly that he now considers himself to be allied with Al Qaeda.

Just yesterday, our most recent ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, said the moderate forces have and will tactically ally with Al Qaeda, with Al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra.

Listen carefully. Your representatives are sending $500 billion to people who will tactically ally with Al Qaeda.

I asked Secretary Kerry: Where do you get the authority to wage this war?

He says: From 2001.

Some of the people fighting weren't born in 2001. Many of the people who voted in 2001 are no longer living.

We voted to go to war in Afghanistan--and I supported going into that war because we were attacked and we had to do something about it. But the thing is, that vote had nothing to do with this--absolutely nothing to do with this.

You are a dishonest person if you say otherwise. That sounds pretty mean-spirited. Hear it again. You are intellectually dishonest if you argue that something passed in 2001, to deal with the people who attacked us in 9/11, has anything to do with sending arms into Syria. It is intellectually dishonest--and to say otherwise, you are an intellectually dishonest person.

I said it yesterday: Mr. President, what you are doing is illegal and unconstitutional.

The response from Secretary Kerry was: We have article II authority to do whatever we want.

It is absolutely incorrect. We give power to the Commander in Chief to execute the war, but we were explicit that the wars were to be initiated by Congress.

There was debate over this. There were reports of Thomas Jefferson's opinion about how this was the legislative function. There were letters in the Federalist Papers from Madison talking how they precisely took this power from the Executive and gave it to the legislative body.

We hear: Oh, we will do something in December.

What happens between now and December? An election.

The people of this body are petrified, not of ISIS, but of the American voter. They are afraid to come forward and vote on war now. We should have a full-throated discussion of going to war, but we shouldn't put it off until December.

Secretary Kerry was asked: Will there be Sunni allies in this war on the ground, fighting to overturn ISIS? The ones, precisely--maybe who may have been funding it, which is Saudi Arabia--who should be the first troops in line, receiving the first volley, should not be U.S. GIs, they should be Saudi Arabians, Qataris, Kuwaitis, and Iraqis--but they should not be Americans.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, some of the people we have been supplying and some of the people we continue to supply arms to aren't so excited about Israel.

Surprise.

One of them remarked: Their goal is to topple Assad, but when they are done with Assad, their goal is to return all Syrian land occupied by Israel.

Mark my words. I said the great irony here would be that someday our dollars and our weapons would be used against us and Israel. They will.

We will be fighting--if we get over there with troops on the ground--against arms that we supplied to feckless rebels, that were immediately snatched and taken by ISIS. We will be fighting our own weapons.

Mark my own words, if these people get a chance, they will attack Israel next.

These are among the many problems I have in arming the Syrian opposition. Who are we really arming? What would be the result? Where will the arms end?

There are too many here who believe the answers to these questions when all indicators are otherwise--or maybe even when it is unknowable--they continue to believe something that frankly is not provable and not true.

I am a skeptic of this administration's policies, but this is a bipartisan problem. This is not a Republican or a Democratic problem, this is a bipartisan problem.

I do share the administration's belief that the radical jihadists in this region are a threat to America, but they need to think through how we got here. Radical jihad has run amok in the Middle East because intervention has toppled secular dictators. There weren't radical jihadists doing much of anything in Libya until Gadhafi was gone. He kept them in check.

Was Gadhafi a great humanitarian? No. He was an awful despot. But his terror was on his own people, not the United States.

The people in charge--if we can say anybody is in charge in Libya--their terror is to be exported. Some of them are fighting in Syria.

Where I differ with this administration is whether to arm the same side as the jihadists. We will be in a war on the same side as the jihadists. They said: Oh, no. We can make it a three-way war.

War is very confusing, but imagine: We will be in the middle of a three-way war where many analysts say when you are in the trenches with the so-called moderates that our money is going to buy arms for--when they are in the trenches, they are side by side with al-Nusra; they are side by side with Al Qaeda. Do we want our money and arms being sent to support troops that are fighting alongside Al Qaeda?

Here is the great irony. The use of force resolution they predicate this whole thing upon from 2001 says that we can fight terrorism. They have interpreted that to be Al Qaeda and associated forces. Guess what. The moderate rebels are fighting with Al Qaeda. We could use the 2001 use of force authorization, as Secretary Kerry understands it, to attack the same people we are giving the weapons to.

