Political Quotes

“I am honored to rise to support this amendment and just to make a few points. The first is to assure all of our colleagues that this is just an amendment that asks the Pentagon to conduct a study. It is nothing more than that. I want to particularly say that to reassure anyone who is concerned that somehow this is an authorization for the use of military force. Look at the wording. That is just not the case. All we are debating and voting on is whether the Pentagon should be asked to do a study of the possibility of how we might stop Bashar al- Assad's air force from committing acts of murder against his own people. In my way of thinking, to tell the truth, it is two things: One, this amendment is simply a way of saying that we in the Senate are concerned and care about the slaughter that is going on in Syria and agitated that the United States and the rest of the world is not doing more to come to the assistance of those who are fighting for their freedom and lives in Syria. I want to point out that there are a lot of options for the Pentagon to study. One is a traditional no-fly zone. We know a lot of people in the Pentagon are concerned that to carry out a traditional no-fly zone with our aircraft, we need to spend a lot of time and energy and assume risks to knock out the Syrian air defenses. Well enough. But there are other ways to achieve the goal of keeping Assad's aircraft from destroying Syria's people.…”