Howard Berman: “The Speaker of the House has made some very legitimate points, but then his conclusion is so contrary to the points he…”

“The Speaker of the House has made some very legitimate points, but then his conclusion is so contrary to the points he made. The proposition before us today, Mr. McClintock is right, it is an authorization of a series of acts of belligerence, acts of war, that by their own definition cannot possibly help us either achieve the humanitarian goal of this mission or achieve the goal, the true humanitarian goal of removing Qadhafi from power. We are authorizing intelligence-sharing, aerial refueling, operational planning, intelligence-gathering; but we are denying the only aspects of this operation that can allow us to achieve that goal-- the suppression of air defense systems and the utilization of drones with missiles to stop Qadhafi from resuming his effort to massacre his own people. I understand the argument. You don't buy my notions of our national security interests. You don't see the context of bringing this operation to a halt in terms of what it does to the stability of the democracy movements in Egypt and Tunisia. You don't see any consequences in terms of Syria or the larger Middle East or the damage to alliance. I understand and accept that argument. But Mr. Rooney tries to have it both ways and in fact comes up with a proposal that ensures that the mission is allowed to continue, but by definition cannot achieve its goals. {time} 1320 It is the worst. It is not the reasonable proposal. It is the worst of all solutions.…”