Think about the insanity of it. We are giving weapons to people fighting in trenches with Al Qaeda. If we interpret the use of force resolution as Secretary Kerry does, under that formulation we could attack the very people we are giving the weapons to. It is absurd. We shouldn't be fighting alongside jihadists.

This administration and its allies have really been on both sides of this civil war. It is messy; it is unclear. There are bad people on both sides. We need to stay the heck out of their civil war. I have opposed them for reasons that I think are becoming clear and I think the American people will understand. It is not that I am against all intervention. I do see ISIS as a problem. ISIS is now a threat to us. But I see our previous policy as having made it worse.

I supported the decision to go into Afghanistan after 9/11. There are valid reasons for war, but they should be few and far between. They should be very importantly debated and not shuffled into a 2,000-page bill and shoved under the rug.

When we go to war, it is the most important vote any Senator will ever take. Many on the other side have been better on this issue. When there was a Republican in office, there were loud voices on the other side. I see an empty Chamber.

There will be no voices against war because this is a Democratic President's war. The hypocrisy of that should resound in this nearly empty Chamber. Where are the voices on the other side who were so hard on George Bush who, by the way, actually did come to Congress? And we voted on an authorization of force. Agree or disagree, but we did the right thing. But now we are going to fight the war for 3 or 4 months, see how it is going, see how the election goes, and then we are going to come back and maybe we will talk about the use of authorization of force, maybe we will have amendments.

Colin Powell wrote in his autobiography:

War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.

I think that is well thought out. I think he had it right. America should only go to war to win. We shouldn't go to war sort of meandering our way through a spending bill. War should only occur when America is attacked, when it is threatened or when our American interests are threatened or attacked.

I spent about a year--and I will probably spend a couple more years--trying to explain to the American people why Secretary Clinton made terrible decisions in Benghazi not defending the consulate--not the night of, not the day after, not the talking points--the 6 months in advance when security was requested. This is one of the reasons it persuades me that, as reluctant as I am to be involved in Middle Eastern wars, we have to do something about it. We either have to leave Iraq or we have to protect our embassy and protect our consulate. I think there are valid reasons for being involved, and I think we are doing the right thing but just in the wrong way.

If we want to have less partisan sniping about war, if we want to unify the country, think back to December 8, 1941. FDR came before a joint session of Congress and he said, this day ``which will live in infamy,'' and he united the country. People who had previously been opposed to war came forward and said: We can't stand this attack. We will respond. We will be at war with Japan.

He didn't wait around for months. He didn't wait and say: Let's wait until the midterm elections, and then we will come back maybe in a lame-duck--if there is a lame-duck--and maybe we will discuss whether the Japanese should be responded to.

War is a serious business, but we make

it less serious by making it political, hiding and tucking war around. By tucking war away into a spending bill we make it less serious. We don't unify the public. Then, as ISIS grows stronger or they are not quelled by sending arms to feckless allies in Syria, what happens? Then they come back again and again. There is already the drumbeat. There are already those in both parties who insist that we must have American GIs on the ground. I am not sending American soldiers--I am not sending your son, your daughter or mine--over to the middle of that chaos.

The people who live there need to stand up and fight. The Kurds are fighting. They seem to be the only people who are really capable of or willing to fight for their homeland. The Iraqis need to step up and fight. It is their country. If they are not going to fight for it, I don't think we need to be in the middle of their fight.

Am I willing to provide air support? Am I willing to provide intelligence and drones and everything we can to help them? Yes. We have been helping them for 10 years. We have a lot invested. So I am not for giving up, but it is their war and they need to fight. And I expect the Saudis to fight, and the Qataris and the Kuwaitis.

Even our own State Department says there is no military solution here that is good for the Syrian people and that the best path forward is a political solution. Is someone going to ultimately surrender? Is one side going to wipe out the other?

Part of the solution here is that civilized Islam needs to crush radical Islam. Civilized Islam needs to say to radical Islam: This does not represent our religion. The beheading of civilians, the rape and killing of women does not represent Islam.

The voices aren't loud enough.

