On the recordDecember 17, 2015
it is amazing some of the people we get to meet in our lives as Senators. There is a medical doctor in Chicago who I didn't know several years ago, but he and his wife have become dear friends in a short period of time. His name is Dr. Zaher Sahloul. He asked for an appointment in my office in Chicago a few years back, and I agreed to it. He came in to tell me a story and to show me some pictures. He is originally from Syria, and he is head of the Syrian- American Medical Society in the Chicagoland area. Because of the tragedy of the civil war in his home country of Syria, he has felt a special obligation to help. What he has done on many occasions now was to get as close to the action as he could in Syria to provide medical assistance to the victims. Many times he risked his life to do it. And other doctors-- some Syrian-American and some not--have joined him in that effort. He would bring me back photographs of what casualties of war look like in Syria. They were heartbreaking--pictures of children who had been maimed and seriously injured by the barrel bombs of President Assad in Syria and stories about parents killed in the bombings that continue day after weary day. Dr. Sahloul would ask me: What can you do, Senator? Can't you help us? Can't you stop this? Of course, that civil war in Syria, which has gone on for 4 years, is almost intractable, almost impossible to define.…
