Ted Yoho

Sixteen years. For 16 years, Americans soldiers have been sacrificing their lives in Afghanistan to secure the future of that country and to protect our citizens at home.

It is about our national security, which is tangentially related to the popularity, but not directly.

What are we doing to change our tactics to get a better response for the money that the American taxpayers are spending?

Congress appropriated more than $33 billion in assistance from 2002 to 2016.

I am glad to hear you say it is not a blank check.

Though the previous administration attempted to bring a symbolic close to the combat mission in Afghanistan, in reality, America's longest war is still ongoing.

I am also greatly concerned with what I see as a dangerous and tragic retreat when it comes to our counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan.

I am sure they are interested, but have they increased the level of commitment since the change of leadership in our country?

While he is no support of unending wars in the Middle East and South Asia, President Trump observed in his speech that the consequence of a rapid exit and both predictable and unacceptable.

If it is being broadcast here with the astuteness of the North Koreans being able to hack in, we can probably assume that if Kim Jong-un and his people wanted to watch they are watching us right now.

We have a Commander in Chief that says what he means, and he is going to stand up.

This is a bad deal. And we are talking about if we don't stand up to this.

The era of strategic patience as far as the diplomatic and negotiating policy or foreign diplomacy I think was a mistake of the last administration.

How effective would it be if we were to suspend foreign aid until Burma allowed the U.N. inspectors in the Rakhine State?

We don't need to study. We need action.

Finally, I think that we have to keep demonstrating to the Burmese leadership that it is in their interest to settle the issues inside their country so the country can get on with peaceful development and a better future for its own people.

You guys need to get your act together. These are crimes against humanity.

Never again will we see these atrocities, whether it is in Nazi Germany, whether it is in Rwanda, any other place where we see genocide.

Demand that they do something about that. Please do something about that.

It is clear, after the massacres and cleansing of October 2016 and the recent actions, that we need to reevaluate that policy.

We need to put the pressure on now.

A democracy, if you go back to Ben Franklin, was two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for lunch. The sheep always loses.

I think that it is up to us to send a message to Burma that this type of repression, both whether it is Christians or Muslim, that attacks on unarmed civilians is unacceptable.

We have to get other countries and the U.N. involved as well.

So this is an unprecedented moment in time. And I look forward to working through this to reform it...