Political Quotes

“I believe this amendment is absolutely consistent with the underlying portions of the bill that reaffirm that the policy of the United States should be that we will not enter into armed conflict in Syria. Madam Chair, along the Syrian-Turkish border there is a family--a mother, a father, and six children. One of the children is named Elias. Elias, one day, in his home town in Syria, was walking to school. He had his hand on the schoolroom door. Then all of a sudden he felt another hand come across his face and everything went dark as he was blindfolded and kidnapped by a Syrian rebel group in the name of liberating the Syrian people. Fortunately, the family was able to get Elias back, but they had to flee to a refugee camp from their hometown in Syria. Perhaps they are the lucky ones, because 160,000 other Syrians are dead. Let's make no mistake: the current President, the ruler of Syria, Assad, is responsible for many of these deaths. Assad is a brutal tyrant. But many innocent Syrians, like Elias and his family, fear the rebel armies even more than Assad. The rebel movement is a battleground of shifting alliances and bloody conflicts between groups that now include multinational terrorist organizations. Some of the most violent and the successful rebel militias are linked to al Qaeda. Now, sending our weapons into this chaotic war zone could inadvertently help these extremists, jihadists who would be all too eager to seize American weaponry.…”