I want to see civilized Islam on the front page of the newspaper and international TV saying what they will do to wipe out radical Islam. I want to see them on the frontlines fighting. I don't want to see them sipping tea or in the discotheque in Cairo. I want to see them on the frontlines fighting a war to show the Americans and to show the world that there is a form of civilized Islam that doesn't believe in this barbarity.

The United States should not fight a war to save face. I won't vote to send our young men and women to sacrifice life and limb for a stalemate. I won't vote to send our Nation's best and brightest to fight for anything less than victory.

When American interests are at stake, it is incumbent upon those advocating for military action to convince Congress and the American people of that threat.

Too often the debate begins and ends with a conclusion. They say: Well, our national interest is at stake. That is the conclusion. The debate is: Is the national interest at stake? Is what we are going to do going to work? I would think we would debate for days and this Chamber would be full.

Before I came here, I imagined that when war was discussed, everybody would be at their desk and there would be a discussion for hours on end on whether we would go to war. Now it seems to be some sort of geopolitical chess game or checkers: Let's throw some money. What is $500 million? Which is yet another problem around here.

But when we go to war, the burden of proof lies with those who wish to engage in war. They must convince the American people and convince Congress. Instead of being on television, the President should have been before a joint session of Congress--and I would have voted to authorize force. But it needs to be done according to the Constitution.

Not only is it constitutional, but there is a pragmatic or a practical reason why the President should have come to us. It galvanizes people, it brings people together. Both sides vote for the war, and it is a war of the American people--not a war of one man. Until there is a vote--if there ever is one--this is one man's war.

Our Founding Fathers would be offended, would be appalled to know that one man can create a war. We were very fearful of that. We came from Europe with constant war, where brothers fought cousins and fathers fought sons, where everybody was related and they fought continuously. We didn't want a king. We wanted the people, through the Congress, to determine when we went to war.

This President was largely elected on that concept. I didn't vote for the President, but I did admire, when he ran first for office that he said no President should unilaterally take a country to war without the authority of Congress. That is what President Obama said. He was running against the wars of the previous administration. People voted for him for that very reason, but he became part of the problem. He now does everything that he criticized. It is what the American people despise about politics.

When they say we have a 10-percent approval rating--Republicans or Democrats--it is because of this hypocrisy, because we don't obey the law, because we don't engage in important debate, and because we stuff war and shuffle war into a spending bill.

Bashar al-Assad is clearly not an American ally. He is an evil dictator. But the question is: Will his ouster encourage stability or will it make the Middle East less stable? With his ouster, will that mean ISIS replaces him? What are the odds that the moderate rebels, who have lost every battle they have ever engaged in, will be the rulers in Damascus? If we succeed in degrading Assad where someone can get to him, we will have ISIS. We will have ISIS in charge of Syria. It will be worse. We have to ask: Are these Islamic rebels our allies?

I am reminded of the story of Sarkis Al-Zajim. He lived in a city called Maaloula, Syria. They speak Aramaic there. It is one of the few remaining villages in the Middle East where they speak the language that Jesus spoke.

As the marauding Islamic rebels came into town on the same side of the war--who knows who funded them or where they got the arms--but when the Islamic rebels came and marauded into town, Sarkis Al-Zajim stood up. He is a Christian. He lives and sides with Assad. Most of the Christians side with Assad. So Sarkis Al-Zajim lives in Maaloula, speaks Aramaic, stands up, and says: ``I am a Christian, and if you must kill me for this, I do not object to it!'' And these were his last words.

I don't know who these rebels were, but they are fighting on the same side that we are arming and we don't know who they are.

Our former Ambassador to Iraq and Syria says we have no clue who the non-ISIS rebels are. So for all we know, the rebels that killed Sarkis Al-Zajim could well be part of the so-called vetted opposition.

When they win, will they defend American interests? Will they recognize Israel? If we want to have a good question, why don't we ask the vetted moderate Syrians how many will recognize Israel. I am guessing it is going to be a big goose egg. There is not one of those jihadists--there is not one of those so-called moderate rebels that will recognize Israel. And if they win, they will attack Israel next. Several of the leaders have already said they would. Will they acknowledge Israel's right to exist? Will they impose Sharia law?

