Francis Rooney: “I want to thank my friend from Florida (Mr. Radel) for bringing this amendment to the floor today. Madam Chair, I would…”

“I want to thank my friend from Florida (Mr. Radel) for bringing this amendment to the floor today. Madam Chair, I would have liked to have seen something that went specifically to not arming the so-called ``rebels'' in Syria, but I think it's important that we also address this issue of the President of the United States and what his obligations are to this Congress and to the American people under the War Powers Act. The Founding Fathers didn't want one person to be able to take us to these wars in foreign lands. They wanted there to be debate, deliberation, and for the President to have to come and make the argument to the American people through their representation as to why something is such an important part of our national interests that he would send our men and women into harm's way to potentially die for us in that land. In this case, we have Assad, who is a dangerous dictator in the Middle East. On the other hand, we have the rebels, who are infiltrated by al Qaeda and other bad actors--the same people we've been fighting, by the way, over the last 10 years. So whose side are we on--Sunni? Shia? It's a civil war in the Middle East. What is our national interest?…”