On the recordJuly 19, 2012
I thank the Senator. I want to make clear, as we finish, what we are talking about. What are we asking our government to do? We are not asking our government to put American troops on the ground in Syria. They do not need American troops. They have fierce patriotic fighters. What they need first from us is an open declaration that we are on the side of the Syrian opposition. The second is, I believe they need us to organize a coalition of the willing, just as Senator McCain said President Clinton did in the case of Kosovo, without the United Nations supporting it. Again, it was a Russian veto that stood in the way. Mr. McCAIN. President Clinton said his greatest regret was that we did not intervene in Rwanda, where some 800,000 people were massacred.
