Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague from Florida (Mr. Gaetz) for yielding. I also thank my colleagues, Mr. James and Mr. Zinke for their service. They, like myself, are combat veterans who understand the total cost of warfare. Mr. Speaker, before I get into my statement, I will address a couple of things that were mentioned by my colleagues here today. We talked about the idea that we are here to preserve freedoms and we are here to preserve democracy. Let's talk about our role in democracy. We went into Iraq in 2003 under the auspice that we were there for weapons of mass destruction and to liberate the people of Iraq. Only 2 years later did we supplement this with the 2005 Iraq Constitution, whereby article 76, in its own design, created sectarian democracy that gave rise to the Iranian control which ultimately gave rise to China's domination. We are not a nation-building element. We are warfighters. We are there to conduct counterterrorism operations when needed, but only at the expense that it is to the benefit of the American national security and U.S. interests. He talked about timely. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, we started our operations in Mogadishu in the early 1990s. We started the operations in Afghanistan in 2001, and we started the operations in Iraq in 2003. So by what definition do we determine is timely? The idea that my colleague--and rightfully so, and I agree with him-- Mr.…”