Sharia law has the death penalty for interfaith marriage, death penalty for conversion--apostasy--and death penalty for blasphemy.

In Pakistan right now--a country that billions of our dollars flow to, that the vast majority of the Senate loves and will send billions more of our dollars to if they can get it from us--in Pakistan, Asia Bibi sits on death row. She is a Christian. Do you know what her crime was? They say blasphemy. She went to drink from a well and the well was owned by Muslims. As she was drawing water from the well they began hurling insults. Then they began hurling stones. They were stoning her and beating her to death with sticks. The police came, and she said, thank God. They arrested her and put her in jail because the Muslims said that she was saying something about their religion. Heresy is life in prison, death. These are the countries we are sending money to.

The other side up here will argue: Well, we are only sending it to the moderates in Pakistan; otherwise, the radicals will take over. Well, the moderates are the ones with Asia Bibi on death row. I wouldn't send a penny to these people. Why would we send money to people who hate us? Maybe we should just have a rule: No money to countries that hate us.

Will these rebels, whom we are going to vote to give money to, tolerate Christians or will they pillage and destroy ancient villages such as Sarkis Al-Zajim's church and village?

The President and his administration haven't provided good answers because they don't exist. As the former Ambassador said: They don't have a clue.

Shooting first and aiming later has not worked for us in the past. The recent history of the Middle East has not been a good one. Our previous decisions have given results that should cause us to be quite wary of trying to do the same again.

I would like President Obama to reread the speeches of Candidate Obama. There is a great disagreement between the two, and Candidate Obama really seemed to be someone who was going to protect the right of Congress to declare war, but it hasn't been so.

Our Founding Fathers understood that the executive branch was the branch most prone to war, and so with due deliberation our Founding Fathers took the power to declare war and they gave it to Congress exclusively.

President Obama's new position as President, which differs from his position as candidate, is that he is fine to get some input when it is convenient for us--maybe after the election--but he is not really interested enough to say that it would bind him or that he would say we need attacks now and come to us tomorrow and ask for permission. He thinks ``maybe whenever it is convenient and you guys get around to it.''

Secretary Kerry stated explicitly that his understanding of the Constitution is that no congressional authorization is necessary. I say, why even bother coming back in December? They kind of like it. They like the show of it. They understand it might have some practical benefit. But it is theater and show. If you are going to commit war without permission, it is theater and show to ask for permission. The President said basically article II grants him the power to do whatever he wants. If so, why have a Congress? Why don't we just recess the whole thing? Oh, that is right, that is what we are getting ready to do. It is election season.

The President and his administration view this vote just as a courtesy but not as a requirement. Even if Congress votes against it, he said he would do it anyway. He already has authority; why would it stop him?

Article I, section 8, clause 11 gives Congress and Congress alone the power to declare war. If Congress does not approve this military action, the President must abide by the decision.

But it worries me. This President worries me, and it is not because of ObamaCare or Dodd-Frank or these horrific pieces of legislation. As I travel around the country, when people ask me ``What has the President done? What is the worst thing he has done?'' it is the usurpation of power, the idea that there is no separation of powers or that he is above that separation. If you want to tremble and worry about the future of our Republic, listen to the President when he says: Well, Congress won't act; therefore, I must. Think about the implications of that.

Democracy is messy. It is hard to get everybody to agree to something. But the interesting thing is that had he asked, had he come forward and done the honorable thing, we would have approved--I would have approved an authorization of force. It would have been overwhelming had he done the right thing, but he didn't come forward and ask. He didn't come forward and ask when he amended the Affordable Care Act. He didn't come forward and ask when he amended immigration law. And he is not coming forward to ask on the most important decision we face in our country; that is, a decision to go to war.

Our Founders understood this and debated this. This is not a new debate. Thomas Jefferson said the Constitution gave ``one effectual check to the dog of war by transferring the power to declare war from the Executive to the Legislative body.''

Madison wrote even more clearly:

The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.

There was no debate. Our Founding Fathers were unanimous. This was our power. To do it when it is convenient after the election is to abdicate our responsibility and is to make a serious discussion a travesty.

