Hank Johnson: “Today is a very important day. Today, the House is debating on a continuing resolution and also an amendment to that…”

“Today is a very important day. Today, the House is debating on a continuing resolution and also an amendment to that resolution which would authorize under title 10 the expenditure of $500 million to train moderate Syrian opposition forces. This is not an authorization for the use of military force. It is just simply for the limited purpose which I just stated, but I feel compelled to go a little bit further as to why it is necessary that we be in favor of that amendment to the CR as well as the CR itself. If we do nothing against the ISIL threat, if we choose to be isolationists and take a wait-and-see attitude, the chances are great that the situation will get worse. When it gets worse, that means ISIL gets more powerful. They have been on the run lately, and they have gotten more powerful now. I know people on the other side of the aisle will say that it is the President's fault that ISIL got this strong, but ISIL would not have gotten this strong had it not been for the instability that we created ourselves when we went into Iraq and went to war for an illegitimate purpose, and so we disrupted the stability in that region, and we are still recovering from it now. What do we do now? I would much rather have a President that is thoughtful, deliberate, careful, and moderate in terms of the use of military force than to have a trigger-happy, shoot first, ask questions later type of President. We have seen what that got us.…”