Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Speaker, I know the scourge of violent Islamic terrorism all too well. I represent the World Trade Center area in New York that was attacked on September 11, 2001. So I agree with the President that we must work together to combat ISIL. Today, however, ISIL cannot project military power beyond the Middle East. ISIL is a direct military threat to our allies and to our interests in the Middle East. Perhaps we should help bolster the defenses of our allies, such as Jordan, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates. The current threat to the United States is from Europeans and Americans who may train with ISIL in the Middle East and then return to the United States to do us harm. This threat cannot be fought by military means in Iraq and Syria but by counterintelligence, appropriate surveillance, and border control here and abroad. When it comes to ISIL operations in the Middle East, those very same operations that threaten our allies, we must ask why we do not see these threatened countries offering troops on the ground. Why are we more interested in their defense than they are? These are some of the questions we in Congress should debate before we vote to go to war. Make no mistake; the offensive campaign of air attacks against ISIL that President Obama recently announced clearly constitutes a war within the meaning of the Constitution.…”