There is no debate more significant than this, and we are going to stuff it in a bill. We are going to stuff it in a 2,000-page bill and not talk about it, not vote on it individually. Our leaders must be held accountable. If we don't, there will be no end to the war. The ridiculous and the absurd must be laid to rest. We have all heard it before.

Toppling Qadhafi led to a jihadist wonderland in Libya. Toppling Hussein led to chaos in Iraq with which we are still involved. Toppling Assad will lead to more chaos and greater danger to America from the jihadists.

The moss-covered, too-long-in-Washington crowd cannot help themselves: War, war, what we need is more war. But they never pay attention to the results of the last war. Their policies and the combination of feckless disinterest, fraudulent redlines, and selective combativeness have led us to this point.

Yes, we must confront ISIS, in part for penance for the President's role in their rise. But while we do so to protect our interests here and abroad, what we need is someone to shout: War, war, what are we fighting for?

Amidst the interventionists' disjointed and frankly incoherent rhetoric, amidst the gathering gloom that sees enemies behind every friend and friends behind every enemy, the only consistent theme is war. These barnacled enablers have never met a war they didn't like. They beat their chests in rhythmic ode to failed policies. Their drums beat to policies that display their outrage but fail to find a cure. Unintended consequences drown and smother the possibility of good intentions.

Must we act to check and destroy ISIS? Yes--and again yes--because of the foolishness of the interventionists. But let's not mistake what we must do. We shouldn't give a free pass to forever intervene in the civil wars of the Middle East. Intervention created this chaos. Intervention aided and abetted the rise of radical Islam. Intervention has made us less safe in Libya and in Syria and in Iraq.

To those who wish unlimited intervention and boots on the ground everywhere, remember the smiling poses of politicians pontificating about so-called freedom fighters and heroes in Libya, in Syria, and in Iraq, unaware that the so-called freedom fighters may well have been allied with kidnapers and killers and jihadists. Are these so-called moderate Islamic rebels in Syria friends or foes? Do we know who they really are?

As the interventionists clamor for boots on the ground, we should remember that they were wrong about Iraq, they were wrong about Libya, and they were wrong about Syria. When will we quit listening to the advocates who have been wrong about every foreign policy position of the last two decades? When does a track record of being consistently wrong stop you from being a so-called expert when the next crisis comes up? We should remember that they were wrong, that there were no WMDs, that Hussein, Qadhafi, and Assad were not a threat to us. It doesn't make them good, but they were not a threat to us. We should remember that radical Islam now roams the countryside in Libya and in Syria and in Iraq. We should remember that those who believe war is the answer for every problem are wrong. We should remember that the war against Hussein, the war against Qadhafi, and the war against Assad have all led to chaos. That intervention enhanced the rise of radical Islam and ultimately led to more danger for Americans.

Before we arm the so-called moderate Muslims in Syria, remember what I said a year ago: The ultimate irony you will not be able to overcome is that someday these weapons will be used to fight against Americans. If we are forced onto the ground, we will be fighting against those same weapons that I voted not to send a year ago.

We will fight ISIS, a war that I accept as necessary largely because our own arms and the arms of our allies--Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar--have enabled our new enemy ISIS. Will we ever learn?

President Obama now wishes to bomb ISIS and arm the Islamic rebels' allies at the same time. We are on both sides of a civil war. The emperor has no clothes. Let's just admit it. The truth is sometimes painful.

We must protect ourselves from radical Islam, but we should never ever have armed radical Islam, and we should not continue to arm radical Islam. To those who will say, ``Oh, we are just giving to the moderates, not to the radicals,'' it is going and stopping temporarily with the moderates and then on to ISIS. That is what has been going on for a year. Somehow they predict that something different will occur. We have enabled the enemy we must now confront.

Sending arms to so-called moderate Islamic rebels in Syria is a fool's errand and will only make ISIS stronger. ISIS grew as the United States and her allies were arming the opposition. So, as we have sent 600 tons of weapons, ISIS has grown stronger. You are going to tell me that 600 tons of more weapons will defeat ISIS?

The barnacled purveyors of war should admit their mistakes and not compound them. ISIS is now a threat. Let's get on with destroying them. But make no mistake--arming Islamic rebels in Syria will only make it harder to destroy ISIS.

Thank you. I yield back my time.

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